A political action committee that played a prominent role in the last two city council elections will be under new management soon.
Laguna Beach residents Cindy Shopoff, Michael Ray, and Samuel Goldstein said they will transition to emeritus member roles with Laguna Forward PAC. Ray is a volunteer columnist for the Independent.
Sally Anne Sheridan, a 25-year Laguna Beach resident and former Irvine mayor, said she plans to run for the principal officer position because she wants to see positive change in town. She hopes to rebrand the PAC that she argues has been unfairly pigeon-holed due to Ray’s and Shopoff’s careers in residential development and Goldstein’s investment in the historic Heisler building.
“They were constantly being attacked,” Sheridan said. “There are an awful lot of people who share non-partisan points of view about what’s best for Laguna.”
Sheridan helped incorporate Irvine in 1971 and was the driving force in developing the Irvine Barclay Theatre. She’s been out of public office since 1992.
“I don’t want Laguna to look like Irvine but I also want it to work like Irvine in terms of getting things done,” she said.
The recent appointments of City Manager Shohreh Dupuis, Assistant City Manager Ken Domer, and Police Chief Jeff Calvert present an opportunity for a new direction at city hall, Sheridan said. She’s specifically interested in providing homeowners with a more efficient path to improve their properties, confronting state mandates for housing development, and relieving traffic congestion.
The PAC will campaign against the ballot initiative launched by Laguna Residents First, Sheridan said. Liberate Laguna has advocated for protecting property rights and the initiative’s opponents argue it would add unnecessary red tape.
Sheridan’s husband, Don, serves on the Design Review Board, which has been tasked with helping streamline the review process for home remodels.
Among the other prospective newcomers to Laguna Forward’s leadership is Rick Hume, a 35-year Laguna Beach landscape architect.
“I love Laguna and want it to stay beautiful,” Hume said. He declined to comment further, citing an upcoming committee meeting.
In June, Liberate Laguna PAC filed a report stating its name change to Laguna Forward. Liberate Laguna emerged as a powerful force in the 2018 election, raising more than $152,000 for political advertising supporting the election of Councilmembers Sue Kempf and Peter Blake to the Laguna Beach City Council.
Last year, committee members Ray donated $57,000, Goldstein donated at least $28,000, and Shopoff donated $18,500, according to public documents. Despite this fundraising, Liberate Laguna didn’t achieve its goals to get attorney Larry Nokes elected to the City Council and Mariann Tracy elected as City Clerk. The group supported Mayor Bob Whalen’s successful reelection campaign.
“I think it’s time for other people to be the torchbearer,” Shopoff said. “You get tired of the arrows being thrown at you when you haven’t done anything.”
Shopoff also plans to focus on her passion for building workforce housing and returning to the Friendship Shelter Board of Directors after a previous six-year stint.
In light of recent heated arguments on the dais, Shopoff said she still supports Blake despite his explicit language and heated arguments on the dais with councilmembers Toni Iseman and George Weiss.
“He has an unbending sense that he gets help for the constituents who come to him,” Shopoff said. “Do I like Peter’s style all the time? No. Do I like that he holds onto his convictions? Absolutely.”
Liberate Laguna/Laguna Forward can change their principal officers at will; How does one “run” for such a position since such a PAC isn’t a membership organization.
Regardless, whether the profile of the founding developers diminishes with this appointment is immaterial to Lagunans as long as 92% of their funding comes from these same developers (as was the case in the 2018 election cycle).
Lipstick on a pig, as they say.
“I don’t want Laguna to look like Irvine but I also want it to work like Irvine in terms of getting things done,” she said.
Earth to Ms. Sheridan: Working and getting things done like blowing through ≈$250 million in 15 years on a non, never-to-become-existent Great Park comparable to Central Park or other spiffy models?
USMC veterans like myself banished off-site to Gypsum Canyon for our cemetery?
A few whining. superstitious residents who didn’t want to see veterans honored with a final resting place on the former Base, a deep pocket development firm that bought council seats and influence, and Irvine governance sold us ALL out.
Greed and selfishness, that’s what took over and eventually fractured Irvine into special interest groups it haste to recover from.
OC voters trusted Irvine and basically gave them free rein, so bringing up that land of broken promises, what a black fiscal and bureaucratic hole it’s become——Cookie cutter homes (“boxes, little boxes, and they all look just the same”), boojie-ville, Ms. Sheridan’s selection/statements play right into LRF hands.
Irvine City Council not only squandered hundreds of millions but became dictatorial when it dissolved the original 9 member Board (canning the 4 public-at-large members) and made itself solely responsibly with no direct regional accountability.
Irvine made a fiduciary promise to those who helped it fight off an international airport conversion—-So c’mon, you cannot be serious, might want to stop mentioning the ripoff over the hill.
Irvine hasn’t “worked” in over 20 years, nor will that mentality get Laguna whole again, coherent as a unique So Cal coastal gem community.
Great start, with “foot-in-mouth disease,” might want a do-over and nix the Irvine references, k?
