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School Calendar to See Dramatic Shift

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Months of debate ended Tuesday night when the Laguna Beach School Board voted to change the school calendar. In a unanimous 5-0 decision, the board members approved an academic schedule with August start dates for 2019 and 2020.

Three Laguna Beach burglary suspects arrested after multi-agency investigation

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A total of 20 suspects, including five juveniles, face burglary-related criminal charges after Los Angeles and Orange County law enforcement agencies conducted a 13-month...

Rancho Bolsa Dive Club Gets the Lead Out

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For almost two years, the Rancho Bolsa Dive Club has ventured beyond the surface, scouring the depths of Emerald Bay's ocean bed for lead...

Gun Control Ricochets Across the Region

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Kylie Mawson experienced first-hand the terror of being a human target as she crawled across the grounds of a country music festival in Las Vegas as a gunman fired more than 1,100 rounds from a high-rise hotel, leaving 58 fans dead and 851 injured last Oct. 1.

Salutations Suitable for Greeter’s Day

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The public is invited to turn the tables and greet Laguna Beach greeter Michael Minutoli at the second annual International Greeter’s Day at 10 a.m. Sunday, June 25, on Main Beach.

Foothill Upsets Breakers, 4-3

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Laguna’s girls water polo run for their third straight Division 1 CIF title ended Wednesday, Feb. 24, at the Woollett Center in Irvine as...

Petrie-Norris Wins Democrats’ Votes

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The candidacy of Laguna Beach resident Cottie Petrie-Norris, in a race to unseat the Republican incumbent for state Assembly, received a boost from the...

U.S. Surfing Open Marred by Melee

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A wave of violence erupted in Surf City USA after the conclusion of the U.S. Open of Surfing on Sunday in Huntington Beach. Local police...

Coastal Commission Halts Ranch Remodel

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By Jennifer Erickson | LB Indy The California Coastal Commission effectively lodged a stick in the wheels of progress for the makeover of the 84-acre...

View Committee Clears its First Dispute

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Laguna's fledgling View Restoration Committee settled their first case on Monday, July 6, effectively restoring the view of Pinecrest Drive homeowners Roxane and Robert...

Bobcat Attacks Beloved School Pets

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A bobcat killed 12 chickens, a swan and three doves inside an aviary on the Laguna Canyon campus of Anneliese Schools on Sunday, Jan. 10, police said.

Arts Backers Dismayed by NEA Cuts

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A white clad army of 180 people marched across Main Beach at sunset in October 2014 like a human strand of pearls on the sand. When they retraced their steps, they revealed blue-lit orbs that cast an eerie glow on the performance art of Lita Albuquerque for the Laguna Art Museum. That same year, cross-over composer Gabriel Kahane performed excerpts from an album about Los Angeles landmarks that combined elements of pop and classical music for the Laguna Beach Live! music festival. And soon Laguna Beach will undertake two studies; one explores how to curb the exodus of local artists and the other excavates the impact of devising more creative workspaces. Both are part of developing a cultural arts blueprint to guide decision-making by elected officials. The three examples each benefited from five-figure grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the arts agency whose $148 million budget was dropped from the federal budget proposed by the Trump administration last week. Coincidentally, Mayor Toni Iseman met with NEA administrators in Washington, D.C., the day prior to the budget announcement, pitching an arts idea that she said received initial interest. “We’ve definitely benefited,” said Iseman, from NEA support for arts organizations and arts infrastructure within the community. Direct and indirect spending by arts organizations and their audiences in Laguna Beach tallies $49.1 million annually, including $2 million in local government revenue, pointed out the city’s cultural arts manager, Sian Poeschl. She cited a 2012 Arts and Economic Prosperity Report by Americans for the Arts, an arts advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. On a per capita basis, Laguna art spending corresponds with better-known culture-capitals such as New York and Chicago. Iseman predicted the NEA “won’t be eliminated, but wounded and injured. I can’t imagine it’s acceptable to Congress.” For Laguna’s art manager, the NEA’s $25,000 contribution towards developing a long-range cultural arts plan provided essential underpinning to more methodically pursue infrastructure for artists, Poeschl said. “This is a very big picture view. It’s not based on anecdotal information or a personal viewpoint,” she said. Aside from the size of the NEA grant, its receipt confers credibility that the community is worthy of the agency’s investment, Poeschl said. Local arts leaders say the announcement did not set off a frantic scramble for development dollars as none of them count significantly on NEA funding. Laguna Beach Live! twice received NEA grants for its chamber music festival, which is now administered by the Philharmonic Society. “There is a push to campaign nationally against the cuts and we certainly will add our voice,” said Cindy Prewitt, president of the music presenter. “The loss of the NEA wouldn’t be a major blow financially for us, just demoralizing,” added Malcolm Warner, executive director of Laguna Art Museum. A $30,000 NEA grant helped fund the museum’s Art & Nature Festival that included the Main Beach work. An even worse blow to arts lovers would be the loss of NEA’s indemnity coverage, providing free insurance for major exhibitions, said Warner, though the Laguna museum has never had an exhibition at that level. The exhibitions approved for indemnity are typically ones organized by large museums and feature irreplaceable art, such as the Matisse/Diebenkorn exhibit currently at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Warner said he served on the panel that reviewed requests for indemnity between 2011 and 2015. “The important point is that shows like this that feature works of high value by the great artists will happen far less often in the U.S. if the federal indemnity program disappears,” Warner said. “Most museums will simply stop trying to organize them because commercial insurance for works of art on this level of value is so expensive.”

Innovators Remix Art Sales

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When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. Four enterprising local gallery owners are navigating changes in the art market by devising new...

Museum to host first-ever decorative arts show

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Adam Neeley's 'Modern Alchemy' fuses art and nature into jewelry design For the first time, Laguna Art Museum will showcase the luminous world of ornamental bling...

Spread Love this February With Handmade Valentine Cards For Seniors

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Mother Theresa once said, "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples." Inspired by...