Other
Utter, Don (audio interview #5 of 5)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the fourth of five interviews that were conducted at Utter's home in Belmont Shore. The interviewer met him while serving on a LWV's committee to prepare a pamphlet about local history. Utter subsequently became a student of the interviewer as part of the Senior Citizen fee waiver program. 11/24/1980
- Date
- 2020-10-20
- Resource Type
- Creator
- Campus
- Keywords
- Handle
- Language
- Notes
- *** File: cbdutter9.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-3:45)... Brief Introduction The R-4 Protection Association was a small group spearheaded by Bill Brooks, an industrial realtor. Most CSULB fraternity houses were located in the R-4 zones and the group's goal was to get fraternity houses out of residential neighborhoods. Utter got involved when the Acacia fraternity bought a house next door to him and he wanted to move them out of his residential neighborhood The fraternity was noisy, took up parking spaces, had loud, late parties, and its members were generally out of control. (3:45-10:20)... Fraternities were favorably received by the people who ran the city. The Belmont Shore area was a favorite place for students and fraternities. The association worked to get votes from the city council to change the zoning ordinance and they succeeded after a year. They contacted city agencies and the City Council. They had no cooperation from university officials. Fraternities were not forced to obey the law. Because they were off campus, the university said they had no power to regulate them. The Bixby company offered some lots adjacent to the campus for a fraternity row and fraternities rejected the offer because they don't want to be under the supervision of the school. Fraternities did not want their drinking restricted. They were drinking places for the underage. (10:20-15:00)... The final outcome favored the R-4 Protection Association . The City Council agreed that fraternities were a disturbance. Various neighbors of fraternity houses were involved. Sororities were also a nuisance but they chose not to campaign against them. Fraternities were banished to commercial zones. A number of constituencies worked for the issue. Many people in town were sympathetic to the fraternities. The activity of Bill Brooks was key to the campaign. He had personal meetings with council members. Brooks felt it was a civic service and he was sensitive to the business aspects of zoning. He used his connections to council members. (15:00-18:26)... A fraternity row has never been built in Long Beach. The fraternities had several opportunities to build a row but turned them down. They wanted their freedom. Their current housing, at the time of the interview, was modest and poor. The houses were not built to accommodate so many residents. Many of the houses function as party houses. The R-4 Protective Association is an example of how a few people, a self-interest group, can work together to get the city to accommodate their interest. (18:26-24:04)... Utter lives about half a block from the ocean. He's interested in the marine life and ecology and the movement of the beach. Much of the beach eroded during the 1930s and 1940s before the breakwater was completed. He's interested in who owners California beaches. They are the property of the people but less than half of the beaches are accessible to the public. This was an important issue in Long Beach because there was oil along the shoreline and offshore, under tidelands. This is an area where boundaries were never resolved. Belmont Shore was built on stolen public land; much of the land has yet to be legally conveyed. Major companies have stolen the land; Getty Oil Company never purchased land rights; they just exploited the oil fields. (24:04-27:56)... Union Pacific Railroad owns land in Long Beach harbor. The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad had a trestle that went across some tidelands; to the north was the old Long Beach Salt Works. They built levees to protect the trestle. When the Salt Works went out of business, the railroad increased the size of the levee and blocked the inflow of water into the tidelands area. The area could not be conveyed to a private corporation under the state constitution but when oil was discovered in the area, Union Pacific started drilling for oil there and nothing was done. The land is still being exploited by private companies. (27:56-34:39)... The Edison plant on Terminal Island was built on state land which was exploited by the company. McGrath-Shank got land titles through a legislative act in the 1960s. It was called the Alamitos Bay Tideland Settlement. The state quit claimed the land. This gave Utter a clearer title as a homeowner. The property north of Marine Stadium has a different history since Marine Stadium was built for the 1932 Olympics. When the stadium was built a deal was made that the dredgings from the stadium were to be dumped in the tidelands to the north. Boundary