Hooray for Michael Ray and his “Musings on the Coast.” Village Laguna still longs for the days when they were in power and the city was filled with corrupt folks—it actually reeked. Just on my little street, I would see inspectors talk to various owners, shake hands, and the inspectors walked away from the project without inspecting it. The three or four folks who lived on my street used every tactic to keep the rest of us under their whim.
Luckily, it started to change as other folks also disturbed by what they saw (especially those of us who were fighting for View Preservation) and worked together. We did get our long-fought ordinance after years of city council meetings; we had the votes. For years they also held tight control of various committees such as the Design Review Board. Toni Iseman who had sole control and handpicked Village Laguna members to lead these committees. Those of us who fought hard and were able to make some changes to the process are still having moments of frustration because there are still things going on behind closed doors that we do not know.
Take for example, the current city clerk who had no experience or background for this job was elected and of course two previous city clerks who are staunch Village Laguna members offered to home school her. At that time, the deputy city clerk was allowed to work from home as many other city employees were. However, who was watching as these three worked in complete freedom—what information was leaked out, or were any internal machinations created to automatically send classified information to friends of Village Laguna. Who knows.
Sue Kempf, Bob Whalen and Peter Blake, in my opinion are the most pragmatic, agenda-driven members who have accomplished so many items that have languished over the years due to Village Laguna-driven council (20 years to finally revamp the Broadway Parking Lot is one example). With one quick flip of the pen by Iseman, that parking lot is now basically useless and a source of lost income. We have hired professional arborists to deal with many dead and dying eucalyptus trees and replaced many of them with greater variety of trees better suited to our situation, especially now that fire season is year-round. The recent Emerald fire is a good sample of how effective good management can help.
As we approach election time, please remember “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” and we cannot afford to believe all the lies we have heard over the years from Village Laguna nor can we afford to mitigate the progress we have made to make our city safer, and by upgrading our sewer, streets, power grid, and other essential services, and to improve the overall quality of life for all us and not limit our dreams by people who are lock stepped into forcing their lies on us by trying to get back in power.
Ganka Brown, Laguna Beach
