By Jorg Dubin
Good intentions are often paved with unrealized consequences. A group calling themselves Laguna Residents First has put forward a complex and untenable initiative whose goal is to set guidelines governing development both small and large.
What is overlooked here is that our community has had extremely rigid development standards on the books for decades and hats off to those who crafted them. Decades later many of these guidelines are still in place however we are living under very different circumstances. In fact, the only major development that has occurred in the last fifteen or twenty years has been the Montage resort.
What the Laguna Residents First initiative seems to forget is that we already have some very difficult policies and commercial design guidelines in place in terms of development.
I want to establish a few facts that the proponents of measure Q never talk about.
- Since 2017 to date, there have been approximately thirty-six plus projects that would have been under the purview of measure Q.
- The cost of each special election is broken down by the number of registered voters in each community. Laguna Beach has about 18,500 registered voters. The cost of creating a special ballot for each registered voter is about $4.80 to $5.30 plus about .70 cents for mailing.
- Every time we were to have a special ballot measure election using the numbers from above, each one would cost in the vicinity of $102,000.00 to $111,000.00.
- So, who pays for the almost four million dollars in costs? Mainly the applicant except for city projects like the new fire station. Then it is our tax money going to work! No one who is interested in bringing an interesting business, housing, restaurant or anything else for that matter would ever consider doing a project in Laguna Beach. This appears to be the goal of measure Q. STOP ALL PROGRESS IN IT’S TRACKS resulting in a city of “papered windows and weathered facades”.
Time for a little historical context here. We all love our theater. Thank you, Mr. Aufdenkamp! We love the Hotel Laguna. Thanks Mr. Underwood! We love the Coast Inn. Thank you, Mr. Smith! We love the Coast Liquor store. Thank you for your design, Mr. Abel. We also love the Heisler building, The White House and Pyne Castle! These fine folks were ALL developers! Had Q been in place when these historic buildings were proposed, we would not have any of these landmark buildings we all love and cherish today.
No retail applicant, hotel owner, restauranter or multi-family home developer would touch Laguna Beach knowing that their project would have to go to a special election requiring a majority vote of Laguna’s registered voters which means around 9300 “yes” votes to approve a project. Let’s not forget that we currently have a design review board, a planning commission, a city council, a coastal commission, a building department and a fire department all of whom are involved in the review process of all new projects proposed in the city prior to any entitlements being given. We already have stringent commercial development guidelines and policies in place and over the last several years they have been better defined and clarified thanks to our community development staff.
Measure Q is a solution looking for a problem. Don’t be fooled by their misrepresented facts! It is wrong for the times and wrong for Laguna Beach. I urge you to vote NO on measure Q in November 2022.
Dubin is a 47-year resident, artist and planning commissioner.
Mr. Dubin, I am wondering how Pyne Castle built in 1927, The Hotel Laguna 1930, The White House 1918, The Coast Inn 1927 or the Laguna Cinema 1934 are relevant in 2022 as models of Development in Laguna Beach? We simply need “Resident Inclusion” in decision making for “Major Developments” in “Today’s Laguna Beach”.
The reason we need Measure Q to pass is so that 3 Pro Development Council Persons cannot ignore the Residents of Laguna Beach’s wishes and rubber stamp development(s) that show favoritism to outside developers wanting to make mega dollars in our town.
The current City Council needs to be “shaken up” and the citizens need their voice in the future. Please VOTE YES ON MEASURE Q
By George, isn’t this what a paid political advertisement looks like?
Then why is it in the columns section?
René Magritte, the surrealist who was infamous for placing everyday objects in absurd settings (like “The Listening Room” which featured an enormous green apple taking up the entire interior space), critics noted that he was challenging our perception of reality.
Isn’t this photo and column doing that?
Many years ago, at the LACMA, I tagged along with 2 local artists to see a special exhibit of his works.
In the foyer as a humorously sarcastic greeting, they had placed his famous “Treachery of Images,” 24″ x 30,” an eery oil (photographically correct) on canvas of a Meerschaum pipe. Magritte had written across the bottom “Ceci nest pas one pipe.” (This is not a pipe).
And doesn’t it transcend reality and history, isn’t it ridiculous, that a seated planning commissioner is posing as if he’s a community activist?
As he’s posing in front of his own work, to promote himself a la Al Franken (Stewart Smalley) on SNL?
We question activist court system judges, isn’t he a judge, why give him ad space when he has the bully pulpit of hearings?
Remember only 2 years ago, when Dubin costumed himself and grimaced as mucho macho Das Kommissar (The Commissioner), in mock authoritarian officer garb, as he is wont to do, himself as a gimmick?
According to his bio, he changed the spelling of his first name in the 5-6th grade to something exotic, unusual, weird—-must have felt an acute need for attention even then, that certainly hasn’t receded.
“Ceci n’est pas un commissaire,” non, “ceci est un complice politique” (political accomplice or conspirator).
That his patron and retirement funder Michael Ray called him Laguna’s greatest living artist is also theater of the absurd, another thinly-veiled endorsement.
Ever heard of Marlo Bartels or Casey Parlette, Jon Seeman?
Keep Das Kommissar on the planning commission: You’ll get reality alright, developer-friendly monolithic complexes and let’s jam more Michelin star restaurants/bars that the majority of locals cannot afford into already under-parked zones.
Who cares if neighbors get tired of the late night noise, no parking for guests in front of their own homes, drunks puking in their yards?
As for the village idiots that try to tell us the algorithm of ride-sharing, remote parking lots/tram or bus services and bicycle friendly streets are going to fend off the facilitation, the enabling of increased urbanization?
They must drink from the same green trough, the specter of rich people visiting us and buying their products while they’re here. Like we’re Babylon and the developer cartel soldiers are the latest conquerors?
They do use a simple equation: Laguna==Kool==$$$
Maybe Dubin could paint himself as the Pope, pull a Magritte, scroll “Sic Transit Gloria Laguna” across the bottom?
If not his lesser half, Billy Fried will gladly pose—Pope Bully The First.
Bow and kiss the ring when you reference me, Ramblin Roger E. Butow, or is it Ramblin Roger VON Butow? Did you change your name for “an acute need for attention?” You can confess all to me. As your proclaimed Pope (which I very much appreciate), I admonish you to stop when you finish a piece, breathe, take a walk, drink some water, use spell check, look up words you don’t understand, and then re-read several times to make sure any of it makes sense before hitting “send.” Then pray someone besides your pope reads it and feels it is at all relevant to the piece you are responding to. As for submitting artistic ideas to Laguna’s undisputedly greatest living artist, I’ll quote the great Walter Sobchak: “You’re out of your league, Donnie.” Besides, a painting of me would be redundant, as you already have my portrait by your bed, the one you compare over and over to Rodin’s “Thinker.” Thank you again. The adulation makes me blush. I’ll leave you with this, Roger Von: “You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it people like you.” There, feel better?