By Michael Ray
Here are my guesses about our coming elections, Laguna Beach Edition.
Council Member Toni Iseman will not win because she is not running again. Otherwise, she probably would win because incumbents almost always win because of high name recognition. Given that, she has been in office since Clinton was President, which is a long time to make a lot of enemies, which she did, who would have attacked her. No matter. She isn’t running.
Peter Blake probably will win because he is an incumbent. He will be attacked for being “uncivil,” but he kept his main promises: clearing our beaches of what he calls “criminal transients,” and strengthing private property rights. Also, his supporters tend to be hardcore for him.
Sue Kempf probably will win too, again because she is an incumbent and mostly votes the same as Peter, which are popular votes, and is calm, cool and collected. And detached. People like that.
That leaves one opening for several other candidates. The winner probably will be Alex Rounaghi because his mother was a power on School Power for years and very popular, and because he has a dozen relatives all helping him, adding a built-in campaign base to name recognition.
This leaves Louis Weil, who, despite his best efforts, has been pushed aside by Alex’s popularity, which is a bit of a shame because Louis is a great Chair of the Design Review Board, a good and kindly man, and should be in our civic picture.
The Village Laguna candidates, Jerome Pudwill and Mark Orgill, likely will lose because no one knows their names and they’ve done nothing in the community to merit anyone’s support.
Finally, there is Reuben Flores, who has the distinction of allegedly multiple code violations and allegedly welshing on his debts, and thus easy to attack.
Proposition Q probably will fail because it goes too far and no one understands it. Plus, it is easy to attack. Examples: it would kill outdoor dining and the Forest Avenue Promenade, and subject even a new barbershop to a vote of the whole city. However, it is Village Laguna’s last hurrah, and they will go all out to support it.
Proposition S to raise minimum wages in hotels from $16 to $18 per hour probably will win because those employees already are paid more than that and these types of propositions (give the little guy a break) almost always win.
Proposition R probably will fail because it would have the same impact as Prop Q (for hotels) and the hotel lobby will spend furiously to kill it.
On “Nextdoor Neighborhood,” the social app “connecting” neighbors, the number of postings will go nuts because those posting on it post scores and scores and scores of times to make up for the fact it is the same fifteen people doing it.
Ditto most local letters to the Editor, whether in The Indy or other local publications.
Village Laguna will mercilessly attack its favorite phantom target, “Big Developers,” although there are none in Laguna (Mo Honakar may own Hotel Laguna, but he is an amateur). That type of campaign against “Big Developers” has worked in the past for Village Laguna (and got George Weiss elected to the City Council in the last election), so why not repeat it?
Well, that’s about it. Those are my guesses.
Write a letter to the Editor with your own guesses and keep score, and don’t go crazy; think of it as an amateur tackle football game.
