Laguna Beach council candidates weigh in on art matters
Laguna Beach has no shortage of discussion topics, and on Saturday, those running for the two open seats on the City Council in November had a chance to explain how they would approach issues related to one of the town’s foremost passions.
Several dozen residents filed into the Forum Theater to find out what the future might hold for the arts community.
Incumbents Bob Whalen and George Weiss sat on the stage with challengers Hallie Jones and Judie Mancuso, all four of them tackling questions from moderator Tom Johnson, the publisher of Stu News Laguna, in a one-minute timed and rotational format.
Candidates broke the ice by sharing what they knew about the Laguna Beach Arts Alliance, the hosting organization, and detailing how they were involved in the local arts scene.
Whalen’s list included serving as a board member for Laguna Art Museum and subscribing to Laguna Playhouse. He also noted his wife, Kirsten, is a Festival of Arts exibitor.
Mancuso took the opportunity to promote her new book, “Because They Need Us: My Political Fight to Save Animals,” saying that the cover was done by a local artist and it was shot at the Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center.
While each hoped to bolster the arts through various forms of funding and programming, the first opportunity for disagreement came when the idea of a downtown parking structure came up.
Whalen got first bite at the apple, and he supported the idea of a parking structure behind City Hall that he said would help the downtown businesses and the arts district. Jones agreed, adding that if a parking structure were to be built, a location with multiple uses would be necessary.
“I think it’s important that we have a structure that doesn’t sit empty nine months out of the year,” Jones said. “We need a structure that’s going to be used year round, and I think that location specifically would provide parking for attendees for all kinds of cultural events in the community, as well as [for] people who are working in our local businesses, city employees and visitors.”
Mancuso and Weiss looked at the issue through the lens of traffic in town.
“I feel that we have way too much congestion in our town, the bottlenecks,” Mancuso said. “It could just create a whole lot more. I’m open, but that is not what I’m hearing … the town wants.”
Weiss said a parking structure should not be paid for by the city because it’s not being built for residents, suggesting that the solution would be to build a parking garage on the outskirts of town and busing people in.
“All you’re creating is more congestion coming into the center of town,” Weiss said. “It’s not good. It’s not good for pollution, it’s not good for congestion, it’s not good for the residents, and it lowers the quality of life.”
One question led to another when a query about solutions for a slow summer season for the art festivals brought the conversation back around to attracting the right kind of visitors and reinvigorating the art collectors in the community.
The overwhelming amount of tourism and the ensuing traffic impact dissuaded residents from wanting to leave their homes, Mancuso said. Visitor behavior was also noted by the candidates. Whalen said education programs and more enforcement of the laws would work toward bringing the situation under control.
“I don’t like this underlying tenor of getting the right people to come to town,” Whalen said. “Everybody gets to come to town, anybody who wants to come. What we need to do is figure out ways to better manage them when they’re here.”
Jones was quick to back the notion that there was not a right type of visitor for Laguna Beach, emphasizing the importance of maintaining coastal access for all. Later in the forum, Jones called housing the “biggest need” facing the arts community.
“I am a huge fan of adaptive reuse,” Jones said. “I’m a huge fan of looking at properties, particularly in the canyon, that are currently being used as artist live-work space — even if they might not be permitted that way — and streamlining that process, making it easier for people to live and work in the places where they already are living and working. That’s also going to protect the character of the canyon. It’s going to protect the character of our town.”
Whalen also mentioned a community land trust considered by the council in March, which would aim to address the need for affordable housing.
As for what residents might welcome more of at the Festival of Arts grounds, Weiss suggested an Indigenous arts and crafts show in which the exhibitors kept the proceeds and brought it back to their community.
At different intervals, Weiss also showed interest in bringing opera programming to town.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
