Some of the beloved, ocean view benches that were controversially removed from the Swami’s Beach Park just before Thanksgiving will be returned starting late this week, city officials report.
Others require more extensive repairs, so they’re not coming back any time soon; and the configuration of all of the returning benches may be different than their original placement, a city press release states.
The sudden, unexpected removal of the 13 memorial, concrete benches on the Friday before the start of Thanksgiving week created a public outcry. People phoned City Hall and area media outlets, demanding the benches’ return and asking for an explanation as to why they had vanished.
A city press release, which was issued after people started voicing their concerns, stated that the benches’ removal was “due to needed maintenance and repairs,” but Mayor Tony Kranz told TV news reporters that the city also was testing out whether the temporary removal of the benches would reduce problem behaviors at the park, including alcohol consumption, smoking, drug use and littering.
Bench advocates noted that these were two very different explanations, and said they were concerned that the benches might not ever be returned. They also wondered why the public wasn’t notified in advance about the project.
“While we’re concerned about the benches, we’re even more concerned about being lied to,” Encinitas resident Rachel Graves, whose family purchased a memorial bench from the city years ago, told the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission last week.
Cardiff resident Natalie Settoon told the parks commissioners that she’s been asking for cleaning of the benches and more Sheriff’s deputy patrols of city parks since December 2021, and wondered why Encinitas had suddenly decided to do the repair work now.
“I really question the integrity of the urgency of the decision that was made,” she said.
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Kranz said that the city could have handled the situation better. For example, he said, the city should have posted signs alerting people about the project before the bench removal began.
“City staff normally would, and in this particular case, (it was) overlooked,” he said.
The project’s goal is two-fold, he said — the benches needed repairs and the repair work did present an opportunity to reduce problems at the park.
“The repairs are definitely a priority and that was what kicked the whole thing off,” he said.
The city press release indicates that a contractor is power-washing the benches, resealing them with an anti-graffiti coating, installing or replacing arm rests, and performing crack repairs. Some benches may be declared to be at “the end of their service life,” rather than being repaired, it notes.
Swami’s Beach Park and other city seaside parks have long been gathering places for what some homeless advocates refer to as a community’s “visible homeless” — people who sleep in alleyways or bushy vegetation, and often have mental health and/or substance abuse issues. Owners of multimillion-dollar, ocean-view homes near the city’s seaside parks frequently complain at City Hall about these people, calling them “vagrants” and saying they are littering, doing drugs, panhandling and being verbally aggressive to passersby.
On Wednesday morning, the area around the Swami’s Beach Park bathrooms, which in recent months has been filled with people who look to be living in the rough, contained nothing except a few high-end bikes in the bike rack. Their owners had briefly stopped to use the park’s bathrooms while on long-distance rides.
Meanwhile, the prime ocean-viewing area — the sidewalk strip that runs along the western edge of the parking lot — contained about a dozen people, some who had just finished surfing, some who were about to go into the water, and some who were simply watching the waves and wishing they could go surfing that morning. Most of people in this area had adapted to the lack of benches by perching on the metal crossbars of the fence between the sidewalk and the cliff edge, looking like songbirds sitting on a power line.
