Letter: Where is Charm House Tour Money Going?

This has been an issue with the Charm House Tour for years. It has been a primary fundraiser for the VL PAC. They have been hiding this info from the public. . Hard to believe no one at The Indy knew that.

Village Laguna has filed a lawsuit against the City of Laguna Beach (residents & property owners) over the Historic Preservation Ordinance Update & the Downtown Specific Plan! Their creation ,the Laguna Beach Historic Preservation Coalition ,are also the plaintiffs against the City’s approval of two properties on the 300 block of Hawthorne Road.
I my opinion their legal actions against City are reprehensible.
The Laguna Beach Garden Club is having their annual Gate & Garden Tour Saturday May 6th ! This organization was founded in 1928! It’s a 501c ! I’ll be supporting the Garden Club! Your city your choice!

First do not support the Charm House Tour event. This is A Village Laguna event that pays for or supports/endorses/promotes George Weiss and the failed Measure Q. Village Laguna now suing residents again is not surprising. They need to cease from existing as they are a detriment to Laguna Beach. Defund Village Laguna. I did just join the garden club. A much better group. A non political group should be running the Charm House tour NOT Village Laguna.

I guess Sam, Cathy and Pat forgot to mention that Village Laguna donates money to all of the following community causes:

• An annual $1000 Laguna Beach High School student scholarship started ages ago by founder Arnold Hano
• The Laguna Food Pantry
• The La Playa Center
• The Friendship Shelter
• The Laguna Beach Community Clinic
• The Laguna BlueBelt
• The Kelp Festival
• The Laguna Canyon Foundation
• CCC Laguna Day Workers Center
• Laguna Beach Historical Society
• So. Laguna Community Garden
• Sally’s Fund

Man, VL must be one really greedy, vile, self-serving group! ;-p

How much was spent on measure Q and politicians vs the do good donations? Most of us or all of Laguna would have no issue if Village Laguna only did good charity spend vs suing neighbors and residents and funding/sponsoring measures that violates residents private property and damages businesses from opening or growing. Village Laguna is indeed the boogie man in town.

Sorry Jerome, but making small “donations” does not erase and mitigate otherwise bad conduct. Just like a thief going to church does not exculpate the thief.

Gee Pat complaining much about the Kirby lawsuit? It’s always the same one note with you – I get it. You want to see your “grandchildren” in their house but your constant attacks on Village Laguna for personal benefit are tiresome.

So funny. It makes sense that the GreaterGOP radicals who fundraise for political candidate positioning and who tried to convince Laguna Beach voters to reelect uncivil Peter Blake in 2022 (failing miserably thanks to massive voter rejection) would try to convince the community to ban a fundraising event by another political group.

It’s not uncommon. Wonder how many other non-profit status organizations in LB hold meetings and events to raise money to support their political agendas?

Poor little Michele Monda and MJ – trying to slander everyone because they have no facts to back up anything they say. “Radical” lol – oh my, you do sound like a Biden acolyte. What an idiot.

So funny that MJ is permitted to perpetuate her compulsive lies on this platform…

The Greater Laguna Beach GOP (GLBGOP.COM) did not “fundraise” for any local candidate, but only endorsed.

What I find funnier is left wing socialists shoving anti-property rights propositions down everybody’s throats (Q??) and then looking the other way after its colossal failure at the polls!

Proposition Q lost by a much larger percentage than PB did.

MJ, your relentless diatribes are useless, time to give them up.

As a past leader of LBGOP I find it amazing that you are now a spokesperson for Village Laguna and certainly Measure Q and the two candidates who are pro taking away private property. Michel time to declare yourself an ultra progressive. Village Laguna pretends to be a charitable group but instead has political ambitions. GLBGOP by having GOP in the name is pretty clear about Politics (in reply to MJ). Perhaps rename Village Laguna as the name is not appropriate for a political group.

Christopher Kling. Lies? No just Facts. The GreaterGOP solicits money to exist and influence elections just like every other political group does and you use the funds for voter outreach for the candidates you endorse. Frankly, I don’t think anyone cares if the GGOP, VL or any other political groups hosts a tour, picnic, beach clean-up, private dinners, tapping wealthy members, website blogs/news, or a fancy gala to gain supporters and bring in funds for their causes as long as they abide by their legal status and operation requirements. Agree, political group members constantly bashing other groups efforts to discredit them is a relentless diatribe – time to give that up.

IMO, the endorsement of Peter Blake, I believe the most uncivil and divisive public official in the history of our City showed Laguna voters that your group cared more about party politics than the community. Thank goodness Laguna voters overwhelmingly rejected your candidate and endorsement. Maybe consider sound and respectable candidates to endorse in 2024?

Jennifer, India and Chris – Please list all the public service charities the Greater GOP has contributed in the past year. No lies for a change, please.

The fact that Jennifer, India, Chris and their group the Greater GOP so vigorously endorsed Peter Blake and everything he stood for says it all.

Mr Goldstein and so many of the rest commenting here seem to be so indignant that VL (a non-profit 501 organization) raises money via the Charm House tour, yet also donates and promotes political causes & candidates. Yet most/all of these folks ignore the SAME behavior by an organization they seem to be either members of, or supportive of: the LB Chamber of Commerce. The CoC conducts ENDLESS fundraisers; I can hardly begin to list the numerous “causes”. Far more than Village Laguna. This same 501 also gets giant tax-payer hand-outs every year. Yet, this same 501(c)6 entity donates to superPACs (more than VL did in the 2022 cycle). Why is it OK for the LB Chamber of Commerce to engage in this behavior, yet offensive when VL do it?

