Daughter Barbara Cefalu, Joe, Daughter Elaine Giannini,
and Daughter-in-Law Eileen Giannini
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Memorial to Joe Giannini
by Jack McCurdy
Without Joe Giannini, there's no telling what Morro Bay might be and look like today.
If there is one figure in Morro Bay's history who has been most instrumental in not only helping residents found the city and achieve the independence they desired, but who showed them by example how to protect the community from destructive change, it is Joe Giannini.
Though few probably know it, Giannini was the father of the city of Morro Bay and the inspirational founder of Morro Bay's rich, nearly-60-year tradition of community activism - which simply means residents organizing and acting to preserve and create the community they want to live in.
To the heartbreak of his family and those who knew and loved him, Giannini, 94, died on September 14 in the home of his daughter, Elaine, after breaking his leg a few weeks earlier and undergoing surgery.
A memorial for him will be held at 11am on Monday, October 5, at St. Timothy's Church in Morro Bay. A reception, open to the public, is scheduled afterward at the Morro Bay Yacht Club.
Born to immigrant parents in Portland, Oregon, Giannini was a long-time fisherman who happened upon the Morro Bay harbor when he helped another fishing boat in trouble find refuge. That was 1946, and he had lived here ever since - to the benefit of all of us. Besides being a fisherman and leader of the fishing community, he also owned a marine supply store here for many years.
In one of numerous interviews over recent months, Giannini told me of returning from a fishing trip in about 1951 and discovering that while he was gone, the county had sold many acres on the scenic north shore of the Morro Bay National Estuary to PG&E for construction of a power plant. It was too late to stop the building of the plant. He did, however, succeed almost single-handedly in getting the county to require PG&E to set the plant back several hundred feet from the estuary's shore so that access to the Rock via the Embarcadero - and the shore itself - could be preserved.
In the early 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers began mining rock from the eastern base of Morro Rock to build a breakwater outside the harbor entrance. The excavation was marked by blasts that rocked the town, Giannini remembered. But no one seemed to object - except Giannini. He appealed to state and national elected representatives to help stop the mining, begging that "Morro Rock is being so defaced that it is not going to be Morro Rock any more," he recalled. But to no avail.
Then he and two local friends went to Corps headquarters in Los Angeles to plead for an end to the destruction of Morro Rock, which at that time was a scenic phenomenon, a soon-to-be historical landmark (the first land in California sighted by Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo as he sailed up the coast), and a growing tourist attraction - but with no official protections.
"But don't you need a breakwater?" the Corps commander asked Giannini. "Yes," Giannini said he replied, "But there is only one Morro Rock."
The official was amenable to Giannini's appeals and agreed to stop, and the work ended for good. In 1968, Morro Rock was designated a registered historical landmark - scars and all.
In the early 1960s, it was Giannini who organized the move to incorporate Morro Bay as a city, which officially took place in 1964. On the third attempt to get a measure on the ballot, Giannini's group succeeded in winning approval of an incorporation initiative by Morro Bay voters.
The rationale behind the move was "home rule," Giannini said, revolving mainly around tax revenues being collected in Morro Bay but not being returned sufficiently by the county in public services. And there was concern about county decisions affecting the community that were being made by people who did not live or work in Morro Bay.
Giannini gained residents' support for incorporation by going door to door, which probably also makes him the father of precinct-walking in Morro Bay, a strategy popularized in the 1980s by Bruce Risley, an otherwise unknown who came out of nowhere to win election to the City Council.
According to city records Giannini was later elected to the Council and served as the city's second mayor from 1968 to 1969, at a time when the mayor was elected among Council members.
In 1981, a successful ballot initiative conceived by Giannini restricted development along the north Embarcadero to recreational and fishing-related activities, thereby preventing high-rise business and residential uses that would have replaced the bedrock of Morro Bay's fishing village character.
He was also an opponent of Duke Energy's proposal to build a new and larger power plant because, among other things, of the billions of fish and crab larve from the Morro Bay National Estuary that Duke's own studies showed it would kill. About ten years ago, he fondly recalled taking his children down to the shores of the estuary and catching all kinds of fish. He sadly acknowledged that the plant and other influences had left few fish remaining now.
