Editor,
Once again Lang Park is threatened. The city has commissioned a study to see if a double-decked Olympic-sized pool and locker room atop a parking structure can somehow be crammed within the park’s confines. Something must be sacrificed and that appears to be the park’s already limited open space.
It is ironic that a city that is willing to spend millions of dollars purchasing open space for a green belt is willing to eliminate valuable open space preserved within the city.
Another major issue is the parking. Beach visitors already overwhelm the lot and adjacent neighborhood streets, especially during the summer months when the demand for the pool would be the highest.
Last summer saw neighborhood streets inundated every single day. Beach-goers will gobble up those 25 spaces at the pool in a heartbeat. Furthermore, after telling Laguna residents that they could not build swimming pools during the drought, why now are they willing to use 660,430 gallons of our scarce water supply? The pool would be noisy and would negatively impact the environment, the neighborhood, the Methodist Church, the Vista Aliso Senior Center and Anneliese’s Preschool.
Lang Park is already a very busy park with kids and parents, birthday parties, dog-walkers, Frizbee-tossers, picnickers, sunbathers, strollers, basketball, soccer, T- ball, tennis, sports camps and yoga as well as many other day and evening classes and church services on Sunday. Just last year the Boys and Girls Club joined the busy lineup. There are two other parks in Laguna that already have adequate parking and more space available for an aquatic facility if Laguna Beach really needs to be the smallest city in California with two swimming facilities. Lang Park not Lang Pool.
Carolen and Jim Sadler
Laguna Beach
