Newport Beach should be concerned about El Morro

There are many reasons the Newport Beach City Council and the people

of Newport Beach should be concerned about the fate of Crystal Cove

State Park, which lies immediately adjacent to Newport Beach. The

tenants at the El Morro Trailer Park, which is in the state park

though they have been allowed to stay there for 26 years, are

fighting the California State Parks’ planned conversion of the area

to a public campground and day-use beach facility. The conversion is

scheduled to take place when their leases expire at the end of 2004.

The conversion is fully funded by bonds and is not related to the

stated budget.

If the tenants are successful, the people of Newport Beach and

others will continue to be deprived of their right to go camping and

to use the beach at El Morro. What the Friends of Newport Coast have

asked the council is to do is to support the state’s plans for the

conversion, after all these years, to full public use.

Why is it particularly important? The reason is that the El Morro

tenants have hired a public relations firm and have been running

full-page advertisements in the Newport and Laguna beach newspapers

to convince the public and the Laguna Beach City Council to support

their plan, which allows tenants to stay another 30 years, and in

return, they would build 50 low-cost housing units in the trailer

park for Laguna Beach city workers.

What sense does that make? The land doesn’t belong to them and it

doesn’t belong to Laguna Beach. How can they give away land that they

don’t own? Impossible, some say, but, in fact, their campaign for the

past eight months has been quite successful in convincing many

prominent people in Laguna Beach and elsewhere. They have also

managed to convince some members of the Laguna Beach City Council

that their plan is a good idea and these people, in turn, have been

lobbying the State Parks and legislators in Sacramento to allow them

to stay for another 30 years.

Should Newport Beach also want to locate low-cost housing in the

state park? Of course not. State parks are for the pleasure of all

the people of California but if the trailer park tenants are

successful, a dangerous precedent would be set. That is why the

Newport Beach City Council should be concerned.

FERN PIRKLE

Corona del Mar

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Fern Pirkle is the president of Friends of the

Newport Coast.