Letter: Regarding April 12 City Council Meeting

1
1989

Councilmember George Weiss’s untoward behavior during last Tuesday’s City Council meeting at first had me marvel at Mayor Sue Kempf’s and our City Manager Shohreh Dupuis’ composure.

When it continued with rudely dismissive behavior towards these two strong professional women who serve Laguna Beach every day, it hit me. Coming out of law school, even back in 1980, such patently paternalistic behavior was increasingly called out and vilified. Such obvious discourtesy would never be tolerated in the courtroom, the operating suite, or any other professional environment, period. For that matter, Weiss’s attitude is obviously misogynistic in any setting and was disturbing to witness.

Zero tolerance applies to any such behavior and must be addressed. Weiss needs to sit back, listen, and learn.

Gail Allyn Landau, Laguna Beach

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  1. Revisions were made to our originally agreed upon changes, plus I’ve refined one of the lines that got deleted.

    Please post.

    Gail Landau, Lianne Mech and Debbie Forsyth must have been watching a very different City Council meeting from the one I saw. In their recent attacks on Councilman Weiss – while also exalting on-high the specious behavior of Mayor Kempf, Councilman Blake and City Manager Dupuis – they missed the fact that Mr. Weiss played a key role in saving our library from being sold out from under us without public notification by these very Council members for its potential use as a downtown-glutting parking lot.

    Where’s their talk about their favorite son, Mr. Blake, being the only Council member trumpeting the library’s removal even after 34 residents stood up or called in to proclaim their hot disapproval?

    They also neglected to mention Mr. Weiss’ calls for point of order – calls to the Mayor to short-circuit yet another one of Mr. Blake’s disrupting, blustering, off-topic tantrums – all while Blake talked over the Mayor who was flailing unsuccessfully to silence him.

    They made no reference to Mayor Kempf and Councilman Whalen’s repeated denials they knew about the potential use of the library site for a parking lot, when Mr. Weiss had to keep pointing out that they were the ones who originally approved of the plan in writing.

    In this same meeting, their vaunted Mr. Blake called residents ignoramuses.

    As for misogyny, Mr. Blake has repeatedly called women he disagrees with “polyester Bettys.” I’ve never heard Ms. Landau’s outrage over Mr. Blake’s attacks on Councilwoman Iseman – calling her a “sycophantic, boot-licking [slur]” – as if this was up to her esteemed level of professional decorum. How would Blake’s publicly using vulgar profanity during a City Council meeting go over in her refined circles?

    Given their nearly identical attacks on Mr. Weiss, I’d almost have to question whether this was part of a coordinated ongoing effort by Liberate Laguna/Laguna Forward to deflect – attacking Mr. Weiss to take the spotlight off of Mr. Blake, Mayor Kempf and their City Manager Dupuis’ continued mismanagement in an election year. ($2.7M Ti Amo non-fire station purchase, anyone? Care to replace our library with a parking lot? Did we lose any more senior staff members this week? Hey, let’s violate the Brown Act and vote in secret to allow for the renovation of the five-times red-tagged Hotel Laguna – without requiring any plans, permits or inspections!)

    Let’s not forget – Mr. Weiss is not running for office; Blake and Kempf are.

    Ladies – if you want to point fingers, please try pointing a few back in your own direction.
    Reply

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