A note to Mr. Jensen and his comments about the city manager in last week’s issue:
A very routine matter that would not rise to the level of the city manager is not grounds for a compliment. This may not even have involved the city since the Orange County Flood Control District has maintenance responsibility for the channel, not the City of Laguna Beach. In any case, Public Works does not need direction from the CM to do its job.
The CM is routinely failing to manage the staff and safety services under her direct supervision, as has been pointed out repeatedly in employee satisfaction surveys of the police and fire department employees, as well as attrition of longtime city staffers.
Given that 70% of the city’s budget is paid for by our residential property taxes, not sales tax or business taxes, why is it that the CM appears to direct her planning staff to limit the influence of both planning commissioners and residents on the future of Forest Avenue per Ann Christoph’s column in last week’s paper?
And again, given her clear biases in favor of downtown businesses, how is it that she and Mayor Whalen make no public statements about last week’s total loss of power (and attendant revenue) in the downtown area during a key summer tourist week? This has happened multiple times. What is wrong with the power infrastructure of the city, and why are they not doing something about it?
Finally, what are the priorities of the CM and the council?
Are they going to make certain we have underground power lines in Laguna Canyon so that fallen power poles will not block escape routes in case of earthquake or fire?
Are they going to make certain that we continue to have a hospital in Laguna Beach?
These should be the priorities of the CM, not whining about being cyber-bullied and recruiting locals to do PR for her.
Kiku Terasaki, Laguna Beach
Completely agree with your statement.
This City Manager appears riddled with internal problems such as high staff turn-over/employee trust and satisfaction issues and external issues such as poor interpersonal skills and resident relations including making unfounded public defamatory accusations against residents, lack of public trust and finance/spending concerns.
The constant conflicts surrounding this top executive contract employee can be seen in the increasing number of conflicts/claims/lawsuits our City is involved in and we taxpayers are paying for as well as for her personal defense representation. This should concern every LB stakeholder.
Fact is this City Manager and City Attorney are denying/ delaying /redacting Public Records Act (PRA) requests – especially related to employee separations, Legal claims/costs and employee related actions. In my opinion, there’s a reason for this; a lack of honesty and transparency.
Hey MJ,
How has your quality of life been affected by all this?