Benches overlooking Sunset Cliffs started to disappear a couple weeks ago, according to a group of residents who want them replaced.
Joel Siegfried, who lives in Point Loma a few miles from Sunset Cliffs, goes out to the cliffs every day as part of a daily 6-8 mile walk, noticed that benches were missing at the end of last week.
"There's a group of us ... we used to meet in the afternoons to chat and check up on each other, and we got to talking about the fact that our bench had been taken away, and it seemed very unnecessary to be removing perfectly good facilities," Siegfried said.
Siegfried contacted the Ocean Beach Town Council through Susan Reed, a member of the council. She had no information at that time, he said, but had an intern contact City Councilman Kevin Faulconer. Siegfried said Reed told him the councilman's administrative assistant said the office had been "flooded with phone calls from a lot of upset people, asking why the benches had been removed."
Siegfried said the benches had been in place for many, many years.
Cordelia Dedi Ridenour told Siegfried that someone in the city's department of risk management told her that the benches were a liability to the city because of the risk of injury to someone sitting on a bench if the adjoining guard rail was hit by a car.
A spokesman for Faulconer's office said the councilman sent a memo to the mayor's office in February in the wake of a woman's death last fall, asking if the parks department could examine the area and make it more safe. The memo also asked for the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park Council to be consulted on any changes.
Faulconer's office said the changes were made without the park council's oversight or input and that the councilman had requested that the city replace the seating areas.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Jerry Sanders told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the benches will not be replaced due to safety concerns.
