CORONA DEL MAR TODAY

Fire Ring Subcommittee Members Named; Eucalyptus Trees Status Report Given at Parks Meeting

The Newport Beach Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission agreed Tuesday to appoint three members to a subcommittee to research the future of beach fire rings, and commissioners also heard a report about the city’s Blue Gum Eucalyptus trees.

Corona del Mar resident Kathy Hamilton, along with Commissioners Tom Anderson and Marie Marston, were appointed to the subcommittee by Parks Commissioner Chairman Phillip Lugar. The group will meet publicly to discuss fire rings issues before reporting back to the commission and City Council.

Two Corona del Mar residents attending the meeting planned to speak against fire rings — but Lugar cut them off, saying they would have time at future meetings to make public comments.

One of the women later sent an email to Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Gardner, complaining that she was denied her chance to speak.

“What a complete waste of effort,” Jamie S., a regular Corona del Mar Today commenter, wrote in her email. “I gave up and LEFT in disgust.”

After the meeting, Recreation and Senior Services Director Laura Detweiler said the chairman could have permitted the audience the chance to speak, but she emphasized that there would be many future opportunities to make public comments on the fire ring issue.

Lugar said after the meeting that he didn’t think that tonight’s meeting was the proper time to hear from the public because the only action taken was to appoint the subcommittee members.

The date of the subcommittee’s meeting is not scheduled, but the meeting will be noticed in advance with its agenda posted and will be open to the public, Detweiler said.

Barbara Peters of Corona del Mar did begin to speak, telling the commissioners that she lives near Big Corona State Beach, where there are 27 fire rings. She was describing how many people often stay past when the beach closes, or sneak back to the fire rings at night, when Lugar told her she should make her comments at a later subcommittee meeting.

Questions about the safety of beach fire rings have been widely debated, especially in Corona del Mar, about two years ago before city leaders decided the issue was taking too much staff time when the economy created citywide budget issues. At the last City Council meeting, however, Gardner asked that the Parks Commission study the issue, citing an accident in Huntington Beach and litigation in that city as reasons to re-examine the rings.

The commissioners also heard a report by Municipal Operations Director Mark Harmon about the city’s Blue Gum Eucalyptus trees following the Sept. 15 death of a woman on Irvine Avenue when a tree fell on her car.

The trees in that median were planted before Irvine Avenue existed, Harmon said, and were used to shield lima bean crops from wind. Because they were planted closely together to create the windbreak, their roots became entwined, and over the years, damaged. Crews removed the trees within a week of the accident because they were determined to be unsafe, and Harmon said when a trees need emergency removal, city staff does not need to get the approval of the parks commission or City Council.

The tree that fell “almost pulled a second tree down with it,” Harmon said.

One commissioner said he’d heard positive feedback from members of the community about the city’s prompt response, but another said he’d heard angry complaints and said that chopping down 100 trees without public input was a “blitzkrieg.”

Harmon said that crews had completed inspections of Corona del Mar’s Blue Gum Eucalyptus trees, which are mostly located along Fourth Avenue, and which are the city’s current biggest cluster of the trees. Analysis of the trees’ stability is ongoing, he said after the meeting. A decision whether to remove them immediately, to seek commission input or to do nothing will be determined after the reports are complete, he said.