By Jerome Pudwill, candidate for Laguna Beach City Council
Your mail-in election ballots are on the way. I urge you to carefully consider your choices for City Council.
As residents, we often find ourselves discussing our quality of life and the impacts related to tourism, business and development. While some prefer Laguna life as is, others advocate for change. This challenges us to look at life’s necessities, interests and differences in order to achieve fairness, equality and balance within our community.
I’m confident we can accomplish this if we accept that our city is out of balance and struggling under the increasing weight of special interest groups. Consider the record sums of local and out-of-state money-feeding PAC’s that are seeking favoritism from developer-backed Council incumbents and two new candidates.
At least four Council candidates are considered allies of real estate interests, investors, large-scale developers and other ancillary profit-driven businesses. According to recent 460 reports, contributions from these donors constitute 43.45 % of Peter Blake’s donations, 37% of Sue Kempf’s, 34% of Louis Weil’s and 21% of Alex Rounaghi’s. Additionally, a new PAC has raised at least $171,000 to oppose Measure Q, the Laguna Residents First ballot initiative.
As a Council candidate who supports Measure Q and listens to residents, I take their concerns seriously. Many feel that the influence of these massive developer contributions have squeezed them out of civic participation in their own hometown. If elected, I will address this and the verbal abuse, intimidation and rejection residents are experiencing.
I also will address our current Council’s lack of transparency. Residents have been repeatedly blindsided by incidents such as the Council’s secret closed-door vote to allow Hotel Laguna to continue its renovation without plans, permits and proper inspections – this despite the hotel being red tagged at least five times.
Then there was the well-concealed possible future conversion of our library into a parking lot. Preceded by the purchase of the Ti Amo restaurant in South Laguna for $2.7M as a fire station site. Though 50 residents protested, the purchase was pushed through by a 3-2 vote, without an appraisal or a feasibility study. The site proved unusable and sits vacant. This lack of transparency and misrepresentation must stop.
I’m fiscally tight-fisted. I won’t support favoritism, back-room or sweet-heart deals granted to developers or the Downtown Specific Plan’s overly generous opportunities that could result in high costs and the Disneyfication of Laguna. I will demand comprehensive and transparent reports from staff to make responsible decisions on your behalf.
Finally, preserving Laguna’s charming and unique environment is extremely important. It doesn’t have to be compromised, and I will fight hard to see that it isn’t.
Overdevelopment threatens Laguna’s charm, however. Residents should be aware that it takes only three Council member votes to override any height, size and parking ordinance by granting a variance. Once variances are granted, a project is green-lighted and cannot be reversed. We’ve seen precisely how this has played out in Dana Point.
Measure Q changes that. It ensures that city officials, staff, developers and the public all work within set parameters that prevent overdevelopment. By giving residents a vote in the approval of projects which pose major community impacts, it becomes residents’ only insurance policy against overdevelopment.
If the future of Laguna Beach is as important to you as it is to me, please join me in addressing the challenges that change presents and correct current Council imbalances so that we may responsibly move forward together.
I stand for reinstating a residents’ first form of government that will preserve our heritage and charm so we never lose the Laguna we all cherish – because once we lose it, it’s gone forever.
I ask you to support my City Council candidacy at jeromepudwill4citycouncil.org and vote for me to serve you on Nov. 8.
Not one real issue addressed. No drought, fire, safe pedestrian and bike streets, under grounding of power lines, flooding, runoff and ocean pollution, mental health post Covid, what to do with Saint Catherine’s, and of course no talk of modernizing our library, because you are the one who started the shameless canard on NextDoor that Council was intent on replacing it with a parking garage, with no evidence to support it except one offhand remark. Pure political theater to spark outrage and the unintended consequence of saddling is with a poor and vision less operator for the next 25 years. Great job!
Your campaign is devoted to phantom issues. “Our city is out of balance and struggling under the increasing weight of special interest groups”…”Back-room or sweet-heart deals granted to developers.” Seriously? Is Mayor Daley lurking behind the scenes? Or Jimmy Hoffa?
Take a page off of Sue, Alex and Louis’ campaigns – try real issues that affect us with real solutions in mind.
Blake get donations because he stands for growth that the businessmen who need to earn profits support. Ten years back I asked Chuck Devore if he’s help me run for City Council and he laughed out loud and said “Yes, I will. Now go home and forget about it. No one like you will ever be allowed to get in with those people down there.” Then, after his assembly term was up he moved from OC to Texas. That’s how bad it really is.
In regard to what Jerome Pudwill is implying about my filings: Currently I, Weil4 City Council 2022 campaign, have raised over $45k from donors. Is he suggesting that over 100+ Laguna residents who have contributed to my campaign (more than twice as many as those who’ve contributed his campaign, by the way) are all somehow corrupted by developers? That’s extremely insulting to me and my supporters and Laguna as a whole. It’s outrageous and simply not true.
Further, if Jerome claims to be a data expert how does he define “ancillary profit-driven businesses?” Local restaurant businesses? Jewelry stores? Furniture stores? Aka, our local small downtown businesses? Don’t they have a right to express their opinions?
And what about the “special interests” that are almost the lone supporters of Pudwill’s campaign, namely Village Laguna, and Laguna Residents First? Will Jerome support only their goals, refusing any kind of balance? To me it seems so.
Why does Jerome continually imply that realtors are by profession corrupt? That’s insulting to me and to the hundreds of realtors in our community. We, Realtors, care deeply about Laguna Beach, by investing in our community, schools, kids sports and community events.
Campaigning for City Council has mainly been a joy as I’ve met and talked to so many wonderful and reasonable Laguna residents and leaders of nonprofits. However, I’m tired of the unfair characterizations of my motives in running for City Council thrown out there by Pudwill and other special interest groups.
I love Laguna and I care about its future. After serving for years on the DRB and Affordable Task, I have the experience. I’m independent. I’m thinking about our future. I want the best for all residents, and balanced decision-making on our council. That’s why I’m running.
Jerome you are inferring, assuming and accusing many items you don’t have evidence for.
It’s not just big developers as you put it against Measure Q, almost all city council candidates, LB Chamber of Commerce and the Laguna Beach Firefighters Association oppose Measure Q. What incentive do the firefighter have to oppose Q? Maybe they don’t want old buildings without fire sprinklers that would light up like a box of matches, Measure Q is bad for public safety.
What is this that you are talking about the library turning into parking? What evidence do you have of this? I feel like you are taking a sentence from here and there and piecing them together to make statements saying what you want, context and timing mater. There is a 25-year lease with the library. Nobody is talking about selling the library. That being said, would it be so bad if they moved the library to a better location, with more room so they could in fact expand the library and its services…maybe even more parking so more people would come use the library and not just a homeless rest area? I’m not saying it should, but that is a context where it possibly could be good.
Lastly why are you upset if more people decided to support other candidates? They raised more money than you, they crossed their t’s and doted their i’s, did everything legally and above board, just to be judged by you in the court of your baseless opinion and/or jealousy.
Since we are talking about things that do not exists could you please expand on your resume? Where or what did you do as a marketing consultant for developers? You’re so vague about your work/teaching experience it almost sounds like you are making it up. Please feel free to post your detailed resume in the comments here. Tell me, how is it that Village Laguna is supporting you, someone you worked for developers, and Mark Orgill, a developer. Yet all this Measure Q garbage is about not letting the developers control the city? Why do you and Mark get a hall pass from this judgement? Something stinks about this whole situation. You are already spreading rumors and what seem to be lies, if this is how you are acting now, what will you be like in a position of power?
I cannot nor will I recommend anyone vote for you, Jerome Pudwill or Mark Orgill.