THURS AUG. 30: THE ENCROACHMENT GENIE–THANKS, P-T

Tues | Aug 28 It’s been a week since we ran Dave Wielenga’s story about 31 Alamitos Peninsula residents who’ve extended their homes onto the public beach. “Property Lines in the Sand” has inspired a sandstorm of positive e-mail—as well as a how-do-you-do from Jeremy Colonna, who called to say that Frank Colonna, Jeremy’s father and a former Long Beach city councilman, would no longer advertise his real estate firm in The District Weekly. Jeremy also informed us that he might lead a boycott of The District because, hey, no one cares that people build out onto the public beach, least of all a former Long Beach city councilman—or did I neglect to mention that former Long Beach city councilman Frank Colonna was among the 31 residents mentioned in our story? Now, it’s interesting that someone involved in real estate is telling us no one is interested in this story because the people most interested in our story seem to be—surprise—people involved in real estate. On the LongBeachRealEstateHome.com website, agent Laurie Manny links to our story because, she writes, “If you are thinking about selling your Long Beach home on the Peninsula this is a serious issue and will likely need to be corrected prior to the close of escrow.” Her colleagues in the business react in kind. “Educating the buyer will be important on this,” says one. Another writes, “I showed several multi-million dollar properties on the Peninsula this week. One of the main features my buyers were interested in was a large beachfront deck so that he [sic] had a place to smoke his cigars. Can you just imagine finding out the deck had to go after the close of escrow? Can you say ‘nightmare’?” I dunno. Can we, Jeremy?

Wed | Aug 29 You know who else thinks it’s a big deal when people build onto public land? The Superior Court of Los Angeles County. On Monday, Rolling Hills Estates resident Francisco Linares is dragged into court because he built a fence onto a public horse trail. Told to remove it, Linares did nothing, perhaps figuring no one cared. The court sentenced him to six months in jail. Six months. Jail. They care.

Thurs | Aug 30 You know who else thinks our beach encroachment story is big? The Press-Telegram. So big, in fact, that they’re trying to pass it off as their own. They run a Page One article about 31 Alamitos Peninsula residents building onto the public beach and at no point credit our story, which appeared eight days before. They reference the same documents we referenced, quote the same people we quoted, even took pictures of the same properties we did. Plagiarism? No, that’s cloning. Believe it or not, there is a code of conduct in journalism, and one of its most sacred statutes is that you reward another paper’s hard work and initiative. For example, every self-respecting paper writing about the Larry Craig affair mentioned somewhere in its stories that the original account of Craig’s arrest appeared in the Washington, D.C., newspaper Roll Call (I believe the one with Eva Mendes on the cover). Of course, “self-respect” and “the Press-Telegram” go together like “cookies” and “ass.” Still, we wanted to think better of the P-T, so we called over there hoping to hear this was all due to a miscommunication or an editing or printing error or some other sweet lie. But no, they plainly admitted they didn’t credit us on purpose, that they didn’t see why they should have to credit the magazine that did all the work and published the same story, with the same documents, sources and pictures, eight days before. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I guess I thought more of the P-T, but as we all know, one always gets less—much less, copious amounts of less—with the P-T. I’d dare say no one consistently gives more less than the Press-Telegram. If less was more, they’d be rich.

Fri | Aug 31 In an editorial, the Press-Telegram says the encroachment genie is out of the bottle—whatever that means—failing once again to credit our story by mentioning who originally rubbed the encroachment genie’s lamp. Reading it sends me back to their encroachment news story and I do see one thing unique about their reporting: its complete lack of balls. Even when another newspaper took a bullet for the story, lost advertising and risked a boycott to do what it thought right, the P-T still couldn’t get through the whole story without lapsing into its typical “everything’s fine, no need to worry” P-T thing that has made the paper so utterly dispensable. They go so far as to put soothing words in the mouth of Assistant City Attorney Mike Mais when they, they, write: “However, Assistant City Attorney Mike Mais said there’s no pressing issue at this time, since the encroachment situations do not appear to be blocking public access to the beach.” But that’s in direct contrast to the attitude Mais had the week before in our story when he offered no out for the encroachers: “The point is that the people in that survey are encroaching on someone else’s property—in this case, public property—and that is trespassing. There aren’t what you would call ‘penalties’ for trespassing; the penalty would be to remove the encroachment.” They quote another person saying that no one cares about all of this because “In most beach communities . . . it’s a kind of understood situation. Everyone kind of lets sleeping dogs lie.” Yes, it’s Jeremy Colonna.

Sat | Sept 1 Oops!

Sun | Sept 2 I’ve run out of space.

Mon | Sept 3 Perhaps the Press-Telegram will run the rest of the column.

Tags: alamitos bay, frank colonna, press telegram