Natural Perspective -- Louann Murray and Vic Leipzig

I’m cranking up the volume on my “Joan Baez Sings Bob Dylan” album to

write this. Dylan’s words take me back to the 1960s, the days of my

environmental protest roots.

I’ve been fighting for over 35 years to save sensitive habitat areas

for the sake of wildlife and for the health of humans. This music also

takes me back to the 1970s when I met Vic, then a graduate student of

biology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

He had a full beard and long hair pulled back in a ponytail in those

days. He was my darling hippie from California, a man who shared my

passion for protection of the environment.

We moved to Huntington Beach in 1981 with our newly earned doctorate

diplomas in hand, we were primed to jump into the fray to save the Bolsa

Chica wetlands. And jump we did, with our hearts, our souls and all the

time and cash we could spare.

When we heard that the Bolsa Chica was threatened with development, we

knew we had to do everything in our power to stop it. You may recall that

Vic organized the Hands Across the Sands protest in 1985 to block the

proposed marina at the Bolsa Chica. Yep, this music puts me in the right

mood to write about the most recent mess that Signal/Koll/Hearthside has

gotten itself into.

When the landowners of the Bolsa Chica sued the Amigos de Bolsa Chica

recently for breach of contract, they opened the previously sealed 1989

agreement between them and the Amigos, an agreement that had been kept

closed at the landowners’ insistence.

Hearthside executive Lucy Dunn sure let the cat out of the bag when

she pulled this stunt. Now the public will know exactly what the Amigos

committed themselves to. They agreed to support the coalition concept

plan. They never agreed to support whatever development plan the

landowner might propose in the future. The public can now see that it was

the landowners who violated the agreement, and they did so big time.

The landowners broke the agreement when they pulled out of the

coalition and took their development plans to the county in the early

1990s. Stretch your memory back to the spring of 1993, a time when Vic

and Dave Sullivan were newly elected to the Huntington Beach City

Council. The landowners counted their votes, saw they were on the losing

end, and moved their development plans to the county, thereby negating

the coalition agreement.

Nevertheless, in an attempt to continue to honor the settlement

agreement, the Amigos focused on protection of the wetlands. This is a

difficult issue, because development on the mesa threatens the health of

the wetlands and the bigger the development, the more serious the threat

to the wetlands will be.

Even last year, when the Amigos worked with the Bolsa Chica Land Trust

and other groups to support the Coastal Commission’s recommendation to

reduce mesa development, the Amigos remained true to their commitment.

They spoke in favor of the most recent Coastal Commission plan which

allowed for some development. Remember, the Amigos didn’t agree to

support every plan the developer would ever propose. They agreed to

support the coalition plan, a plan long since shelved by the landowners.

I can remember the night back in 1989 when the Amigos agreed to the

settlement. The board met in our living room. I was distraught that we

were giving up the battle, but I knew the rationale. All of us had given

all we could to fund the legal battle against a giant corporate entity.

We were at the end of the road financially.

However, the settlement did ensure some key points that were important

to us. We had changed the plans from a massive development that included

5,700 houses, a marina, hotels and mass destruction of the wetlands to a

scaled-back version that would save all designated 900 acres of wetlands.

It was a compromise, but it was a major victory at the time.

After the agreement, it hurt to have our former allies turn on us and

call us sellouts. We couldn’t reveal the terms of the settlement, so we

kept silent and bore the brunt of public and private insults.

This is what courage of conviction is all about. Now we can tell the

truth. We’re very pleased that the fight to save the entire ecosystem

continued. We’re pleased that the development has been scaled back so

radically. We’ll be even more pleased if the entire area is saved.

* Louann Murray and Vic Leipzig are longtime Huntington Beach

residents.