Long-Serving Leader Ponders Another Race, Seeks a Clone

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By Robin Pierson, Special to the Independent

Then Mayor Toni Iseman presides over a ribbon cutting last July at the renovated Mountain Street beach access, half of a $1.4 million city project. Photo by Jody Tiongco.
Then Mayor Toni Iseman presides over a ribbon cutting last July at the renovated Mountain Street beach access, half of a $1.4 million city project. Photo by Jody Tiongco.

When Toni Iseman first ran for Laguna Beach City Council in 1998, the local business community was skeptical that a schoolteacher could be sensitive to their needs. Growing up in Fremont, Neb., where her father ran a women’s clothing store, Iseman had a clear picture of how hard it can be to keep a small business alive. As a child, a drought and a recession hit. Farmers and their wives could no longer afford to come to town to shop. Though young, Iseman said she could feel her family’s fear and angst when their apparel store shut down. Her dad went on to finish his career at an Omaha advertising agency, but Iseman’s compassion for small town business owners remained intact.

That willingness to listen to residents – including the business community – has earned Iseman five consecutive terms on the council, making her the longest consecutively serving council member in the town’s history. To celebrate the completion of her fourth term as mayor, the Woman’s Club of Laguna Beach is hosting a luncheon honoring Iseman on Friday, Feb. 2. Tickets went fast and have sold out.

Public service was something Iseman grew up with. Her mother was a member of the League of Women Voters; her father the president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Pursuing a low-paying, high-stress elected office with a heavy workload, however, was not one of her career goals. It took a bit of persuading.

As a single mother raising her son, Nick, and working fulltime as a career counselor at Irvine High, then Orange Coast College, Iseman also made time to serve as a member of the boards of Laguna Greenbelt and the Laguna Canyon Conservancy. In 1998, when former Mayor Bob Gentry, was looking for someone to continue his efforts to preserve both Laguna’s greenbelt and the character of the town’s neighborhoods and downtown, Iseman stood out.

Gentry, who served three terms as mayor during the 1980s and early ‘90s, “asked me three times to run,” Iseman recalled. Three incumbents were in the race. Without a challenger, they would all be shoe-ins. “The value of an election is discussion about issues,” Iseman said. She agreed to put her hat into the race and won.

Asked about her repetitive successful campaigns, Iseman said, “I put residents first. I practice ‘retail politics.’ I call people back. And I, by virtue of my position, I can sometimes get answers when they can’t.”

Underlying her intention to make the needs of residents inform her decisions, is an enduring love for the town she has served for the past 19 years.

Iseman found her way to Laguna at 23. “It was a real historic town and didn’t pancake into another. And it was extraordinarily beautiful. I had to live here.” Since 1970, she has.

When she was first elected to the council, she remembers driving along Coast Highway, passing Main Beach and “seeing the amazing expanse to the south with the ocean and coastline” and thinking, “don’t let anyone spoil it.”

The same issues that plagued Laguna when Iseman first took office – parking, traffic and rarefied property values – not only still exist, but have amplified.

“People have said I’m like Paul Revere. I let people know what’s coming.”

Laguna is turning into a profit center for people who want to scrape and build,” Iseman said. She is a proponent of preserving a neighborhood’s character, allowing people to remodel their homes in ways that blend in with other homes in the area.

As for traffic, Iseman fears that as long as communities surrounding Laguna keep approving developments, “there is little that our city can do to ease congestion from those who love coming here. You can’t retrofit this area for mass transit.” But Iseman is proud that one of her legacies will likely be making free the trolley that encourages locals and visitors alike to get out of their cars.

Despite the demands on her time, (for which Iseman estimates she earns approximately $2 an hour,) Iseman loves being on the council. “I get to learn things I never cared or knew about. Ask me about rats and mosquitoes or sewage.”

Iseman describes the current council as the best she’s been a part of. “Everyone is treated with respect as we move towards compromise. I never want to be the sole ‘decider’,” she said. “Consensus is best.”

Iseman, whose term ends this year, hasn’t decided if she’ll run again. “I was 70% ‘no’ a week ago.” Running for office, she said, “is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, especially asking for money,” saying that it takes about $50,000 to put on a campaign. Plus, “it’s exhausting.”

She’s on the lookout for a “mini-me,” someone who shares her values, just like Gentry singled her out to carry his torch forward. That someone, Iseman said, would “value trees and neighborhoods, respect individuals and watch for those who want to make a profit on the back of our community. A lot of people share my values,” she said, “but they have the good sense not to run.”

The author is a Laguna Beach resident who writes about topics that interest her.

 

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