Editor,
The undergrounding project should be scaled back and limited in scope to reduce the enormous cost burden on resident taxpayers and our many seniors on fixed incomes.
Main evacuation routes are readily established as North and South Coast Highway and Laguna Canyon Road because every resident of Laguna Beach would seek to utilize one or more of these main evacuation routes in an emergency.
Measure LL funds should be exclusively used to purchase utility credits from other cities to be used for main evacuation routes. However, the city has chosen to develop an ill-conceived plan of mapping neighborhood “key evacuation route” that is entirely unfair to a majority of residents who will not use these routes during an evacuation.
The current mapped “key evacuation routes” should be collectively and exclusively funded by neighborhood assessment districts.
I find it particularly disturbing our City Council would choose to burden the many senior residents of this community to pay the cost to improve the aging infrastructure of a publicly held billion dollar company, Edison. The census indicates that 40% of residents are renters, which means a large majority of voters needed to approve a bond measure will not be property owners. However, a general obligation bond property tax assessment cost will most certainly be passed along to renters and adversely impact the rental market. This demonstrates a lack of compassion for those residents who struggle economically. It appears our current City Council prefer community gentrification by attrition.
In addition, $242,000 of your tax payer dollars is being spent on marketing surveys, promotional mailers, power point and video presentation to manipulate residents using Psychology 101 scare tactics to get residents emotionally invested in the underground concept by selling fear.
It would make prudent sense to utilize a share of these funds and approach a potential partnership opportunity with Elon Musk to ask him to develop a Solar City here in Laguna Beach by forming a sustainable energy development team. Laguna Beach may be able to take the lead to develop a sustainable energy model as the future vision for our community. Perhaps residents would benefit from a tax credit and derive income by selling our excess power to Edison!
We won’t know what current technology will bring until we take the opportunity to explore the possibilities available.
Lorene Laguna, Laguna Beach
