I’d like to thank Ann Christoph for once again stepping into the fray when the integrity of this wonderful town was threatened. And in a way it may not even have been to win or lose, but to participate. Something she has never hesitated to do. For the public at large, there are many that feel compelled to jump in, many that should but don’t, and many more, like myself, that always seem to have something else on their plate. But whether or not Ann is a natural volunteer, or simply someone whose very nature doesn’t allow her to step back when she knows that stepping up is the right thing to do, she stepped up.
She did not win this time around. The cacophony created by Liberate Laguna, chock full of fabrications ingeniously calculated to drop into our mailboxes too close to the election to be challenged, have become the new noise in town. Too many fell for that rhetoric and in that process the calm demeanor of Ann was simply drowned out.
And now we must go forward with those that were determined to prevail irrespective of the costs, or the harm to our ears. But we shouldn’t pretend surprise when the ugliness of politics rubs its back against Laguna. Winning matters. And these new faces and these new approaches may create big changes. I can only hope that these new folks will listen to the sounds of Laguna before they introduce jackhammers and bulldozers. Because we don’t all wish we were living in Newport Beach.
I join those that stand up for Laguna’s historical identity, what Ann has always stood for, and I will be listening to these new voices as well. Because the idle conversation about “rethinking our city” is not shared by everyone in the room. And advising us about where to park and what to plant and what to trim and where to build, smacks of a Property Owners Association. And that will destroy us.
Thank you, Ann. Because everything that we do matters.
Mace Morse, Laguna Beach
