Mailbag: Thankful for efforts to help homeless

When we read of the program proposed by the city last year to deal with the issues concerning our homeless population, we were more than a little skeptical. We thought too little was being done.

Recently, we walked the length of both Main Beach and Heisler Park, and we saw that the program seems to be working very well. The homeless may still be present, but since the city has provided a place for them to store their belongings and to clean up they have become indistinguishable from the rest of us.

Thanks are due to the day-to-day managers of the program who have refined it and helped ensure its success.

While we know that much remains to be done, we think it timely to thank the council for the progress we’ve made to date.

Barbara and Robert Klein

Laguna Beach

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Skateboarders need more visibility

A definitive and fair-to-all-sides decision regarding skateboarding on Laguna’s roadways is probably no closer than a national decision on gun control.

Accordingly, in the interim I would strongly suggest that the city ask or require skateboarders to wear an orange, or other brightly-colored helmet, while skateboarding on Laguna’s roadways.

A skateboarder’s typical outfit of black T-shirt and black pants renders them almost invisible to motorists and makes them subject to unintended interactions with motor vehicles.

Whether skateboarders are in the right or in the wrong, no motorist wants to hit one. The problem is we can’t always see them as they swoop down the road on their skateboards.

Simply making them more visible to motorists is a reasonable request by the city while the different sides duke it out over long-term rules and laws.

Norm Marshall

Laguna Beach

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Fearful of hitting a speedboarder

My husband and I spend the winters in Laguna Beach in our home on Morningside Drive, which is steep down to where it merges into another steep hill, Rancho Laguna. I live in terror, even as I drive carefully up the hill, that I will encounter a skateboarder or a speedboarder who might veer into my oncoming vehicle. Such an accident would be potentially fatal to the child, and ruin his parents’ and siblings’ lives, as well as that of mine or any other driver.

If the parents of these children want them to pursue this dangerous wheeled sport, the fair thing would be for those parents to purchase land and build a track. Today, a crew of speedboarders flew through a stop sign without so much as looking left or right. If cyclists have to stop, why shouldn’t skate/speedboarders?

Deborah Engle

Laguna Beach

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City has responsibility for creek flooding

No question that a major amount of water came from the holding ponds along the (73) Toll Road, but having lived on Laguna Creek years ago when my rental house faced Laguna Canyon Road and the rear faced the creek, anyone with a camera could take pictures that would prove the city of Laguna Beach has done little or nothing through the years to correct the erratic nature of the “creek” and the possibility of it damaging nearby properties. Pure and simple, the city is responsible, at least in part, for damage by the recent rains.

We had rains of unusual volume in the late 1960s and again in the late 1990s and yet when I tuned into the City Council meeting Jan. 18 I tuned out after hearing council members listening to the need for a $300,000 new computer system for the planning department and a new city entrance. Give me a break. It’s time now for the city to begin planning what happens when a heavy rain hits the areas near El Toro and Laguna Canyon roads. This is part of the city.

Roger Carter

Laguna Beach

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Home improvements blocked by group

Here’s the latest update on Village Laguna and its efforts to block reasonable home improvements in our community. Regarding the historic restoration at 154 Pearl St., several local residents contacted me after my last letter and helped clear up this mystery: Why did Councilwoman Toni Iseman file the appeal to block the development rather than Village Laguna?

It turns out it’s all about the money. If a council member files, Village Laguna doesn’t have to shell out the $650 appeal fee. Meanwhile, the property owner gets stuck with several thousand dollars more in costs for architects and consultants to fight the erroneous appeal. Doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?

Regarding Abalone Point, this project involves the proposed replacement of a 1970s vintage house with a well-designed and tasteful new home. Unfortunately, at the Dec. 16 Design Review Board hearing, Village Laguna brought out all of its big bully puppeteers in opposition. The net result: The property owner was ordered by a 3 to 2 majority of DRB members to pull back a portion of the structure far more than the codes would otherwise require. In legal terms, that’s known as a “taking,” and shame on several Village Laguna sympathizers on the DRB for playing to this crowd.

As further evidence of how out of touch Village Laguna is, the group erroneously claims in its current newsletter that the Abalone Point design “will make much more of [the house] visible to motorists entering Laguna from the north.” Actually, you will see far less than the existing structure, and it makes you wonder whether these activists can even correctly read and understand architectural plans.

Remember: If this were you trying to improve your home, all you would want is the right to follow the rules — not have additional onerous conditions arbitrarily imposed on you. But that’s what Village Laguna, often with the help of the DRB and the City Council, frequently does.

Peter Navarro

Laguna Beach