Laguna Residents First Ballot Initiative is worth supporting

I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Weil about the importance of reading. While it appears that he has read reports of Malibu’s Measure R, it seems that a close reading of the Laguna Residents First Ballot Initiative didn’t occur. It is well worth reading…and, supporting.

Rather than looking as far away as Malibu for comparable initiatives, we Laguna voters need look no further than our neighboring cities – Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, and Dana Point – for similar initiatives to Laguna’s. Why did our three neighboring cities find it necessary to pass initiatives to provide their residents with the right to vote on big commercial developments? Well, because their city council majorities were voting them in despite the will or input of the residents. In fact, the Dana Point City Council rushed through approval of those large box developments overhanging PCH just days before the residents’ ballot measure took effect. The people may have voted for a voice and control, but Dana Point’s City Council squeaked those concrete boxes through at the very last minute. How’s that for representation of their voters?

Laguna Beach can learn from their neighbors and pass a ballot initiative that enshrines our current development standards that produced such beautifully crafted developments as the Pottery Shack renovation – complete with shops, restaurants, public spaces, and parking. Jumbo-sized commercial developments bigger than the Pottery Shack go to a vote of the residents with this ballot initiative as do developments that produce more traffic trips or try to weasel through without sufficient parking. (Does anyone out there really believe that there were as many car drivers in the 40s and 50s as there are today?) We all recently heard how long it will take to evacuate Laguna in case of a fire, earthquake, or other disaster on a normal day. The time increases with more people in elephantine commercial developments. 

As for city council members supporting ballot initiatives, it is as much a part of America’s noble democratic process as voting is. Mayor Whalen had as much right to promote and collect signatures for his undergrounding initiative as other council members have to collect signatures on this ballot initiative.

Laguna residents are as smart and savvy as the residents in our neighboring cities – and we certainly know how to read. Read the ballot initiative and don’t be snowed by those who say we don’t have to protect ourselves like our neighboring cities did. Sign the Initiative, and vote for smart development.

C. Deborah Laughton

Laguna Beach

Remembering 9/11

I remember exactly where I was when the 9/11 attacks occurred 20 years ago. One of my Woods Cove neighbors called to tell me something horrific was happening in New York City, which was where my 21-year-old son was attending college, and that I needed to turn on the TV. After watching a plane crash into the second World Trade Center Tower, I quietly told my wife and two young children there would be no work or school that day.

I tried calling my son several times in NYC but couldn’t get through to him. That night, as I watched the news, endless waves of bewilderment and grief kept rushing over me. How could this have happened? What does this mean for America? And where is my boy? Finally, around 9 p.m. our time, my son called. He was safe but shaken. His entire neighborhood had been evacuated after the second World Trade Center Tower crumbled to the ground.

Looking back over my lifetime, some events or dates are seared into my memory. The Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik on October 4, 1957, comes to mind first. That was followed by President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show ten weeks later on February 9, 1964.

Next were President Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin speech on August 7, 1964, the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968, Apollo 11 landing on the moon on July 20, 1969, and the first Vietnam-era draft lottery held on December 1, 1969 (which I “won”). I also remember being glued to the TV the night Richard Nixon announced he would resign the presidency on August 8, 1974, and when Barack Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. Clearly, each one of these events will be remembered 100 years from now; but I dare say none of them compares to the long-term impact 9/11 will have on America.

Following our recent retreat from Afghanistan, some people worry there will be another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. I have no way of knowing if this will happen or not, but I do know this: Just as I worried about my children 20 years ago, I worry about them today. I wonder which days or events they will remember on the 40th anniversary of 9/11?

Denny Freidenrich

Laguna Beach

Please read before signing…

Dear Laguna Beach Parents and Community,

I am writing to share my concerns as a resident, father of two young boys, and active community member. Recently, it has been brought to my attention that prior to the Music at the Park community event, a council member was actively petitioning residents for signatures on behalf of the Laguna Residents First, Political Action Committee (PAC). This action poses two questions. Is this a conflict of interest due to that member’s official role? What is the initiative? Although wearing a Laguna Residents First PAC logo T-shirt, carrying a clipboard, and recruiting signatures may not be explicitly illegal, these actions should be viewed by the community as a potential conflict of interest bordering the lines of abuse of public office. It is one thing for a council member to show support or endorse elements involving changes in the community, but it is another for that council member to be advocating the agenda on behalf of a PAC. This Founder Emeritus clearly is not Emeritus. Showcasing bias and favoritism to his former PAC should not go unnoticed…and this is not the first time this council member made his decision prior to a public hearing. Could this be grounds for recusal if relevant matters from the PAC fall before City Council?