questions have yet to be settled. Some of this land was acquired by one of the Bixbys with a condition that a public agency could reacquire it for the purchase price plus improvements in the future; only a portion of Pacific Coast Highway might have been reacquired. (34:39-38:35)... The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power put in a channel for the Haynes steam plant. The channel went through tidelands so the Department of Water and Power refused to pay for the land and the land owner did not pursue the case. The Alamitos Beach Bay Preservation group was formed in the early 1960s to oppose the dredging of Alamitos Bay for yacht moorings. He was involved early on and concerned with protecting public beaches. Most of the public was unaware of the loss of beaches; they thought it was progress. The group was able to stop bayside dredging. He joined the board in the 1960s. He was concerned with beach development and preservation. (38:35-45:19)... He personally directed a fight when the city of Long Beach wanted to sell land for high-rise apartments along Ocean Boulevard. The Alamitos Beach Preservation group did not get involved because they thought it would be impossible to fight. A small group of people, mainly women, campaigned. He led a 2 year fight, served as spokesman and blocked the sale of the land. They won because the lots were defined differently; the city manager decided it was too complicated to deal with. The beach was public, at the time of the interview, and will remain so under the California Coastal Act. Also as a result, the Alamitos Bay boundary was settled between the state and Long Beach. The previously drawn boundary had no legal or historic basis. The boundary settlement was made through a legislative act. The city brought a test case against it later but did not succeed. Wetlands were once considered wastelands and filling a swamp was considered a public service. End of tape *** File: cbdutter10.mp3 (0:00-3:07)... Naples was developed in the early 1900s. He remembers Belmont Shore when there were just scattered houses. Anaheim Landing was taken over by the Seal Beach Naval Ammunition Station. Protection of wetlands is only recent in California. The Long Beach case gets a lot of attention. The amount of land, at the time of the interview, still being filled in the San Francisco area is much larger than it is locally. The long term ecological affects are not known. Shorelines are now owned by private groups. (3:07-8:15)... At the time of the interview, one could see the results of the decline of downtown Long Beach. Larger land owners waited for the city to bail them out. They wanted a deal that would allow their property to appreciate; they wanted socialism for the rich. There were a lot of absentee land owners that were not interested in progress. The development of shopping centers and discount stores made downtowns obsolete. Individual companies were also responsible. Central cities all over the country deteriorated. Land owners in Long Beach were not interested in investing their own money. In the case of the old Wise building, companies wanted to put a new public library there; the owners wanted to make money from the sale of the building. But that didn't work out and the building was turned into a bank. (8:15-11:43)... One retailer Utter knew had a children's shop in downtown Long Beach that was very successful. They started the discount shore, Gemco. The retailer's son was a geologist and he inherited the shop. He went into debt with the decline of Pine Avenue so he opened up children's departments in discount stores. It's impossible for merchants to profit in downtown at the time of the interview. Utter is afraid, at the time of the interview, that the mall will not revitalize downtown. (11:43-16:08)... At the time of the interview, Utter thinks the convention center and hotel improvements will make a difference but does not think the downtown marina will revitalize downtown. If good hotels are built, they could make a significant town out of Long Beach. But city leaders are gambling with public money. The City Council members brought the Queen Mary in and it was a half baked idea that was never thought through. They used tidelands oil money for the marine museum on the ship. State money was used illegally and it was a con, an embarrassment, and a poor business decision. (16:08-20:39)... The Long Beach Harbor has spent the most tidelands oil money. Spending for the harbor is justifiable, but not for the arena or convention center. State money was not being properly used for the benefit of all of Californians. It wasn't supposed to benefit only Long Beach. The Convention Center complex is a big loser. The original tideland grant restricted operations severely and limited jurisdiction. The Mallon suit took away even more money from Long Beach. The City Council tried to use tidelands money to expand Veteran's Stadium. The city was desperate to spend the money. (20:39-24:07)... Recreation is among the things revenue can be used