Just sayin’……
So the founders of Liberate Laguna are tired of being questioned about their motives? They can’t take the “heat”??? They started this whole mess and division in town with their war against Village Laguna and others who are trying their darnedest to NOT let Laguna Beach be Irvine. Are you kidding me?? Does anyone believe that Shopoff/Ray/Goldstein will not be leading the direction of this money PAC to influence the next election?? They want to see more wanton development, more tourists and could care less about resident interests. Look at what the 3 Liberate Laguna Forward council members have voted on. God help us if the residents don’t wake up to what their agenda is – with the City Manager and City Attorney giving them cover I shudder to think what this town will look like in 10 years.
Oh Michele why so perpetually cynical? It’s so great to be living here and yet you continually gush with anger. I can’t wait to see what this town looks like in 10 years. Same height restrictions, same protections for historic homes, same protected green and blue belt, same lush neighborhoods, only with updated commercial offerings instead of dated and shuttered ones. With parking structures on the outskirts of town and numerous ways to get around without cars. On demand residential shuttle services; electric bike rental kiosks, more pedestrian-only streets downtown. Less traffic, pollution and noise, it will feel like old Laguna again. People will meet and greet in person instead of warring on social media. Dynamic new restaurants with outdoor dining and entertainment, new experiential retail to combat Amazon, many of which will cater to locals; growing our own food, recycling, harvesting and storing water. Laguna Canyon will look like a real neighborhood with bike and pedestrian paths, mixed use retail and more housing. All the while maintaining our small town aesthetic charm. My god the future looks bright. Much of this is already in the works, thanks to visionaries like our current council and City Manager.
As the Founding Chair of The Great Park Conseruancy, one of the primary opponents to destroying South County with a new international airport and the firmer Chair of Art Spaces Irvine, I know with great accuracy what has happened in Irvine over the last 40 years. Mr. Butow does not.
“She’s specifically interested in providing homeowners with a more efficient path to improve their properties . . .”
That’s rich.
When was the last time a big development group gave a damn about homeowners?
More likely, Liberate Laguna Forward is going to try to use this ruse as a way to enact changes that will allow developers to subvert and avoid building codes, ordinances, height restrictions, parking requirements, density ordinances, permits, plans and inspections . . . all in the oh-so benevolent guise of helping residents.
Well worth noting – the spouse of the new spokesperson for Liberate Laguna Forward sits on the Design Review Board.
No chance of insider collusion there, I’m sure.
All about helping residents, I’m sure.
“You get tired of the arrows being thrown at you when you haven’t done anything.” – Cindy Shopoff
Oh, poor, poor, poor Cindy Shopoff.
Then again, as one of the biggest contributors to the developer’s PAC Liberate Laguna, she has help push the agenda for massive overdevelopment in Laguna Beach by contributing to the quarter of a million dollar slush fund to elect pro-development City Council members.
When this group’s members speak of property rights, they’re talking about eliminating height requirements, blocking views, destroying heritage buildings, increasing density, promoting more tourism, skirting parking requirements (or having residents pay for a parking structure to serve their private profit businesses), and building oversized, incompatible stucco boxes a la Huntington Beach and Dana Point.
And that, Cindy Shopoff, is not “doing nothing.”
Crocodile tears.
Billy Fried – I read your post here, then used it to fertilize my yard.
Let me know when there’s a scintilla of truth to it.
I’ll be waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
Mr. Ray:
Gosh you’re hysterically funny……You forgot to mention that the City of Irvine did as I wrote: They dissolved the non-profit GP Conservancy, basically firing the 4 public, at-large Board members nearly 7 years ago.
This gave a City Council majority SOLE control of the $$$ & future of land development, cut backroom sweetheart deals. Then they only needed 3 votes, all controlled/motivated by campaign contributions, political expedience and special interests.
Second, when the conversion was announced, I was asked by former LB City Council members Baglin & Pearson to submit my name to serve on the Hazardous Waste Sub-Committee (SUPERFUND) + track the enviro-restoration of former USMC Air Station El Toro.
It was openly discussed and known to all that I had served the final 6 months of my Vietnam-era enlistment commitment there before honorable discharge.
The subcommittee (est. 2002??) was chaired by Ms. Marcia Rudolph (Lake Forest City Council), and I was the only NGO/public watchdog rep in attendance over the course of the next few years. You never attended, did you?
For those who wish to view my ongoing commitment, well after my subcommittee service, go online to Salem-News.com
There’re numerous columns by myself, owner/editor Tim King et al. We helped expose to the general national and local public, plus Irvine residents about the damaged goods they’d become stuck with, the back room stooge shenanigans and corruption of Irvine governance.
I bonded with other Marines who’d also been exposed to the contaminants in the air, soil and especially water (we drank, bathed and swam in toxic water pumped from below the base). I, like them, had cancer-related issues that were difficult to prove at service-connected medical hearings.
We formed a concerned USMC effort we called sarcastically TET: Team El Toro, around 2008.
If you’re going to cast asperions on a Marine who not only served his country honorably, but continued to volunteer his personal time from 2002—2012 or so, vilify or denigrate regarding his knowledge of Irvine’s shadow, developer-friendly puppet officials, you should just come to a full stop.
You’re fighting out of your physical and mental weight class.
And anyone who sees Irvine as a role model for anything other than greed, desperately needs psychotherapy.
There is only one comparable topic: A thoroughly dysfunctional, irrevocably fractured City Council.
Mr. Ray? Welcome to the jungle.
Applause, you nailed it, isn’t the same thing happening in Laguna that happened in Irvine. Nailed Mr Butow!!! and thank you for your service to our country!