CORONA DEL MAR TODAY

Overgrown Dolphins Need Topiary Expert, B.I.D. Board Agrees

The dolphin topiaries that have become Corona del Mar’s center-of-town mascots are overgrown and shaggy and need professional help, the Corona del Mar Business Improvement District’s board members decided Thursday morning.

“Are they anchors? Are they bombs? Are they manatees?” said C. Scott Palmer. “They just don’t look like dolphins. I would like the B.I.D. to hire an expert to take them back to a dolphin-ary shape.”

The dolphin topiaries, which are placed in the median of East Coast Highway and Marguerite Avenue, were planted in 1993; click here to read a story about their history. A group of volunteers decorate the dolphins for most holidays, and flags representing the branches of the military are added on patriotic holidays.

Over the years, landscaping crews regularly have trimmed the 12 dolphin-shaped bushes. But the landscapers aren’t topiary experts and may be too cautious, not wanting to shape the dolphins for fear of harming them.

As a result, Palmer said, “they just swell and swell and swell.”

“You know what they look like,” one board member said.

The board members agreed to research topiary experts, perhaps by contacting Roger’s Gardens or Disneyland.

The B.I.D. board also listened to a report from a member of the city’s Bicycle Safety Committee. Sean Matsler told the board members about sharrows, or special markings on roadways where motorists and cyclists must share the space, that the committee had considered adding along East Coast Highway. The cycling committee in June decided not to send a request for sharrows to the City Council for consideration, but the issue was left open for possible future discussion; read our story here.

Several B.I.D. members expressed interest in the sharrows markings, asking if they could be bolder and more extreme than the experimental sharrows along Bayside Drive.

“I think we’re going to need to make a really big statement,” said Jim Walker, the B.I.D.’s treasurer. “It would reduce the hostility (toward cyclists) by making a special lane” like the green painted lanes that Long Beach uses for sharrows; read more here.

Adding colorful sharrow lanes “would make it more village-y” in Corona del Mar, said Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Gardner.

The committee members have focused on Corona del Mar because so many cyclists use it, from serious road cyclists to children to commuters, Matsler said.

“I wouldn’t say it’s Ground Zero,” Matsler said. “But it was one of they key areas in the city where cyclists feel unsafe.”

He also asked that B.I.D. consider adding bike racks in Corona del Mar. B.I.D. members asked that the committee create a list of the top spots for village bike racks, ranked in order of priority.

The board also discussed the theft of succulents and other plans from several newly planted tree wells. The tree wells were planted earlier this month; read our story here.