Laguna Beach Local News

Dear Laguna Beach Community,  As we head into Memorial Day weekend, the summer season is upon us (the sun will come out soon!), and the crowds will follow. The city is gearing up for summer with enhanced services and new staff members to help navigate our busiest time of year....

Memories From a New Family “Two households, both alike in dignity,” our son quoted to the Beautiful Wife and me in welcome. He was too clever with his greeting—we didn’t recognize the opening line from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” The occasion was a first, the wedding of a grandchild, his...

By Billy Fried  Our City Council met on May 16 to discuss, among other things, whether to replace the six firepits at Aliso Beach that mysteriously disappeared over the course of the transition from County to City jurisdiction.   The staff recommended replacing wood-burning firepits with portable propane firepits that could be...

The Importance of Competition   You likely noticed the passing of long-time Laguna institution Annaliese Schimmelpfennig, founder with husband Paul of the noted three-campus Anneliese Schools. Of the people who have lived in Laguna, few have shaped our town in such a positive way, helping tens of thousands of children, to...

The Environmental Sustainability Committee Is Greening Laguna By Tom Osborne On the evening of May 15, two other members of the Laguna chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby joined me in attending the meeting of our city’s Environmental Sustainability Committee (ESC), held at the Senior Center. I served on that committee back...

A Self-Mastery Shortcut By Susan McNeal Velasquez  Imagine waking up tomorrow with a solid sense of who you are minus any of the residual pain from past decisions that didn’t turn out the way you wanted. You would be solidly connected to your present reality; capable of successfully managing your life...

Dear Mo,   Oh, how we wanted to love ya. At least some of us. A benevolent local entrepreneur who would revive some of our aging, decaying properties, and breathe new life into town.   Even when you demonstrated an alarming, outsized appetite to acquire every trophy property in town and entire blocks...

By Carly Sciacca Last Mother’s Day Sunday, Geshe Lopsang Tseten, an esteemed Tibetan monk traveling from India, visited the South Laguna Community Garden Park as one of three stops on his 48-hour visit to Laguna Beach. It was the third time that Tibetan monks had visited the Garden Park to...

By Janice Carter The Pageant of the Masters was in the midst of auditions in May for the first performance of the summer. Several of our artist friends, Andrew Wing, Dion Wright, Leonard Kaplan, and my husband Robert Tanner McCarron, were deciding if they wanted to enter a juried showing...