I would like to correct a false impression left, apparently inadvertently, by your story on the California Coastal Commission’s cease and desist order against the Trancas Property Owners Association. You state that the movement of sand on the beach by bulldozers left “nothing but water for the public visiting the beach.” This is a view that seems to be promulgated by Coastal Commission staff. It is not only misleading, it is utter nonsense.
If the public area on the beach was a fixed and finite area that could be removed, then the 1997 El Nino would have destroyed it entirely and there would be no public area left to argue about. However, the fact is that the public area is defined in relation to the mean high tide line, or in a few cases the ambient high tide line. Thus, the public area stays the same. It merely moves with the movement of the tide line as the contour of the beach changes. If the bulldozers had actually reduced the width of the beach, which they did not, they would only have succeeded in diminishing the boundaries of private property, moving the public area closer to the houses. That has not happened, as any unbiased observer of the beach can discern.
As for the signs, which so offended the Commission staff, their effectiveness in discouraging the public from visiting the beach, as staff claims, is certainly arguable. I’ve observed these signs for 17 summers, and they certainly have not intimidated the public. And they sure as hell haven’t intimidated trespassers, although they did serve as useful points of reference where disputes arose. Often they even served as convenient hangers for jackets and beach towels.
Whether or not the beach homeowners are entitled to mark the boundaries of their property, a right that seems to be enjoyed by most property owners in this country, is apparently still a question in the minds of the staff. The cease and desist order accomplished nothing except to provide a manufactured occasion for Coastal Commission staff to set off another wave of publicity.
Marshall Lumsden