3 questions: Where Laguna council and school board candidates stand on the issues
Laguna Beach City Council
Two incumbents and five challengers are running for three spots on the five-member council. The Coastline Pilot asked each candidate the same three questions:
1) What is one realistic, financially prudent step the city can take to ease traffic congestion downtown?
2) Choose one element of the city’s municipal code that you believe should be changed or updated and explain what it should say.
3) What is the greatest threat to Laguna Beach residents’ quality of life (could be related to development, parking, traffic, crime) and how would you address the challenge?
Their responses, in random order, and edited for space and clarity, are below:
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Michele Hall
Age: 47
Born: Orange
Community volunteer
1) I am strong supporter of peripheral parking in Laguna Beach. As we are all aware, approximately 30% of traffic congestion is a result of cars circling looking for a parking place. Smartphone apps, which guide drivers to available peripheral parking, are easy and cost-effective solutions. They would involve the expanding trolley system, which would transport visitors to our downtown area.
2) A comprehensive review and revision of the city’s parking codes are a critical and necessary step toward encouraging and supporting business growth in Laguna Beach. Many business opportunities have been declined or discouraged as a result of current parking requirement standards.
3) Traffic unfortunately has a significant impact on our quality of life. According to the Orange County Register, Laguna Beach has over 4 million visitors a year. Today we suffer through 12 months of moderate to excessive traffic. Peripheral parking, smartphone apps to direct cars to open parking spaces, managed traffic officers, increased trolley service and construction of a parking garage at Act V are immediate ways to address the traffic/parking problem.
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Kelly Boyd
Age: 70
Born: Santa Ana
Former owner for 26 years of The Marine Room Tavern in Laguna Beach. Retired in December 2012.
1) There is no automatic solution. This has been a problem for years. The city has helped by putting out signage showing parking areas available, the trolleys have helped ease some of the traffic congestion, and the traffic control personnel on weekends have helped keep traffic moving downtown.
2) The conditional-use permit requirements on parking for new businesses. We cannot encourage excellent businesses to come to Laguna Beach if they are required by the CUP to have “X” amount of parking and the city does not have parking for them.
3) Development outside our city is the most important thing that can affect our quality of life. When cities such as Irvine approve large development that affects Laguna Beach, they should be asked to put money in a fund designated for Laguna Beach to provide trolleys from their city to Laguna, like a park-and-ride.
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Jon Madison
Age: 57 to 67 “depending on which paper prints my age”
Born: New York City
Local businessman
1. GPS all city-owned parking spots and lots and use a real time app so drivers can use and locate parking all over the city, not just the downtown. Laguna has to focus on all traffic in the city — it is a citywide dilemma.
2. The parking code. Parking should not be tied to business — it is impossible to have enough parking for all businesses. The city has to come up with a plan to ease parking requirements and help develop better relationships with local businesses.
3. Water, traffic, the homeless population, parking, downtown specific plan and overdevelopment are just a few threats to the quality of life. Let’s look at our downtown. Do we close off Forest Avenue? Do we allow shop owners to add apartments above current shops? Do we rezone Ocean Avenue? Do we allow chain stores? I believe we need to amend the Downtown Specific Plan to allow reasonable growth and rezoning. I believe a town without some progress is a stagnant and dying town. We need to look at the downtown in stages and allow new growth, not overdevelopment.
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Toni Iseman
Age: 69
Born: Hastings, Neb.
Retired professor of counseling services at Orange Coast College
1) We need to double the capacity at the ACT V parking lot by adding another level. Complete Streets is a federal mandate that encourages peripheral parking. It’s likely we would qualify for federal grants to offset some of the cost. People park at ACT V for a low rate. Those parking closer to the beach will pay higher rates. Increased revenue will be dedicated to funding the shuttle needed for ACT V.
2) Parking ordinances. Our commercial areas expand far beyond the downtown district, and we need consistency and incentives. Example: A business that requires employees to park at ACT V (or other peripheral parking areas) can have a reduction in the parking requirement for their business. Employees would clock in at the parking lot and be shuttled to their work. This would reduce traffic and have a positive impact on our neighborhoods where employees are now parking.
