A long chapter in Avalon history closed in late December when Pebbly Beach Road reopened.
On Thursday, Dec. 20, Santa Catalina Island Company CEO Randall Herrel and Avalon Mayor Robert Kennedy signed an agreement that reopened Pebbly Beach road that same day.
Herrel and Kennedy signed an easement and a dedication agreement in order to reopen the road.
Kennedy said the road had been closed approximately seven or eight years.
A long chapter in Avalon history closed in late December when Pebbly Beach Road reopened.
On Thursday, Dec. 20, Santa Catalina Island Company CEO Randall Herrel and Avalon Mayor Robert Kennedy signed an agreement that reopened Pebbly Beach road that same day.
Herrel and Kennedy signed an easement and a dedication agreement in order to reopen the road.
Kennedy said the road had been closed approximately seven or eight years.
The closure was due to concerns about public safety. Rockslides on Pebbly Beach Road can involve large boulders.
The road reopened without the rockfall mitigation that had been planned in the past, a proposed project that would have set up nets to catch boulders as they fell.
The project never became a reality because the state would not allow the city to spend $1 million on rockslide mitigation.
Kennedy said the Island Company and the city had agreed to share the cost of rockfall mitigation that was required by the insurance company.
He said the costs would be minimal compared with what engineers originally proposed.
The Dec. 20 agreement was a final step in the lengthy process to put Pebbly Beach back in business.
Last August, the Avalon City Council approved the first reading of the ordinance that officially reopened Pebbly Beach Road.
The December agreement made the official reopening a reality.
The council voted to reopen the road because the California Coastal Commission had asked the city to reopen the road.
City and Island Company officials had been working for years to reopen the road, but those efforts were temporarily stymied when the California Department of Finance refused to allow the Avalon Community Improvement Agency to spend money to make the road safe for public passage.
“The city and ACIA’s efforts to comply with the Coastal Commission’s demands to allow full access to Pebbly Beach Road by undertaking a rock fall mitigation project were thwarted by the California Department of Finance determination that the ACIA’s contribution of $1 million was not an enforceable obligation,” said the August staff report by City Attorney Scott Campbell.
Ever since the California legislature abolished redevelopment agencies, cities have only been allowed to spend funds on the obligations of the disbanded agencies.
Department of Finance officials apparently decided that the plan to set up nets to catch falling rocks on Pebbly Beach Road was not an obligation of the Avalon Community Improvement Agency.
So the California Coastal Commission directed Avalon to reopen the road without the rockfall mitigation.
That led the City Council to pass the ordinance that would allow the road to be reopened.
However, the Island Company had liability concerns that had to be resolved before public passage on the road once again became possible.
