Reserve stirs tempers

A heated two-hour hearing Tuesday pitted commercial and recreational fishers against environmentalists who favor turning the entire city coastline into a “no-take” zone under state control for five years and created a deep rift between the mayor and the rest of the council.

The City Council on Tuesday voted 4 to 1 for a resolution asking the state to declare all of Laguna’s coastline to be designated a Marine Reserve, anathema to fishers. The resolution will be sent to the state and various agencies and committees involved in the ongoing studies that will reviewed by the Fish and Game Commission assigned to create a network of protected areas along the California Coast.

“This is possibly the most devastating thing that has ever happened in Laguna Beach,” Mayor Kelly Boyd said Wednesday, still riled after casting the lone vote against the resolution. “The supporters have no concept of what they are doing to our economy.

”I am so angry and I will not sign that resolution.”

Councilwoman Toni Iseman sponsored the resolution.

“I am asking for a timeout,” Iseman said. “It is important so we can all enjoy the fruits of our ocean.”

Iseman said a hodgepodge of reserve and less stringent preserve areas is more difficult to enforce than one contiguous reserve.

“Where do you draw a line in the ocean?” she asked rhetorically. “We need to have Laguna Beach protected from the south border to the north border.”

The draft resolution called for one preserve from Abalone Point to the rocky point south of Three Arch Bay. It will be amended to subtract a buffer zone around the South Orange County Water Authority outfall, to lessen the city’s liability.

At present, the tidepools below Heisler Park are protected as a reserve. Other areas along the coast are open to amateur and commercial fishers, subject to laws mostly enforced by city lifeguards and police.

“My question is do we want the state to take control of our coastline that we have controlled since the city was incorporated in 1927?” said Boyd, a scion of the Thurstom family, early settlers in Laguna Beach. “Why give up control that we probably will never get back?

“In my two and a half years on the council, I have never been so upset. I couldn’t sleep the night after the meeting and I couldn’t play golf on Wednesday.”