Commercialization of our beach

By Barbara Denny

Our beautiful beach is our most precious natural resource. It defines us as a community. The beach is why we live here. As Mayor, I will reverse the commercialization of our beach, which is the result of the City's new beach policy that violates the California Coastal Act.

Provides for poured concrete parking ON the beach near Sunset Park for the exclusive use of commercial vendors to load/unload which is considered "development" on our beach Decreases public safety and public access to the beach because the concrete parking pad will be located IN the "sole" vehicle access way onto our entire beach, not just the "emergency vehicle access," which is an extremely high traffic area for pedestrians, cyclists, dogs, Coronado Police and US Border Patrol vehicles, residents' vehicles, and commuters' vehicles from Naval Air Station North Island's Ocean Boulevard gate Decreases public safety because most water rescues are made at North Beach so it's imperative to leave this sole vehicle access way as clear as possible to save lives with the lowest possible response times for first responders Harms public health because it will cause oil and other vehicle chemicals to leak from commercial vendors' vehicles onto the beach and thus expose Coronado taxpayers to legal fines for fouling the beach with prohibited chemicals Concrete parking space digs into the dunes at North Beach thus constructively scraping those dunes in violation of state law Opens up the floodgates for more concrete parking spaces ON the beach in violation of state law The city intentionally grants permits for beach events IN the natural dunes that spell "Coronado" between the main lifeguard tower and the Hotel Del thus codifying as city action the constructive scraping of the natural dunes instead of protecting them from event vendors filling the dunes with people, chairs, tables, trellises, sound amplification equipment, and other equipment Decreases public access and public recreation because the new policy increases the number of private beach events. The mechanism for increasing the number of private beach events on our public beach is the artificial division of our beach into 3 sections -- North, Central and South -- instead of treating them as one organic whole as do other cities who protect their public beach to provide for public access and recreation. The net increase is 2 more private events per day on our public beach.

(2) Violates the California Knight Act:

Which mandates that Coronado stop development in, and stop increased activity in, the flight path and crash zones of the military airport on Naval Air Station North Island. One goal of this state law is to protect human life from the greed of local officials who gain from over-development around military airports. The Air Installation Compatible Use Zone (AICUZ) document, available in our library for public review, sets out the flight path, crash zones and noise contours. The Coronado Private Beach Events policy violates our city responsibility under the Knight Act because the policy: Increases private beach events in the flight path and crash zones of the airport at Naval Air Station North Island thus increasing human activity there and demonstrating a callous disregard for human life Exposes our city taxpayers to legal liability and financial responsibility in the event, however unlikely, that an airplane crash occurs.

If you have time, I encourage you to view the formulation of the Coronado Private Beach Events Policy online. Our council spent 2 meetings and 3 agenda items over a span of 3 months to formulate this city policy. Go to the city website http://www.coronado.ca.us. On the bottom right of the home page, click on "City Council & Planning Commission Live Video Stream and Archive". The council meetings and agenda items to view are:

Tuesday 17 April 2012 at agenda item # 11b, and Tuesday 17 July 2012 at agenda items # 5s and # 8b. Also, don't forget to view the AICUZ presentation by Captain Yancy Lindsey, USN as Commanding Officer of Naval Air Station North Island, as well as the council's treatment of Captain Lindsey, at the city council meeting of:

Tuesday 19 June 2012 at agenda item # 11b.