We should also consider the fact that Village Laguna endorsed Jerome Pudwill and that MJ Abraham was his campaign manager.

Now let’s get back to the issue: transparency.

Hey, Chris, how much did your superPAC spend on attacking Measure Q?

$250,000 or more in big money contributions from those vested in real estate and development?

Imagine that – more than ten bucks for every man, woman and child in Laguna.

But God forbid that Village Laguna earn anything off of a Charm Tour with much
of the money going to charities.

Now let’s get back to the real issue: hypocrisy.

Mr. Quilter. There you go again with spreading election misinformation.

Fact: Jerome Pudwill created, directed and managed his own campaign. And he did an amazing job in a very short election lead timeframe. Really Impressive! I along with many other supportive locals assisted him as he outreached through local meet and greets to identify and prioritize true community concerns and we were all very proud to do so. I have never been a political Campaign Manager and don’t ever intend to.

One thing you did get right is that VL endorsed Jerome. They also endorsed Mark Orgill. Maybe you have a problem with that VL candidate choice too?

Heavens, Ms Abraham, I stand corrected. You were merely a fervent supporter of Jerome’s unsuccessful campaign. Better? What other election misinformation have I spread that you would like to correct? If you and Jerome want to rationalize that the crushing defeat of Measure Q was all about money and not about policy, that’s your prerogative. The voters you condescendingly assume were misinformed have spoken.

VL’s endorsement of Mark Orgill, a developer who had severed ties with Mo Honarkar, a past board member of Visit Laguna, and an opponent of Measure Q was the oddest and most ironic development in the last election. But he didn’t seek VL’s endorsement any more than Sue Kempf sought Liberate Laguna’s endorsement in 2018, which you have held against her ever since. I considered Mark’s resume and record and voted for him. PACs will do what PACs will do, so I promise not to accuse him of being in VL’s pocket.

Jerome: You and Ms Abraham — our town’s most tireless critic of what she insists is a lack of transparency in local government — are dodging the issue: VL’s lack of transparency. Sam’s point was a simple one: “If the residents are aware of where their donation for this “charm house tour” is going and choose to give, then so be it, but most do not know.” The Indy agrees. Unclutch your pearls.

Why all the drama and dirt against Village Laguna (VL) whose reputation has been dragged through the mud by some bloggers here as well as columnists in this paper? The mud-slinging got so intense, particularly by Mr. Ray, that it drove me to investigate VL about five-six years ago to see if any of the allegations were true. They were not. I promptly donated to VL as my protest of the smut leveled against them. Yes, I did find that VL had endorsed city council candidates and run ads in support of their endorsed candidates. However, most of the VL activities I tracked had to do with environmental issues, something that impacts all humans and life forms living on our beautiful planet. The Laguna Forward/Liberate Laguna (LL/LF), or whatever name that PAC is using these days, on the other hand, impacts the self-interests of its members’ businesses and business investments/plans. One group, VL, works out of interests for all, and one (LF/LL) acts out of self-interests. I’ve never liked pork-barrel politics. I still don’t. There would be no Main Beach Park without VL, and no green belt in our Canyon. Those VL activities seem more like for the good of all then anything I’ve seen from LL or LF.

I have no problems with the community knowing VL profits from the Charm House Tour if you and Sam have no problems admitting you and your superPAC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a lying, fear-mongering campaign to defeat Measure Q.

Jerome, Jerome, Jerome: it’s a false equivalence to compare a fact about VL with your opinion about why Measure Q suffered such a crushing defeat. In my opinion, “the lying, fear-mongering campaign” was waged by you and Measure Q leaders who would rather blame the outcome on duped voters rather than look within and wonder how you managed to misread the will of the people so badly. But, hey, that’s just my opinion.

PS: Like Deborah Laughton Weiss, I am grateful to Village Laguna for its major accomplishments back when I was middle-aged. Many years later, however, it is sanctimonious twaddle to say VL still “works out of interests for all.” If it did, it would have attracted more members and fared better in recent elections.

Chris – Exactly how many hundreds of thousands of dollars did your superPAC of developers and business interests spend on your deceitful campaign against Q?

State that fact and I’ll be glad to let the public decide. Go ahead – state the amount.

With that kind of money and that big of a media blitz, you and your crew did exactly as you cite: dupe the public.

Tell the big lie often enough and to many it becomes the truth. Congratulations, Chris, well done.

PS. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was that again?

Unfortunately, I think it obvious that indecent amounts of money were spent to influence the election on measure Q. The amount of advertising in this local paper alone makes that evident. Add to that the editorials by Michael Ray which amounted to nothing more than cost-free advertising. If Q works so well in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, and San Clemente with no additional costs to the community (past the first time developers tried to fight it in Newport, lost, then set their sights on Laguna Beach as it’s next goldmine), why the great fear? Fear-mongering is the most effective, and insidious, way to influence an election. Funny that so many of the people who paid for all the opposition are developers and others with financial interests.
BTW- I resent that our local paper acts as a mouthpiece for such highly biased columnists as Michael Man. Please report our local news and leave your personal bias out. One must only assume that it is because of economic incentives that this is allowed.

Ms Jepson-Bernier: Measure Q laid an egg with local voters. The reason why was Measure Q.

How many hundreds of thousands of dollars did your superPAC spend to help kill Measure Q, Chris?

Tell the big lies often enough, and for many they become the truth.

Still waiting for that dollar amount. How much was that, Chris?

Don’t forget to throw in any dark money that might not have been reported, along with the money spent on candidates with a kill-the-bill agenda.