Here’s a look in the rear view mirror of notable events shaping Laguna Beach in 2017.
Nearly 300 officers deployed by 17 agencies maintained peace at a Main Beach rally of 2,500 demonstrators, who swarmed into Laguna Beach on Aug. 20. to stand in solidarity against racism.
Counter-demonstrators vastly outnumbered the anti-immigration group America First that organized the rally. Police made three arrests during largely peaceful protests.
The demonstration came days after a woman died when a car was driven into a Charlottesville, Va., crowd, a clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters. To avoid similar mayhem, law enforcement officials lined the beachfront sidewalk with water-filled traffic barriers. To head off direct confrontations, 20 officers on horseback aided crowd control by creating an intimidating buffer between political opposition groups.
UC Irvine announced its good fortune as the recipient of the 3,200-work collection of modern masters amassed by Laguna Beach resident Gerald Buck. The Emerald Bay resident died at 73 in 2013 within months of the death of his wife, Bente. In November, administrators laid out a five-year plan to build a $150 million campus museum to house the private trove worth millions of dollars and an academic center for their appreciation. Laguna Art Museum was one of many that coveted the collection. “This gift instantly puts UCI on the map as the premier collection and study center at the heart of California art,” said Stephen Barker, dean of UCI’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts and executive director of the newly established UCI Museum and Institute for California Art.
In June, the Laguna Beach Community Foundation struck an arrangement with the Orange County Community Foundation to administer its funds and quit investment management after 13 years of operation. Leaders said growing overhead and lack of growth in the foundation’s assets led to the decision. The organization’s $5 million in assets fell far short of the $25 million needed under management to sustain the organization without annual fundraising. Foundation chair Tom Davis described encountering resistant potential donors who didn’t see the need for the foundation’s philanthropy advice and wanted to manage their own funds.
The California Coastal Commission, exercising its authority over land use among coastal cities, voted 9-2 in December to reject Laguna Beach’s short-term lodging ban in residential neighborhoods for restricting public access. The proposed city rules, adopted after more than a year of hearings, would have restricted stays of 30 days or less to commercial areas. Laguna’s elected officials must vote to accept the commission’s ruling, expected sometime next year. In the meantime, the city’s old regulations that allow short-term rentals in residential areas still prevail. Based on new approvals in the last year, about 43 property owners, covering at least 87 units, are legally permitted to host short-term renters in town. Most are embedded in neighborhoods.
Laguna Beach became the first city in Orange County to effectively ban smoking in all public places. The City Council voted unanimously in May to ban smoking in all outside areas including sidewalks, parking lots, streets, alleys, outdoor dining areas and common areas of apartment buildings. The vote expands the city’s current smoking restrictions, which previously included public beaches and parks and areas considered a fire hazard.
Staffing and oversight concerns prompted the Laguna Beach school board’s decision in June to suspend the Community Learning Center, an alternate learning program established in 1983. After two teachers gave notice, administrators also learned of gaps in CLC’s compliance with the California Education Code: the program had not undergone annual evaluations, its class-size ratio was lower than elsewhere in the district, and it mandated parent participation. No internal volunteers applied for the job, and the district already is overstaffed due to declining enrollment.
Resident Elizabeth Jane Mulder passed herself off as a professional financial expert to embezzle $1.5 million from six local businesses since 2011. She agreed in May to plead guilty to charges of wire fraud and filing a false tax return. Business owners and court records say that Mulder used several schemes, but mostly diverted tax payments of clients to her own account. She used the funds for such indulgences as a rental home on Summit Drive, cosmetic surgery, vacations, expensive jewelry and horse rentals. In October, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter sentenced her to 5.25 years in prison and ordered her to make restitution of $1.6 million. Mulder is due to surrender Jan. 12.
Laguna Beach High School Spanish teacher Jose Luis Gonzalez performed CPR to revive freshman student Sam Tyrrell, who collapsed in his sixth-period Spanish 1 class in March.Cool-headed action and CPR-training guided Gonzalez, aided by athletic trainer Tim Crilly, who fetched an external defibrillator to restart the student’s heart. Sam made a full recovery.
Sande St. John’s persuasive powers summon to life large and small events for myriad community groups, from Laguna Beach Live! to the police department. In March, St. John’s extraordinary volunteerism earned her the woman of the year award for the 74th Assembly District. Assemblyman Matthew Harper of Huntington Beach tapped City Council member Steve Dicterow for a deserving nominee. “I don’t know anyone, man or woman, who deserves it more,” said Dicterow, who described St. John as “someone who gives up every minute helping every charitable organization in town and never has anything to gain by it.”
Historic Hotel Laguna serves its last guests this week under the management of the local family that first leased the 65-room downtown icon in 1985.
After the death in 2010 of the family patriarch, Claes Andersen, his widow Georgia Andersen and their son Stefan took on the hotel’s management. They were unable to negotiate a new lease with the property owners, E. W. Merritt Farms. The Central Valley farm family purchased the building in 1973 and control nearly an entire block of waterfront land south of the hotel. A lawsuit contesting the lease terms says the Merritt family made a new deal with a trio of local business owners. The principals, real estate developers Joe Hanauer and James “Walkie” Ray and IMAX filmmaker Greg MacGillivray, have yet to publicly share their vision for the hotel.
No doubt details about Hotel Laguna’s future will become one of the top developments of 2018.