The Laguna Residents First PAC recently introduced a ballot initiative that recommends further restrictions to the development standards in Laguna Beach for size, parking, daily trip counts, and more. If updates and changes are necessary, these changes should be vetted through the public process. It appears that this initiative is being proposed without public, city staff, or professional input. The proposed ballot initiative has serious implications for Laguna Beach’s vibrancy and vitality. 

I think it is imperative that all take a close look at the fine print prior to signing.

My understanding of Laguna Residents First’s ballot initiative is that a small number of residents who organized the PAC believe the only way to “SAVE LAGUNA BEACH” is to keep life and business frozen in a time capsule…that any evolution of our community may be damaging. The stance of, “build nothing, change nothing” is likely not the correct position…and the PAC is trying to promote their measure by a “Beautifying Laguna” positioning.

To my knowledge, nothing in the document involves beautification, articulation, design, architecture, or even landscaping improvements. The initiative’s intent, in my opinion, is for one PAC to assert unnecessary controls on our community by passing on the input for future development projects by elected City Council leaders, city staff, standing community policy, and public opinion. The initiative also proposes use of an “overlay zone.” Although overlay zones have a place in the town planning toolbox, in this case an overlay zone is not likely to be effective.

This proposal will further complicate our already complex general plan and municipal codes. Today, our city’s current planning documents create code collision, and the proposed initiative would add more complexity to our general plan, specific plans, and local coastal program. It would not fix them. The proposed overlay zone could potentially impact over 7,000 city, public, and privately owned lots and may conflict with state government codes. This could lead to: greater controversy; delayed permits; a revolving door of city staff; taxpayer confusion; litigation; and additional expenses. 

For that reason alone, please do not sign this petition.

Our community should be aware that in 2014, the City of Malibu passed Measure R, a voter-based initiative that would restrict development of large-scale commercial (chain stores), mixed use, and conditional development permits to run solely with the operation by way of requiring specific plans on mixed-use developments of over 20,000 sq ft prior to voter approval. Three years later, the courts ruled against the community’s Measure R, thereby invalidating the voter initiative. This cost the City of Malibu in terms of staff time and legal fees and costs the residents. The residents clearly ended up last in this scenario, not first. 

Most of the iconic properties in Laguna Beach were developed over the last century, each with its own characteristics of the period. Those developments over time have been woven into the fabric that makes our town and its location truly unique. This should lead us to question if this ballot initiative process is the correct tool for sculpting Laguna Beach’s community vision.

In my view, this initiative does not promote Laguna Beach’s evolving character in a manner that honors our past nor does it embrace its future. Instead, it is a permanent barricade or “NO” that will clog our planning process and codes for decades.

Please, let’s not allow a select few with limited or no professional planning experience to copy and paste language from other city’s playbooks. 

I strongly believe that making development changes to Laguna Beach’s commercial and residential properties takes a delicate balance. This balance includes the voices of all property owners, neighbors, staff, and community members. This process must be transparent to the entire community. It must involve the entire community…residents who are generational, long term, short term, new, young, or old. All residents should be heard in creating the Laguna Beach vision. 

Again, please read the initiative carefully. 

What you sign will affect Laguna Beach for years to come.

Louis Weil

Laguna Beach

Truth not politics in school race curriculum

Instead of challenging disputed merits of “Critical Race Theory” some propose for school curriculum, locally and nationally CRT opponents are missing the chance to advance competing academically validated race justice curriculum.

Opposing all race studies, blithely insisting the legacy of race injustice is resolved, makes it easier for overpaid outside consultants to spoon-feed politicized revisionist race history to our School Board, viewed by many as ideologically gullible. 

The latest anti-CRT social media buzz here in town and nationally is about a TikTok video featuring a black parent who declares racism no longer exists in America, and the only oppression for his children and other black Americans is their own ignorance, laziness, and bad judgment.

One can’t help but admire this man, who tells his truth based on his experience, describing the freedom and equality we want for Americans of all races. But it also is remarkable that he appears to be the only black person in the large and crowded public meeting.

No other black men or women with different experience are there to tell their truth. What we might have learned from a less simplistic perspective is that most black Americans who have overcome the socio-economic hangover of race segregation do not want their success to be used to rationalize denial of race legacy impact on black Americans.

