Nov 30 - Trailer park crisis explodes***

Thursday, November 30, 1972 - Page 335
LOCATION: Newport Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim

Newport Beach's Balboa Bay Club in the 1960s (Orange County Archives)

(3:00 PM 12/9/1972)
Left for work at 7:00. Worked on rooms 227, 228, 229, 230, & 231, but didn't really do too much. Just procrastinated. Was a warm sunny day. Left at 5:00, but as usual the RTD didn't get there till 5:30. The ants are still plaguing us and when I got home mom had removed all the food from the shelves to spray them dead. Watched T.V. and took a bath. Mom bought Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner. I got to sleep by 12:00 -- In the continuing saga of the Trailer Park crisis, I've again included an excerpt (that's a former cerpt) from the Daily Plot. Again it mentions Eye Sore Park as the most noteworthy among the parks mentioned. Terrific.

Here's the important part:

Orange Coast Edition  DAILY PILOT

Orange County, California -- Thursday, November 30, 1972 -- Ten Cents

Trailer Owners Up in Arms Against Council

by L. PETER KRIEG

Of the Daily Pilot Staff

Newport Beach officialdom today was universally criticized for its crackdown on trailer parks by the people who own them, manage them and live in them.
Hit by orders Tuesday to meet preliminary requirements or face court action in five days, most park owners went running to their attorneys. Most park managers complained that the crackdown is too hard, and is coming too fast. One trailer park resident said he's organizing trailer owners for a showdown battle with city councilmen Monday night.

"We've tried to cooperate," said H. E. Conaway, manager of Bay Shore Park [that's us!], 112 West Coast Highway. "We've tried to get our registers up to date but about 10 of our trailer owners haven't returned the forms we sent them. What can I do?"

"We're talking about 400 to 500 families who may be forced out of their homes," said Lawrence Belt, a resident in Bay Shore Park [one of our neighbors, God bless 'im], which is owned by Marshall Duffield, on land leased from the Irvine Company.
"They're threatening to take the license away and give us 30 days to vacate," Belt said, "and that's unfair."

He said he's organizing trailer owners throughout the city to go to the council meeting Monday night with some demands of their own. "I want them to inspect the Reuben E. Lee, the Balboa Bay Club and the Arches (Restaurant) and bring them up to code," Belt said.

The Reuben E. Lee, less than a mile from my trailer park
(See DAILY PILOT "Riverboat memories" July 2007)

The historic Arches Restaurant at 3334 W Coast Highway. I have often mentioned this as the place where I was dropped off by the bus after work (I also referred to it as the Centinella Bank parking lot) and I occasionally walked home from there, a distance of a mile-and-a-half. It was refurbished & reopened in May 2008, and is now called "A" Restaurant (info)

In the interests of a balanced perspective:

No Job for Pushover

Building Inspector Puts Up With 'Guff'

There are some people who have a lot of terrible things to say about Wally Cloud.

Cloud says he's had his life threatened "and a lot of other uncomplimentary things said to me," but the 46-year-old Newport Beach building inspector shrugs it all off as part of the job.
The heat has been on during the past few weeks. Cloud was given the assignment to carry out the city council-ordered crackdown on Newport Beach trailer parks.

"Once somebody suggested I might be buried in his park," Cloud said. "But that's okay. When I'm dead it won't really matter where they put me."...

Through all this, Cloud has been the subject of ribbing on the part of his fellow workers.

"We're taking out a $100,000 life insurance policy on him with us as the beneficiaries," said one. "Yeah, but he makes his wife go out and start the car every morning," said another.

"No, she won't do it anymore, so I'm going to have to find someone else," Cloud retorted, still making light of the threats.

TOMORROW: Stopped by cop for jaywalking