For anyone still on the fence about how to vote on Measure Q, an article in Oct. 28 Daily Pilot about Costa Mesa’s effort to rescind a similar Measure is quite instructive. Measure K will reverse the deleterious effects of Measure Y, passed in 2016, which requires a public vote for any development that alters the General Plan or Zoning laws. Now city officials are claiming they are stymied from building state-mandated housing, because developers don’t want to go through the arduous, time consuming and expensive process of voter approval. City officials complain that with Measure Y there is just no path to intelligent progress.
A Measure like Y, which requires voter approval only for projects that are so macro they would change the General Plan or Zoning laws, might actually have been palatable to most Laguna residents to stymie the threat of actual “mega” developments. And the Measure Q folks were asked by some very reasonable minds to simplify theirs to something similar. But they refused, and instead have submitted a complex, Draconian, overly burdensome Measure with so many unexpected triggers that small mom-and-pop businesses will be repelled from opening here, and new ideas for our town would come grinding to a halt. And it effectively would create a quagmire whenever our town needed to pivot in the future to unexpected mandates and improvements to our transportation grid.
Let City officials do their job. We don’t have the time or expertise to weigh in on every new project. With the Forest Promenade imperiled by this Measure, along with many restaurants with outdoor dining, Measure Q would be a crushing blow to the progress we are making to modernize our village and make it more attuned to the 21st century. No on Q.
And for those still on the fence about Peter Blake’s re-election, toughness may be admirable, but when it’s delivered through cruelty, it’s a devastating pathology that does nothing but harm to a community. We are better than this. Let’s not have another four years of cruel behavior aimed at demeaning people.
Billy Fried, Laguna Beach
