I just thought I would add on to Kristen Purll’s letter to defend Village Laguna by adding to the list of outrageous suggestions that could happen here. What if Elon Musk wants to build a car factory in the canyon, or better yet a launchpad for space shuttles for starters. Ridiculous right? There has never been even a suggestion of building hundreds of homes in the canyon by anyone—fire safety, traffic snarls and infringement into state-owned land would stop this. No mega-hotels of shopping centers are even whispered. Believe it or not most of us want our town to stay pristine in many ways. But can we remain so with no parking garage to allow people to park their cars instead of driving around in circles and polluting our air, or driving up hillsides to park? Do we want to drive business including some great restaurants or our world-famous art festivals out of town? Not me.
We need the tax generated by such endeavors to pay for our lifestyle, infrastructure upgrades and safety measures. Even after the horrific fire in 1993 the City Council led by Ann Christoph failed to pursue any significant safety measures. In fact they kept promoting eucalyptus trees as the city tree. Some people call these tactics by Purll fear-mongering. South Laguna which is a focal point for many activities including membership drives by Village Laguna does not want a parking lot, a fire station, people parking on Coast Highway to engage in business or heaven forbid going to our beaches (which are part of the public domain). What was behind the renovation of the parking lot on Broadway? Making it smaller in capacity, harder to navigate through with all the curves, and creating mini-car-sized slots to deter folks from visiting us even if they are friends and family and not tourists who according to Village Laguna members need stay out of “our town”. Plus the loss of revenue and making it difficult for emergency vehicles to leave city hall as they used to do.
1. We have a city council that has at least three members who are pragmatic and getting things done.
2. There is the Coastal Commission that has a strong vote on limiting growth.
3. We have citizens who are realistic and futuristic who participate by joining committees which fortunately are becoming more representative of our community than they were years ago when they were mostly made of Village Laguna members, who were basically chosen by Toni Iseman.
All of these can help to maintain the charm of our town. As the years go by despite the scaring and screaming by some to drive our city to into a dark hole to forget the whole world, they will continue to lead our city into our future with passion, realism, and consensus. Thank you for reading this and hopefully thinking about it.
Ganka Brown, Laguna Beach