A long line of activist groups began to be organized, starting in the early 1970's, to oppose or advocate measures to maintain Morro Bay as the small fishing village it was and still is. The groups include the Morro Bay Environmental Association, Don't Ruin Our Coast (DROC), Morro Bay Tomorrow, Legal Action Watch (LAW), Civic Action League (CAL), the Voters Initiative Committee (VIC), Advocates for a Better Community (ABC), and the Coastal Alliance on Plant Expansion (CAPE), which is observing its 10th anniversary this year. They sprang up over such issues as:
- An early 1970s proposal by Chevron to develop a deep-water seaport for oil super-tankers in Estero Bay north of Morro Rock, which was abandoned in the face of community opposition.
- Unlimited population growth within city boundaries that could have destroyed the small-town character of Morro Bay, resulting in a voter-approved growth control cap tied to available resources, such as water.
- Annexation to the city of vast acreage in hilly unincorporated area east of Highway 1 to allow the spread of development that would have vastly increased Morro Bay's size. The annexation was blocked by voters.
- The idea of high-rise condos, apartments, and office buildings along the north Embarcadero that would have opened the way for Morro Bay to become another Monterey or Santa Barbara, which voters blocked through a ballot initiative organized by Giannini.
- A large shopping center planned by Williams Brothers markets across Highway 1 within the city's existing boundary that could have destroyed downtown businesses and also surreptitiously opened the way for condos and residences in that pristine area. It was approved by voters and then reversed.
All these dire things could have happened, almost happened, but didn't happen over the past nearly 60 years because courageous individuals and groups of Morro Bay's citizens organized and took action. They stopped them from happening time and again - and preserved the Morro Bay as we know and cherish it today.
Outstanding community leaders have followed in the footsteps of Giannini, such as Jane and Don Bailey, Gene Shelton, Willard MacGonagill, Howard Gaines, Chuck Reasor, Bob Lane, M'May and Peter Diffley and many others. Shelton was the leader of DROC, was elected to the City Council in 1976 and was the first mayor to be elected by voters (and not by Council members) in 1978. He also served as mayor in 1982. Shelton regards Giannini as his mentor in community activism and politics.
"When I moved to Morro Bay in 1969," Shelton said, "Joe Giannini had become a highly respected leader in the community. He had spearheaded the effort to incorporate, had served as one of our first mayors, and had taken strong and decisive positions on land use issues in and around Morro Bay. In short, he had become a community resource and one of the 'go to' guys, along with Willard MacGonagill, Don and Jane Bailey, and a handful of others who maintained a watchful eye on land use and development efforts in Morro Bay.
"Joe felt strongly about the community - so intensely, in fact, that he bought one of the weekly local newspapers (the Sun) to provide balanced reporting of the issues. He undertook the newspaper challenge while continuing to commercially fish and operate his marine supply business. People respected his opinions and relied on his analysis of the issues, which included the following: the Diablo Canyon Power plant, the Coastal Act and formation of the Coastal Commission, banning vehicles from the beach, the proposed road west of the high school and the extension of Coleman Drive along with the proposed bridge over the creek; high density use of the property that has become the Cloisters; direct election of the mayor; the development of the agricultural land east of Highway 1; citizen groups like Morro Bay Tomorrow; Don't Ruin Our Coast (DROC); the Civic Action League, and countless other issues and ideas facing coastal residents.
"Joe was fearless when facing the powerful and connected but he was always willing to listen to the views of others. Whether he agreed or disagreed was always known so that there would not be a misunderstanding about where he stood. He was a mentor to many who came to him to right perceived wrongs. Joe was my mentor, and I'll always be grateful for having known him."
To those of us who have been inspired by Giannini, it is clear that Morro Bay would look a lot different today without his contribution to the rich heritage of activism we have in Morro Bay. It badly needs to be carried on today and in the future by the same kind of people as Giannini and his admirers who deeply care about their community.
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