for under the tidelands grant. The marina was built with the oil money. The whole administration of the tidelands trust was deceitful. Wealthy, local yacht owners pushed for the marina. Slip rates were really cheap at first but now slip rates have been raised to make money for the city. They are kept in line with commercial marina rates. (24:07-26:24)... Some of the land owned by the Bixby family was slow in developing because it was was a producing oil field. This delayed development. (26:24-31:05)... He saw snow for the first time as a young child when his family went up to the mountains to sled. The family went up to the San Gabriel mountains once or twice a season. They never had proper snow gear and borrowed equipment. He had never lived in snow country until he was in the military which sent him to Illinois and to Italy. When he was student teaching in Los Angeles, he took his class outside to look at the snow on the distant mountains. Inner city students never took notice; some students never even knew the mountains were there. Many had never been to the mountains. He took some students on a field trip to the Cabrillo Museum; many students had never been to the ocean. (31:05-35:26)... The education program at USC was phony; many of the education courses had nothing to do with real-life classrooms situations. He did, however, have some good experiences as a student teacher. His first teaching job was relatively easy; he learned to teach while on the job, day by day. The principal at Holtville encouraged him to do things his own way. He feels he did an adequate job because he was different from any reading teacher the students had seen. Most of his education courses at USC were a waste of money and time. (35:26-38:40)... He took a degree in geology although he was an engineering major at one point. The science department at USC was good. After he started teaching, he also taught social studies and geography. The education courses at USC were a waste of time. It's possible that good teachers were turned off after their experience in the program at USC. He was almost ashamed that he got his masters in education from USC. UC schools were hotshot public schools at the time but their programs were garbage as well. (35:26-45:15)... He served on the citizens local Coastal Planning Committee in Long Beach. They created a comprehensive program and it is a model for the rest of the state. Some members became discouraged because parts of the plan have not been implemented. He was always realistic and not disappointed because none of the coastal plans have ever been fully realized. Some members of the City Council ignored the plan. He'd never sat on a committee before that dealt with lots of fine details. Various divergent groups sat down and compromised on a final plan that pleased nobody; it was a compromise. The public process was complicated. He had always been intolerant of compromisers but serving on this committee convinced him that compromise was how things got done. The LWV, Sierra Club, home owners groups, and representatives of the Chamber of Commerce attended the Coastal Planning Committee meetings. End of tape
- SUBJECT BIO - Don Utter was a community activist and a teacher in local schools. He grew up in Long Beach and began his political education during the Depression when he supported Upton Sinclair's campaign for governor. He went to school in Long Beach until he was drafted at the beginning of World War II. As a conscientious objector, he served in a medical unit. He returned to finish his education and become a junior high school teacher and continued his interest in local political issues. In this series of five interviews, he talks about his decision, when he was diagnosed with cancer, to retire early and concentrate on trying to protect the environment and help elect progressive politicians. This interview was conducted as part of a project of study the impact of oil on Long Beach. TOPICS - R-4 Protection Association; CSULB; Bill Brooks; fraternities; beaches; oil companies; Belmont Shore and Terminal Island; Naples; Belmont Shore; wetlands; USC Local Coastal Plan; downtown Long Beach; and teaching;
- Rights Note
- This repository item may be used for classroom presentations, unpublished papers, and other educational, research, or scholarly use. Other uses, especially publication in any form, such as in dissertations, theses, articles, or web pages are not permitted without the express written permission of the individual collection's copyright holder(s). Please contact the CSULB Library Administration should you require permission to publish or distribute any content from this collection or if you need additional information or assistance in using these materials: https://www.csulb.edu/university-library/form/questionssuggestions-the-digital-repository-group
Items
| Thumbnail | File information | Actions |
|---|---|---|
|
8542332812246076-cbdutter9.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
1329770668613077-cbdutter10.mp3 Public
|
Download |