3) Surrounding communities embrace rampant growth — we are their beach. We welcome visitors, not cars. Gridlock is a burden. Developments use our name, such as Laguna Altura (a master planned community in Irvine near Laguna Canyon Road). Being near Laguna Beach is a selling point. An incentive for future homeowners (in surrounding cities) would be a van, provided by the individual home owners association, that runs back and forth to the ACT V lot. By day, kids come to the beach. In the evening, parents come to Laguna for dinner, not worrying about a second glass of wine. It’s a win-win.
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Robert “Rob” Zur Schmiede
Age: 59
Born: New Albany, Ind.
Urban planner/manager with Kelly Associates Management Group
1) Expand the satellite parking program and add changeable message signs directed toward incoming visitors. Specifically, the city should work with the owner of the surface parking lot at Big Bend and with the Laguna Beach Unified School District on the lot at El Morro. These locations could provide additional parking and parking revenue, and reduce visitor trips into the downtown.
2) The procedure for appeal of coastal development permits. Recently, the Ranch at Laguna Beach project was appealed directly to the California Coastal Commission, bypassing our elected City Council. The code or our local procedures must be changed to require appeal of a project to the City Council first. Don’t charge a fee for appeals of coastal development permits.
3) Natural disasters present the greatest threat to Laguna Beach residents’ quality of life. Whether caused by flood, fire or earthquake, we need to make sure that our community is resilient, our residents are prepared and informed, and our police, firefighters and lifeguards have the resources they need to respond to any emergency. As a matter of public-safety planning, our limited ingress and egress capacity must be addressed. We must also do everything possible to make sure that critical emergency information reaches all residents.
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Paul Merritt
Age: 63
Born: Pasadena
Trust administrator
1) Stop the expensive traffic studies and take some action. It is not fiscally prudent to rehire consultants to reinvent the same traffic solutions. The council has failed to communicate effectively with Caltrans. Evidence is that crosswalk enhancements escalate only when fatalities or injuries happen. I will interface with Caltrans before dire circumstances occur. I also suggest more conversions to one-way streets and roundabouts.
2) The city’s municipal code is not seriously flawed. Rather, what is flawed is traffic safety and enforcement. In particular, the city is in violation of both the spirit and the letter of the law of its general and specific plans. One egregious example is the hodgepodge of zoning overlays and permitted development in Laguna Canyon that violate general and specific plan requirements that permits and approvals can only be considered or granted for projects and structures consistent with the rural, small scale, rustic and village character of the neighborhood.
3) As Laguna climbs toward the highest rate of death and injury of pedestrians and bikers in Orange County, we have other candidates who, during a community forum, exhibited a failure to appreciate the real solution. I support blinking crosswalks. But nothing works more effectively than greater and consistent law enforcement. I reside near Coast Highway and daily observe reckless drivers, speeders and violators of traffic safety rules.
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Eli Grossman
Age: 62
Born: Allentown, Pa.
Former bookmaker
1) Diagonal crosswalks from Broadway Street south along Coast Highway. All pedestrians would cross Coast Highway at the same time at each intersection. It seems most of the traffic problems are the result of pedestrians in the crosswalk while cars are trying to make a left or right turn and have to wait. Stagger the green lights to make left turns easier and help the flow of traffic.
2) Traffic enforcement from Chapter 10. The police should have to pass a periodic proficiency test regarding the legal definitions and current specifics regarding said laws. Police like to use the excuse of discretion when applying the same law differently to different people. Discretion takes integrity, and a major component of integrity is consistency, not random decisions. Be a “letter of the law” or be a “spirit of the law.” Just be consistent.
3) Development influences parking and traffic. A city’s crime rate depends a lot on the hard, ethical work of honest policemen, who are supposed to put community interest over their own. Development is also bringing in new businesses to town — the artsy Laguna most people envision, a beach town where “ma” and “pop” restaurants and retailers can be, not just the expensive restaurants that need to be expensive because of greedy landlords.
