The Lead

Despite doubts from some city bus drivers, trolleys will take the hills with ease this summer, city officials maintain.

For many in Laguna Beach cycling serves as a source of exercise and enjoyment, but for 20-year resident Amy Stonich it serves as a chance to give back.

Although Laguna Beach has three summer arts festivals, a thriving art museum and a lively theater and music scene, the lack of a central cultural arts center remains a shortcoming, according to results of a recent survey.

Local residents Martin and Tabatha Yewchuk will premiere of “The Greeter,” on Thursday, Feb. 25, at Seven Degrees, 891 Laguna Canyon Rd., and ticket sales will aid their efforts to promote the film worldwide.

Bringing a cultural arts center to the city remains a passion for Bob Whalen, a City Council member who informally announced his bid for re-election at a community event last week.

Former Newport Beach resident Pam Bowers uses crutches because of a broken leg. Though she’s been homeless in Laguna Beach for the last year, new rules that restrict who can store belongings at the city’s homeless shelter have proved onerous. Bowers, 46, says she can’t manage her things as well as crutches to travel to an alternate shelter or to take a bus anywhere. So she hides her sleeping bag and clothes in the creek to avoid their seizure by police.

Six or seven honors classes at Laguna Beach High School will carry less weight in the GPA of incoming students, a decision some parents believe will put the graduating class of 2020 at a competitive disadvantage when applying for college.

Every parking meter and public lot in downtown Laguna Beach will increase to $3 an hour, starting June 24, and free summer trolleys will venture uphill to run the city bus routes now serving neighborhoods.

Without an acceptable location for an in-town skate park, skateboarders may soon be shuttled to parks...

In criminal matters, public defenders represent those without means. For low-wage earners entangled in a divorce or a dispute with a landlord, an ex-spouse or a debt collector, obtaining legal help can be difficult.

A federal judge favors Laguna Beach in a ruling over a lawsuit filed by the ACLU over the city's policies towards the homeless.

After years of planning, easements for a designated hiking and mountain-biking trail connecting two hilltop communities was unanimously approved by the City Council Tuesday, officially commencing the trail’s resurrection.

If you presented him with a creative idea, Ken Auster would pause in silence with a quizzical look on his face. Seemingly detached in a daydream, soon he would emerge from “painter’s planet” into the present moment with a critique so articulate it was as though he had been assessing your concept as you yourself were hatching it.

Laguna Beach Music Festival blends contemporary compositions with classical music in three concerts this weekend at Laguna Playhouse.

Five people were injured, two severely, in a two-car collision late Monday near Laguna Beach’s northern city limit and a 19-year-old driver was arrested...