Tollway Opponents Prepare for New Protests

LAGUNA BEACH —  More than 100 people gathered Saturday to stage another tollway protest and to talk future strategy.

Organizers warned the group to prepare for the worst if bulldozers return Tuesday to begin construction on a 17-mile road stretching between Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano.

Laguna Beach Councilwoman Lida Lenney asked people to keep in touch and be ready to demonstrate Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

“We need people here in numbers so they can’t arrest us and bodily carry us away,” Lenney told the cheering crowd.

The demonstrators congratulated each other for helping to persuade the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a temporary injunction that on Wednesday halted bulldozers grading the hill on the Laguna greenbelt.

But organizers, pointing out the destruction of 100-year-old oak trees and bushes near the existing Laguna Canyon Road, bemoaned the damage already done before the injunction was issued.

The injunction expires Tuesday, when the panel of judges can either extend it or allow construction workers back on the hill.

Before organizers spoke to the group, many demonstrators held signs protesting the bulldozing of the Laguna Greenbelt. One sign said: “Why turn paradise into a concrete jungle???? (Grrrr!)”

At noon, protesters held hands in a large circle. In the center, a husband-and-wife team of spiritual healers, Vera and Manuel Rocha, from the Gabrielino Shoshone Nation, performed a ceremony to pray for the land. Afterward, three Aztecs performed several dances.

Vera Rocha, 65, urged protesters to stand strong against development.

“They’re murdering this land,” she said.