Seaside remains on hold on homeless issues, despite fire that injured three.

On a typical morning in Seaside’s Laguna Grande Park, birders circle the lake with binoculars, looking for rare breeds. Dogs trot by with their owners, out for a morning stroll.

Friday, March 13, brought something less typical: a large column of smoke rising from the park’s forest.

Seaside Fire Chief Brian Dempsey spotted the smoke around 8:30am as he pulled out of the Del Rey Oaks Safeway. Within minutes, firefighters, police and paramedics had swarmed to the park’s southern border near Canyon Del Rey and Fremont boulevards.

The fire started in a homeless encampment, burning three people badly enough to require transport to a trauma center. Seaside Fire Department officials later deemed the fire suspicious and turned the case over to police.

For those who have paid attention to Laguna Grande over the last year, the news wasn’t a surprise: The bodies of two homeless victims were found in the park last summer in separate incidents, prompting Seaside officials to sweep out expansive homeless encampments in the park’s forest.

Around the same time, Monterey Audubon Society’s Chris Hartzell approached Seaside and Monterey officials – the two cities share management of the park – with a plan to build trails through the forest and improve access.

Monterey officials took action, clearing and chipping vegetation on their property along Virgin Avenue. Seaside officials have only held a few meetings on the subject, and their City Council has given no direction.

“Some of [the forest] is wetlands,” says Seaside Public Works Services Manager Tim O’Halloran. “A lot of that area could not support a trail.”

Hartzell has been in the forest many times and holds a different view.

“Monterey has the same habitat, same setup,” he says. “Monterey is able to do something, Seaside is not. That tells about the desire to do it, not logistics.”

Seaside Police Department’s Cmdr. Judy Stradan says homeless encampments remain an ongoing issue in the park, but are less permanent than before.

“There’s simply a tent they can throw up,” she says. “They leave one day, come back the next.”

Seaside police arrested Steven Mark Palmer March 24 as a suspect in the recent fire, alleging he ignited an accelerant on a victim. Officials identify Palmer, 52, as a transient who is also one of the three people injured in the incident. He faces multiple charges, including attempted murder, and is being held on $2.4 million bail.