By

Why Do They Move Here? It’s a high bar. House prices are higher for a smaller and older house than someone could buy elsewhere. Lots are small and neighborhoods are crowded. Traffic is difficult. Parking is challenging. Yet new Lagunans can’t wait to move in. Why? I heard a new...

What happens when goals are partly met and partly not? Everyone is a little disappointed—but at the same time pleased that some of what they hoped for actually happened. (Or didn’t happen, as the case may be.) For years we have known the Village Entrance as the big expanse of...

Beyond Complaining The message of this column is supposed to be “Stop complaining and do something positive instead.” But I run the risk of complaining about complainers! How do I manage to avoid that? As I was browsing through an antique store, I was tempted to buy this sign. It...

Rachel Visits Laguna Inspired by Jim Nordstrom’s photo, “Edward Hopper goes to the Legion Laundromat,” I wondered what might have resulted if commentator Rachel Maddow had come to Laguna Beach last week. Here goes… “Wow, this has been a week! Lagunans don’t need Mueller and Barr...

Campaign Promises Some campaign promises are best left unkept. Candidates get a lot of predictable questions and for the most part they give predictable answers. Except for this one. The question at the Laguna Beach Independent forum back in October was, “How do we restore...

Community Spirit Treasured I was chatting with Bill Blackburn, husband of the late Kathleen Blackburn, two-term councilmember and mayor, and his sister Betsy at the South Laguna Community Garden Park last Saturday. Neighbor and fellow gardener Jeannie Richardson had organized the...

Less Laguna in Laguna? “Less design review and less heritage is what we’re looking for,” pronounced Councilmember Peter Blake at the last council meeting. Less oppressive bureaucracy, less mismanagement, less irritating treatment of the public—absolutely. But not less protection...

Laguna Changed My Life “Oh, those new people, they don’t understand Laguna.” I’ve heard that accusation, sometimes from some of us long-timers who have become battle-scarred working to preserve open space, keep buildings in village scale, and protect our artistic heritage. B...

Follow the Coffee In politics recently we’ve heard a lot about “following the money.” Here in Laguna we can also “follow the coffee.” It tells the story about respect and cooperation—or not so much. When I first started going to council meetings in the late 1980s there was a...

Walking Away from Our Heritage?   How did a Walmart end up across the road from the Victorian farmhouse where I grew up?  Because my family and I walked away from our heritage. My great-grandparents came to Wisconsin from Germany around 1870. First, they bought 20 acres of...

It Can All be Joyous “It’s fun just like Hospitality Night except it isn’t cold.” That was my unsophisticated review of last Saturday’s Fete de la Musique, where scores of bands played throughout downtown and Mexican folklorico dancers and Jheri St. James’s belly dancers...

From One World to Another Last Saturday we pulled into Shady Lane RV Camp just north of Barstow looking for the road to Fort Irwin. This was just one of the moments on this trip when I wondered why we had left the blue skies and cool ocean breezes of Laguna to take on a desert...

Some Gave All The mayor is usually asked to give a speech at the Monument Point Memorial Day ceremony in Heisler Park.  In 1994 I was mayor so that request came to me. “What to say?” I wondered. “Here I am in this wonderful city, safe, with the worst attacks being verbal ones....

Bully Beef “Southerly gales, squalls, lee rail under water, wet bunks, hard tack, bully beef, wish you were here, instead of me.” This was writer and adventurer Richard Halliburton’s last message as his Chinese junk, The Sea Dragon, battled a typhoon somewhere near Midway...

Standing Up for the Trail Ever wonder how people traveled along the coast before Coast Highway was built in 1926?  There was the old Coast Road.  William Wendt painted his well-known painting of it near Rockledge in 1916. The dirt wagon road wound its way along the coast...