I was amazed at the lack of facts and clarity on the Michael Morris letter – first of all he left out Councilmember George Weiss in his list of folks who have not been mayors.
His list of folks who were mayors included some who only served one term as a city councilmember. Verna Rollinger and Ann Christoph were two examples who came to mind as they only were elected to one term of office and the majority of the councilmembers in their term were members or supported Village Laguna. That would make sense wouldn’t it?
Christoph was mayor at the time of the horrific fire at Top of the World in 1993. Folks saw that she did not have the makings of a true leader and did not get re-elected. One reason that Village Laguna followers or members become mayor is that the remaining members of council are Village Laguna followers or members. Toni Iseman hopefully will retire and not run for office again. I still meet people at the Saturday Farmers’ Market parking lot cursing on how it finally came out that Iseman claimed folks don’t need large parking spaces as we are all buying smaller cars. Really. Adding all those curves only made it worse.
New Topic – some residents have expressed as to how many police employees and other members of city hall are retiring or leaving. Many of us agree that the City looks for people with years of experience and thus many who get hired are seeing the potential outcome of finishing their career in Laguna, especially with the wonderful benefits. Good salaries, great working environment, excellent benefits – who wouldn’t want to finish their career here?
Ganka Brown, Laguna Beach
Ms Brown might have failed to fully read or comprehend my LTE which she takes to task in her current LTE. The LTE clearly talks about Council persons, who, during their 1st terms, failed to get either the Mayorship or the Mayor Pro Tempore roles. I focused on “1st Terms” because every person elevated to the Council serves at least 1 full or part term. Looking at those who served 2 terms represents a far smaller pool and sets a lower bar (in that during 2 terms a council person would have 8 opportunities to be selected as Mayor and 8 as Mayor Pro Tempore). I therefore chose to focus on 1st term misfits.
As for not including current 1st term council person George Weiss, most readers will have grasped the fact that Mr. Weiss is only on his 2nd year of a 4 year term. He still has 2 opportunities to be selected as Mayor and 2 opportunities to be selected as Mayor Pro Tempore. In contrast, Misters Lorr, Wilcoxen and Blake have no more opportunities to be selected for either roll during their 1st terms. This isn’t hard to grasp for most, but apparently for Ms. Brown it is.
As for the tangents that this LTE treks down…