Laguna Republicans name new president

Fletcher Berryman, a 2008 Laguna Beach High School graduate, is the new president of Laguna Beach Republicans, according to a news release.

The organization recently elected Berryman to succeed outgoing President Howard Hills. Berryman earned a bachelor’s degree in geography with an emphasis on development economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

After college, Berryman served one year with AmeriCorps in Denver’s public school system. He advocated for low-income third-graders in one of the city’s roughest neighborhoods.

One of his primary goals will be bringing a skate park to Laguna.

“Families in this town have been fighting for decades for the city to recognize that skateboarding is an inter-generational legacy sport as important as surfing, football, baseball or tennis,” Berryman said in the release. “Similarly, we need to have a discussion about how and when the no-take fishing ban can be modified to serve its conservation purpose, without overreaching and unnecessarily denying local families any and all access to fishing in our waters.”

Laguna Beach Republicans wants to form alliances with residents of all political backgrounds and champion personal freedom without taking freedom away from others, Berryman said.

“In all government policy at all levels, consent of the governed is the right we hold highest and most dear,” he said.

Berryman is currently between jobs. He resigned from Bank of the West late last year and will move to Colombia later this year to teach elementary school in a low-income neighborhood.

Laguna Beach Republicans will be electing its 2015 executive committee and new officers including vice president, treasurer and secretary, as well as committee chairs for membership and fundraising, at its meeting later this month.

For more information, visit the organization’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/lagunabeachgop.

—Bryce Alderton

Twitter: @AldertonBryce

[For the record, 7:20 p.m. Feb. 20: New Laguna Beach Republicans President Fletcher Berryman served one year with AmeriCorps, not two as reported in a previous version of this post.]