Time for Coastal Commission to reject UCSD’s Scripps Coastal Reserve closure
I am glad to hear that the California Coastal Commission has had enough of the back-and-forth with UC San Diego over the university’s proposal to continue the public access closure to the coast and beach at Scripps Coastal Reserve (“Coastal Commission preparing to set hearing on Scripps Coastal Reserve access,” June 27, La Jolla Light).
This closure began under the guise of the COVID pandemic and has now dragged on for over four years.
La Jollans need to understand how extreme UC San Diego’s proposal really is. While volunteer opportunities are great for those interested, that does not constitute public access, and the university even acknowledges that this work is concentrated near the reserve’s entrance, where the ocean is not even visible.
The only public access the university is actually offering are docent-led tours during a two-hour window per month. That is closed to the public over 99.7 percent of the time. And even then, these tours are supervised and often feature loud arguments between reserve manager Isabelle Kay and visitors who want a return of public access, making the tours of no actual purpose than pretending that some public access remains when it is all just a farce.
The California Coastal Act requires “maximum access” to the coast “for all the people” for recreational purposes (Section 30210), and UC San Diego had the audacity in their permit application to state that this proposal meets that standard. This claim is absurd and needs to be flatly rejected by the Coastal Commission. No one can reasonably argue that supervised access less than 0.3 percent of the time constitutes maximum public access.
It is long past time for Scripps Coastal Reserve to be reopened and for UC San Diego to face the maximum possible penalty for their Coastal Act violations. And it is time for UC San Diego to once again serve all the people and not seemingly prioritize the interests of highly influential neighbors in La Jolla Farms and Scripps Estates Associates.
Frank Kunst
Dull Fourth of July in La Jolla
Places from Chula Vista to SeaWorld to Oceanside had fireworks for the Fourth of July, but not La Jolla.
The drone show attracted but a few and was boring. I, for one, after living in La Jolla for 50 years, will never go again.
La Jolla is deadsville.
Jorge Sanchez
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