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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...

Gone Fishin’ We missed him when he was gone for just a few days on one of his fishing or camping trips.  Now we’ll have to make do without him forever. Morrie Granger died suddenly on Monday, April 9.  We are left wondering how we will cope without his daily visits with Rocky,...

Craving for Community: Park Plaza Taking action to improve our town is key to our heritage and essential to the character of Laguna. The “Laguna character” in this case is not outward appearance of quaint buildings we associate with our town. Here I am referring to our internal...

Garden by the Sea Arbor Day was an occasion to celebrate and ponder what trees and landscaping contribute to our lives–and to inspire us to do much more. Laguna Beach can be a “Garden by the Sea.” We are well on our way, but we need to do more to make our town a garden....

Loving it More by Doing Less The downtown has been getting a lot of attention for years now. This beloved heart of our city is considered by many to be the “gold standard” in exemplifying what a small city’s center should be. Yet we are agonizing about how and what to protect in...

A Town for the Ageless Just when I was so disillusioned—thinking that our younger and older generations were never going to connect, I was inspired. I was listening to our local radio station KX 93.5 driving back home from downtown. I love to hear the conversation on th...