Also, it is noted the black anti-CRT parent in the video incorrectly asserts racism in America ended “190 years ago,” and that white Americans today should consider racism something their “ancestors did two centuries ago.” Ignorance about a century of racial segregation that ended in our lifetimes didn’t bother all the white heads bobbing up and down in agreement we needn’t teach students accurate race history.

The sea of white faces in the audience also loudly applauded misstatements about Colin Kaepernick’s protests at NFL games in 2016, incorrectly identified as “the genesis” of Black Lives Matter. Just one problem, BLM began three years earlier in 2013, as a demand for community policing reform after serial shootings of unarmed black people by white police and white vigilantes. BLM wasn’t about NFL protests or black murder rate statistics, but rather the indifference and leniency by police and prosecutors in killings of unarmed black Americans.

BLM was an opportunity to change the racial narrative, but white apathy enabled factions with a radicalized ideological political agenda to hijack the BLM brand. Now some CRT critics nationwide and in Laguna are ignoring an unprecedented opportunity to change public school curriculum to tell the true story of racial injustice and America’s never-ending work to realize equality for all citizens in a more perfect union.

A literate history of race in the U.S. includes a candid account of how the abolitionist movement used the Constitution to end in 70 years over 300 years of British, French, and Spanish colonialism/slavery in America. It was the Constitution’s vision of a more perfect future that made possible an uneasy union under the new Constitution in 1789 between abolitionist states and slave states. 

That set the stage for Lincoln’s feat, saving the union from rebellion and ending slavery institutionalized in America by European colonial powers. However, another century of “systemic” racism followed, and Americans need to understand segregation was continuation of slavery era white supremacy by other means.

It took 58 years for the racist separate but equal doctrine of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to be overturned by the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. That case ending racism in public schools made the civil rights movement of the 1960s possible.

Legalized racism and segregation ended in the lifetime of parents and grandparents with children in our public schools. For example, federal law allowed states to make interracial marriage illegal until 1967, the same year I was a sophomore at LBHS and the Beatles released the Sgt. Pepper’s album.

Although racial discrimination became illegal in the 1960s, does anyone really believe four hundred years of white supremacy ceased to impact the social, economic, and political status of black people in America?   

Yet, if CRT critics are merely obstinately opposed and refuse to offer an alternative, then hardcore CRT supporters with a political rather than educational agenda may have more influence on what is taught in our schools.

Howard Hills

Laguna Beach

A simple solution to recent Coast Highway parking alterations In Victoria Beach

The City finally posted enforcement hours below those new instructional ones placed on Coast Highway in early June.

Don’t thank me.

We locals owe a large debt to our Laguna-based media who indirectly “nudged” the City and thus “encouraged” them to at minimum affix the “9am-6pm” sign below the 10 MINUTE PARKING LOADING ZONE (LZ) postings via publishing my recent column. 

The fourth estate is at times our public pillory because unfortunately we’ve become a complaint-driven society exacerbated by deaf governance.

The NO VEHICLE ACCESS sign shows that irony didn’t die on 9/11: The City permanently eliminated three of our historically unrestricted 24/7/365 Coast Highway parking spaces, a questionable taking, in an existing, seriously “under-parked” area, yet inscrutably directs them to park on Coast Highway. 

Hello? Is there anybody in there?

I still don’t see anyone picking up or dropping off visitors at the three new Coast Highway LZs located at McCauley, Sunset, and upper Victoria Drive.

As I predicted, everyone has gone back to the intersections of Dumond and Victoria Drive (near the underpass) and/or the top of the stairs at Sunset and Victoria Drive, now that construction is over.

And off-season, visitations plummeting, who in their right mind believes these LZs will even be used at all until next summer?

Achieving this hours of enforcement addition only took them what, 10+ weeks of constant haranguing by yours truly plus media saturation? That’s flank speed for a bureaucracy. A minor, Pyrrhic victory regardless.

The City should exhibit flexibility for residents and locals alike: (A) Paint the curbs green instead of white, and (B) Only put up the enforcement signs on the stanchions on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and take them down after Labor Day. Is that asking a lot, two hours of low-level staff time per year? 

Except for Dizz’s immediate vicinity, the inland Coast Highway parking is dangerous for drivers getting in and out of their cars.

Who wants to bet that the City’s next smooth move won’t entail installing parking meters on both sides of Coast Highway from Moss Street down to the Montage, adding insult to injury?

Roger Butow

Laguna Beach