Laguna Beach Local News

Leave It to Beaver 3, A Trilogy By Mark D. Crantz Recap? No, skip the recap. Readers are advised to go to the online Indy and read Parts 1 and 2. Exercise your eyeballs and support your community paper. It supports you. Now that readers have been sufficiently tongue lashed…things were going...

What Would the Talking Heads Say? Laguna Beach politics lacks the kind of scrutiny that we are witnessing regarding the 2024 presidential contest. Hours of talking heads commentary on TV weigh every nuance of those national campaigns—from many points of view. It’s become even more compelling and worrisome with the dramatic...

This summer Laguna has felt like one protracted frat house initiation, with a bunch of hooligans and miscreants drinking, puking and defiling our precious campus. On Tuesday night at council, a small group of residents tried to pin the blame squarely on Visit Laguna, our tourist bureau. And sought...

By Russ Gerber Musician Carlos Santana was interviewed on National Public Radio by Michel Martin, who asked about his background, upbringing, and life today. He said he grew up in a poor neighborhood in Tijuana, Mexico. He was an angry teenager in high school and often ended up in the principal’s...

Laguna’s Green Legacy and Its Path Forward Last week’s Indy ran a poignant memorial honoring a true environmental hero, Dr. Elizabeth Brown, whose name is synonymous with many of the good works of Laguna Greenbelt, Inc. I regret that I had too few interactions with her. Other local environmental luminaries with...

By Michael Ray I’m on vacation in Italy. I left Laguna on July 5 after watching this year’s July 4 celebration with drones. The show lasted seven minutes and featured lame images of dolphins, a Laguna lifeguard station and so on.  It didn’t end with a bang; it just ended. The whole...

By Roger Butow “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Portuguese proverb While everyone reacts to the proposed Related California/Neighborhood Congregational Church (RC/NCC) massive redevelopment project, the potential long-term effects of Senate bills SB-4 and SB-9 should be on our public square radar screen. Both were written to codify a...

Leave It to Beaver 2, A Trilogy By Mark D. Crantz Here’s a recap for readers who missed the first column concerning the Beaver family. The Beavers moved to Laguna Beach for a lucrative job offer in the lumber business. It was a difficult car journey from the Upper Peninsula of...

By Pamela Knudsen When I read the news about the Fourth of July drone show, I burst into tears of joy. I know—a little overemotional, but the following backstory will give perspective. I’ve lived in Laguna Beach for 20 years. In June of 2018, I moved from the canyon to a...