SOUNDING OFF: City needs to focus on downtown

I very much appreciate [Catharine Cooper] raising issues about the downtown, (“Town’s direction set by the people,” June 27) and wholeheartedly agree with the notion that its direction should be set by the people.

As a former president of the Chamber of Commerce, a former downtown business owner and a longtime practitioner of supporting historic downtowns through my professional life and association with the Main Street program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, I have long advocated that, “It is our downtown.”

I have also decried the lack of leadership and the lack of a constituency to support the downtown in the same manner as we have for arts, open space and ocean quality.

I believe the downtown is equally as important as these other attributes.

My viewpoint is that the downtown should be, first and foremost, resident friendly. Unfortunately, that is not often the case.

While we would all like “mom and pop” stores that sell things we need, I am also acutely aware of the financial constraints that prevent that from happening.

There is no easy answer to the issues you raise, but I do know that other historic downtowns have successfully addressed the economic and planning problems and created downtowns that residents are proud of and patronize often.

But it has not been accomplished by a piecemeal effort, a few walk-arounds and a new regulation or two.

It needs at least one City Council member to become intensely involved and an interest group to provide vigilance and to support a continuing effort.

Right now we have neither, and the prognosis for downtown is more of the same muddling through on an application-by-application basis.

KEN DALENA lives in Laguna Beach.