Closing out a year full of controversy at Lunada Bay, the city of Palos Verdes Estates is heading into 2017 with a game plan to step up efforts addressing the aggressive behavior of local surfers who are known to harass outsiders.

In addition to extra law enforcement patrols, the city is moving to install police cameras along the blufftops and shoreline of the bay, a tactic lauded by Palos Verdes Estates Police Chief Jeff Kepley as another way the community’s police force is keeping visitors safe.

Park rangers from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy are scheduled to begin patrolling Lunada Bay sometime after Jan. 1, said City Manager Tony Dahlerbruch. It is the first time the city has contracted with an outside agency to add law enforcement officers to the bay.

Negotiations are still in the works, however, so city officials don’t yet know exactly when the patrols will begin or how many rangers will be working in the area.

“We’re looking to start as soon as we can,” Dahlerbruch said.

In early November, the City Council authorized the city manager to execute a contract for extra law enforcement not to exceed $50,000. The added patrols by the conservancy’s park rangers are meant to cover the winter surf season, Dahlerbruch said.

The winter swells, which typically last from around November to February, are coveted by a group of local surfers known as the Bay Boys. The loose-knit group has been sued in federal and state court earlier this year alleging it is a criminal gang and the city hasn’t done enough to curb its aggressive and, at times, violent behavior.

County boat could be used

In staff reports from the November meeting, the city originally was interested in contracting with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as well, but that plan was scrapped, Dahlerbruch said. The city still can request the Sheriff’s Department boat patrol to monitor the bay, which does not require an additional contract.

Officials also want to install cameras along the shoreline and blufftops to record activity in Lunada Bay, Dahlerbruch said.

Details of the proposal are scarce, but the cameras would be monitored exclusively by police and mounted without any poles or visible equipment.

“We’re looking at all aspects of that possibility — vendors, locations, systems, features — we’re looking at everything,” Kepley said in an interview last week. “The problem is there’s lots of technology on the marketplace, and it takes a little time to process through what solution best fits our needs.”

Camera proposal evokes 2002

Cameras recording activity at Lunada Bay have a shaky history. After a bloody confrontation between surfers in 2002, Surfline, a surf report website that has live-streaming cameras at spots around the world, gave a camera to Palos Verdes Estates, but the arrangement was short-lived.

The camera was installed on the Bluff Cove home of then-Police Chief Timm Browne. Just over three months after the camera went up, however, the City Council voted to take it down amid vehement opposition from residents who, spurred in part by a door-to-door leaflet campaign pushed by local surfers, worried the recordings broadcast online would bring hoards of outsiders to the area.

After the Surfline camera came down, the City Council purchased a closed-circuit camera for police to use exclusively. It’s unclear what happened to that camera.

“It was before my time, and we don’t have any camera inventory now,” Kepley said.

Drones to patrol the bay?

Law enforcement around Lunada could get even more high tech in the future. At the December council meeting, Kepley brought up the possibility of eventually using drones to help patrol the blufftops and shoreline.

But drones remain a far-off plan, he said.

“That was just to give the council an indication that that’s an option for us, but that given our current resources and staffing levels, it’s not something we’re interested in now — that’s something we may take a look at down the future,” Kepley said last week.

The efforts by the city are still short of what the California Coastal Commission has called for in recent months. The agency, dedicated to the ensuring access to the state’s coastline, has pushed the city to install signs, public seating and other additions along the blufftops above the bay, which it says will make the area more obviously a public space and smother aggressive surfing localism, which began at the bay in the 1970s, according to surfers.

Effect of patio demolition?

In the ’80s, surfers constructed a shoreline stone-and-mortar patio and expanded it over the years, until it was demolished four weeks ago, partly at the urging of the Coastal Commission.

During the weeklong demolition, vandals set fire to the site, damaging contractors’ equipment and vehicles.

Kepley declined to comment on the status of the arson investigation, citing the litigation.

The patio posed health and safety risks, city officials acknowledged to the Daily Breeze in January.

At the time, Kepley said beachgoers do not have equal access year-round to the water in Lunada Bay and that removing the shoreline patio probably wouldn’t change much.

“I think there may be times when there are surfers down there that might do something to dissuade a visitor and that would equate to denying access to the coastal resource,” Kepley told the Daily Breeze in January. “But there are plenty of times when anyone can go down there and enjoy themselves and nobody could care less.”

Staff writer Megan Barnes contributed to this report.