PAC Man
By Mark Crantz
Let’s start with something that everybody agrees on. Laguna Beach is great. That’s why 23,000 of us live here. Okay then, let’s all hold each other’s extendable accordion hands (six feet minimum distance) sing and sway to “We are the World.”
Enough schmaltz. From here on out Laguna is a world divided. There are two warring camps. One is Liberate Laguna. The other is Village Laguna. So, to be sure accordion hands don’t fall into real hands to be swung against one another, please return lefties to the police station and righties to the fire station. (At a future date, a municipal backscratching event will be announced.) Each accordion hand return is good for a free taco, except on Tuesday, at all Laguna restaurants. Any resident who finds a restaurant not serving tacos should turn the establishment in to city hall for violation of the Downtown Specific Plan that requires tacos to be no taller than 36’ on all menus.
Liberate Laguna is pro-development. They want less regulation and more building, whereas, Village Laguna is pro-underdevelopment. They want more regulation and less building. For the next city council election, Liberate Laguna has raised a war chest of $83,000. Village Laguna has raised $15,000. A sum not quite enough to buy an IKEA war chest to put their political contributions into. Instead, Village Laguna has hidden the money in mattresses of homes on their Charming House Tour.
Both groups are recognized as political action committees or PACs for short. It’s a tug of war for Laguna’s future. It’s time I announce my endorsement to pull for one group or the other. Drumroll please. DRUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. (Stop the drumroll. Send the parents of that teenage musician to their illegally converted garage/bedroom for a noise ordinance timeout.)
I support neither PAC. I’ve decided to set up my own PAC. Political Action Crantz is now open for beer-only contributions. Drinking will begin for the debates, continue through the ballot mail-in period via Russia, toast on through 10 days of vote tabulation, switch to shots for court challenges and end with a final toast and pass out on Jan. 20, 2021 at the Recovery Later facility located on Lost Hope Road.
For full disclosure and IRS purposes, the new PAC Man, that’s me, will keep all left over beer to be sold on eBay with proceeds used for printing my upcoming political memoir thriller, “I Can’t Remember.”
Crantz tells the Indy that he’s equivocal about being pro or under development. He’s decided to leave it up to the Coastal Commission. Coasting through stuff is music to his ears.
