Burning Jackets
Work has just begun on the $11.1 million-dollar Village Exit and controversy has already started. There’s the historic sewage sludge digester tank with its 60,000 gallons of toxic waste and 40 cubic yards of toxic sludge. Always good for a stink.
Lots of luck to anyone walking out the canyon. Does anybody believe those plastic cones will keep the constant parade of pedestrians, skateboards, dogs, baby strollers, wheel chairs, scooters, and bikes safe from traffic speeding by just inches away? And for months on end?
Some folks have determined that the new Village Exit eliminates 128 existing parking spaces. This could be a good thing. Maybe less parking equals less visitors. Building new roads and parking facilities to solve our traffic problems is like burning your jacket to stay warm. It works well for a while but then the problem always comes back. Once that new road or parking places start working, word gets out and more people than ever before show up.
Why all this effort to attract visitors to Laguna Beach anyway? Our number one issue is traffic and parking. Shouldn’t we do all we can to discourage traffic? There are otherwise serious people who want the city to buy all the access roads to town and charge tolls to discourage traffic with congestion pricing.
The Pageant of the Masters and Festival of Arts began life long ago as a billboard with people on it posing as a reproduction of a famous painting. All that just to get highway traffic to stop so artists could sell paintings hung on a fence. It worked. Traffic stopped. From that humble beginning, the traffic clogging colossus we have learned to both love and hate has grown.
It is no longer clear that having the Pageant of the Masters and Festival of Arts, The Sawdust Festival, Art-A-Fair, Laguna College of Art and Design, and the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach is still good for them or this small town. They’ve out-grown their birthplace and become regional institutions. We have stuffed 30 pounds of culture into a 5-pound village. The next thing you know, the art college will want to rent your garage for studio space. They’ve already rented almost every other vacant spot in town.
It is time for all these cultural enterprises to move to a fabulous new Arts District in the Great Park, before the park is completely filled with tract houses. There’s still lots of room for the modern venues they all deserve, including room for real artist live-work facilities.
No more risking death crossing Highway 133 to get from one classroom to another at the art college. No more increased local’s commute time during festival season. We could go from being the home of the Pageant of Masters and Festival of Arts to being their birthplace.
J.J. Gasparotti moved to Laguna Beach with his family when he was 11 years old. He has loved it ever since.