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Laguna Beach Unified School District
One incumbent and three challengers are running for three spots on the five-member board. The Coastline Pilot asked each candidate the same three questions:
1) What is one step teachers and/or district staff can take to make the transition to Common Core more seamless for students?
2) How can Laguna Beach Unified attract and retain the best-performing teachers?
3) What is one step the district can take to boost transparency among stakeholders (primarily parents)?
Their responses are below:
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Carol Normandin
Age: 49
Born: Providence, R.I.
Former owner of a small executive search firm
1) The district staff can support the teachers in developing and piloting new curriculum. This includes providing high quality professional development with time given to teachers outside of the classrooms, so they can reflect on and plan their practice with their peers. And lastly, the teachers always can benefit from professional modeling, guidance and clear expectations to truly impact their practice.
2) We have many things already in place to attract teachers, beyond the necessities of competitive salaries and benefits. Parents provide teachers with an enormous amount of support through Parent Teacher Assn. and SchoolPower and individually. They provide expertise, classroom and program support, supplies and funding to ensure that a teacher has the resources to elevate the craft. In addition to all these wonderful things, we could add teacher observation to the menu of professional development as a way to both attract and retain best-performing teachers, who should be considered for promotion when opportunities arise within the district.
3) The district could have one person in charge of increasing effective communication with parents. As a parent of kids in the district since 2005, I see how we have embraced the shift to electronic communication. However, there is room for improvement. For example, provide a live-link phone number and email addresses in every email transmission from LBUSD, so every parent knows whom to contact with a comment, concern or question. We can also send out agendas earlier, with a summary of importance. Lastly, the district/school board could look at online civic engagement platforms that augment and diversify public participation in ways that also enable government leaders to increase public trust.
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Dee Perry
Age: 62
Born: Sanger, Calif.
Former teacher, speech pathologist in the Laguna Beach Unified School District
1) Have several in-service training sessions for parents with teachers so parents have a better understanding of Common Core and specifically how it is being taught and how they can assist their children.
2) Besides salary, teaching conditions are a big part of considering a new job. Giving teachers more of a voice in decision making and listening openly to what would improve their teaching and work conditions could make a big difference. Hiring additional specialists (elementary art, science, writing) to give teachers more time to plan for Common Core is another idea that would be attractive to a new applicant.
3) Video taping the board meetings would be a big step. The audiotapes are very difficult to listen to. With video you can fast forward to the agenda item you are interested in. Then you can hear the discussion and the questions that are asked and see how the board votes.
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Ketta Brown
Age: 54
Born: Kansas City, Kan.
Former financial analyst
1) Provide ongoing, supportive professional development to certificated and classified staff members. Intensive early training must be augmented by ongoing support as with any new initiative. Allowing staff to have the freedom to use strategies that work for them is key.
2) We currently have one of the highest pay scales in the county, allowing for recruiting to be fairly easy. Retention is dependent on “fit” and support. Our sites are very inclusive and provide myriad opportunities for training and growth. The intangible is the “fit” for the community, which can’t really be assessed until a teacher is on the job.
3) It would seem that video recording of the meetings is the bugaboo, so setting that up might be the best first step. Currently there is a district communication committee looking into ways to keep all community members, not just parents, apprised of activities and actions. The balance will be to not overwhelm with information so folks become numb to notices.
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Annette L. Gibson
Age: 48
Born: Whittier
Registered nurse; businesswoman (asset manager)
1. Common Core will not be seamless, because parents and teacher will not understand their role when it is completed. The teachers will no longer be called teachers; they will be facilitators. The implementation will take years. The youngest children will be affected first. Get educated not just about Common Core as we know it today but Common Core in five years, and allow all to question and be honest about the problems, instead of pretending seamless transition is happening when it is not. We have the control now but may lose all control after the damage is done.
2) I would put value on private experience on top of his or her teaching education. I would also like most teachers to be specialized in his or her subject of expertise. To retain the best performing, give them incentives and competition.
2. If I am elected, the first thing I would like to do is make sure we have a podcast system for Laguna Beach residents to watch all school board meetings, either live or at home, and give live interactive feedback or timely follow-up feedback. Business does this kind of communication daily. The school district had a chance and didn’t do it.