Letter to the Editor

Let’s get this straight: The state of California kicks out all of the

residents of Crystal Cove unceremoniously with threats that fines would

have been $25,000 or more if they didn’t leave by 5 p.m. July 8.

The residents leave their homes “in tears” as state park rangers hand

pick [the good cottages] they want to occupy. The state’s sense of

urgency then exceeds expectations as the plans for a scheduled meeting

about “a plan for Crystal Cove”’ for sometime in August can’t be quite

decided.

So the state, in its wisdom, calls a little “secret meeting” on July

19 for those “special people with a direct interest” in the long-term

planning of the historic cottages. Wasn’t the Brown Act supposed to stop

all this behind-the-scenes skulduggery?

How one qualified or was selected to be a part of this elite Crystal

Cove California Coast “planning process” might be an interesting notion.

Did they call Huell Howser or any of the past residents of Crystal Cove?

Did they put a public notice in any newspaper? Did they send out or

contact all of those who attended the last state-sanctioned meeting April

26? How should one be considered qualified to attend such a meeting? We

thought the state would be too busy digging up those awful septic tanks

by now. Maybe they were just rehearsing a scene from Fellini’s

“Satyricon.”

In their wisdom, they called Joan Irvine Smith to make sure she got

her two historic cottages for art. They probably gave the Sierra Club one

cottage. Nancy Gardner and Surfrider probably were given a lifetime

cottage to store her surfboard, even though she says she’ll never use it.

The Laguna Beach festival of the Arts probably got one or two of the

cottages because they can never make up their minds. When was that

meeting in August again? Don’t we have any other sea pollution to worry

about right now? Did they have cheese?

So now that the California Department of Recreation and Parks and

Rusty Areias, its director, have been so open and giving, it’s over. The

rings have been exchanged and the vows made. Poor Crystal Cove will have

nothing happening there, ever, except maybe some broken hearts when

people drive by and look back and remember the good old times or when the

state sells this land to a big-time developer a few years later.

* RON AND ANNA WINSHIP are Newport Beach residents.