Village Matters

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Discouraging Words Sometimes Heard

By Ann Christoph
By Ann Christoph

Most council meetings have their dreadful and discouraging moments, with a few glimmers of encouragement here and there, strung together by routine matters. Last week’s was typical of many.

As I arrived early in the meeting, planning to give a message under public comment, I found a series of speakers defending City Manager John Pietig, including political opposites Arnold Hano and Howard Hills. An earlier speaker had made terrible remarks about Mr. Pietig, provoking this protest. There were so many compliments about Pietig’s reputation that the ending balance between dreadful and encouraging was very much in the city manager’s favor.

When I started to speak, I was overcome by a coughing spell. I handed out my posters about the Garden Park potluck on April 26, and rasped out a few fitful words. I had to sit down, my mission unaccomplished. But councilmember Toni Iseman saved the moment by presenting the information on the poster in a caring and interested fashion. Leah Vasquez passed me a cough drop. And as I sat far back in the audience still trying to keep the frogs in my throat at bay, City Attorney Phil Kohn handed me a very welcome cup of water. Later when I thanked him he replied, “You’re welcome, Ann.  It’s just something Lagunans do. Although I don’t live in town, I’ve been working there for long enough to feel like I do.” An encouraging incident to be sure.

Then landscape architect Bob Borthwick gave the state of Laguna Creek report. He and fellow Laguna Greenbelt board member Lance Vallery have completed a study of the creek’s condition, and they’ve come up with a series of recommendations for doable projects that will improve the creek and its surroundings. Supported by the Greenbelt, Laguna Canyon Foundation and Laguna Canyon Conservancy the project was funded by a $5,000 grant from the Foundation for Sustainability and Innovation, without city funds.

As Bob presented slide after slide of areas that show our neglect of the creek and bordering areas as well as images of what could be, the councilmembers and audience began to share in his passion for bringing the creek back to its centerpiece role in the canyon landscape. Bob outlined a series of small projects that can be completed quickly with the participation of city, county, and volunteers.

A prototype project was completed in 2006 at the creek fronting the Dog Park. With coordination by city staff, Bill Roley and Borthwick, donations from nurseries and local organizations, and a couple of Saturday morning work parties by community volunteers, a long stretch of creek was planted with native willows, oaks, sycamores and shrubbery. Now it is thriving and beautiful. Perhaps, like me, the other volunteers remember back to those dusty Saturdays and take special note of the growing landscape as we drive by. We enjoyed working together, making the creek better, then and there, with our own hands.

The council unanimously endorsed the creek recommendations and directed that the city participate in the projects in the report. Another positive and encouraging response.

Then there was the discussion of hiring consultants for village entrance drawings and authorizing $630,000 for their fees. Testifiers from the public urged a go-slow approach. “Get a community supported plan first,” they said. “Don’t go ahead with engineering drawings until we are sure what the plan will be.” Perhaps thinking of the council meeting of November 2013, when the council cancelled the years-in-the-planning parking garage at the village entrance due to overwhelming public protest, Councilmembers Steve Dicterow and Iseman agreed. They urged more public involvement in both the selection process and the plan. In contrast, Kelly Boyd harshly blamed the members of the public in the room for the lack of progress on the project.

Mayor Bob Whalen had a different view of what had happened at that 2013 meeting; he thought the city had consensus on Plan D, which he considers to be an interim plan. He would like to see an arts center at the village entrance, so temporary planting and pathways on the edge of the present parking lot are okay with him. Councilmember Rob Zur Schmiede opined, “We are trying to dig ourselves out of a deep hole of distrust,” and suggested that more public involvement at this stage was a good idea.

In the end, though he was persuaded by Whalen’s presentation of the sequence of decisions on the project and voted to go ahead with hiring the engineering consultant. Thus a 3-2 vote approved the consultant’s contracts.

The council was assured that there would be plenty of public input as the project goes forward. The irony is that the public input was expressed right then and there. There was no member of the public urging the council to go forward with the immediate hiring commitment.

The feeling of united support and enthusiasm demonstrated by the creek improvement vote had vanished, and we were in the discouraging cycle once more. It is unfortunate that the crowd could not leave the meeting on an upbeat note, feeling that all of us Lagunans working together will find an amenable and beautiful way forward.

 

Landscape architect and former council member Ann Christoph submitted a design concept for the most recent village entry plan for a park and pedestrian pathway.

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