Pet Peeves

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Best Made Plans

By Mark D. Crantz

I was delighted to read the Indy’s “Laguna Leaders Receive Recognition for Landscape Plans.” The American Planning Association (APA) presented its 2019 Comprehensive Plan Award, recognizing outstanding achievement in the planning field, to the city of Laguna Beach for its Landscape and Scenic Highway Element of the General Plan (LSHE) and its companion Landscape and Scenic Highways Resource Document (LSHRD), at the American Planning Association-Orange Section-awards dinner on Thursday, May 30.

Whew, that’s a lot to read and take in. Winners must really have detail-oriented minds to figure out who is giving them the award and what area they won the award in. The rumor amongst attendees is the American Planning Association is so committed to planning that they are years behind in actual awarding. This year’s awards dinner recognized 1927 planners, who took down a rotting Lions Club Welcome sign at the Village Entrance. Lions Club members have boycotted the APA awards every year since then.

New plans are now underway to erect a village exit to show 6.6 million tourists and the disgruntled Lions Club members how to get out of Laguna Beach. An early architectural model displays a large blinking neon exit sign that reads, “Thanks for Visiting Olde Laguna. This way to go fly a drone…this way to go fishing…this way to free parking…this way to smoking…this way to noise making and merriment…this way to unrestricted dog beaches…this way to Airbnbs…NOW GET OUT OF LAGUNA AND HAVE SOME FUN!

Lions Club members were so overcome with joy by the model’s suggestions that they lost sight of the fact it was just a model and not the finished exit. The model was destroyed, as Lions Club members climbed over each other and tried to shrink themselves down enough to fit the exit model and get on their way to more fun outside of Olde Laguna. The 6.6 million tourists were not as moved to leave. They continued picking up each other at the Dirty Bird lounge.

City planners never rest after getting awards. New plans are underway to put in smaller parking spaces that SUVs cannot fit into. Parking ticket revenue is estimated to skyrocket 2,000 percent. City planners predict this simple change will help pension funding, which will still be 4,000 percent underfunded. The shortfall will be met by charging motorists for multiple lapping at their newly landscaped roundabout. And the digester building will be turned into an electric car charging center to create another revenue stream, right after the city bags all the accumulated #### to sell as locally grown at the weekly farmer’s market.

Crantz tells the Indy that he is not a good planner. He thinks of himself as a “#### just happens” kind of guy. Don’t be surprised to find him bagged and for sale at the next farmer’s market.

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