SOUNDING OFF: The City Council needs a new majority

We are a nation athirst for change. Not just in Washington, but right here, in Laguna.

Our City Council is stuck in neutral, running on empty. It needs a new direction. It needs a new majority to effect the needed change.

I urge you to vote for Verna Rollinger and Jane Egly on Nov. 4. Together with Toni Iseman they will form that new majority,

What’s wrong with the current council?

For 25 years we have dallied over the creation of a Village Entrance, a newer, fresher announcement to the world that you are now entering this glorious town. A park. A creek walk. A sculpture garden. And some needed parking. A plan for such a development was crafted by Councilwomen Toni Iseman and Elizabeth Pearson. Move the Corporate Yard to Act V and build the park in the vacated space. We moved the yard. And stopped short of the next vital step. Stuck in neutral. Running on empty.

At a candidates’ forum, Verna Rollinger spoke of the agreement that was not being honored. A deal is a deal, she said. Well, this deal is no deal. It typifies the council majority’s lassitude.

We have an anti-mansionization ordinance, and go right on building mansions. Forty towns in California have crafted laws to ban mansions. We sit on our hands

The council is committed to locating a shelter for our homeless. At a concert at the Neighborhood Congregational Church the other night, homeless Lagunans strummed guitars and sang songs and enthralled an audience of a hundred. Verna Rollinger attended the concert. No council members did. We cheered and wept, and went home to our beds. The homeless artists shouldered their guitars and went to sleep under the boardwalk or on park benches. We can do better. But we don’t.

What else? It is a mark of pride that on a per capita basis, Laguna leads the state in driving under the influence arrests. So what does the council do? It adds nighttime hours of operation to our bars. In the lingo of shrinks, we are the enablers of our drunks.

It is a sorry record. Let’s change it. To do so we need three votes. Toni Iseman, Jane Egly and Verna Rollinger.

We have to act now. Ahead of us is the Athens Group, salivating over the possibility of developing Aliso Canyon, with a new hotel, a new restaurant and a clutch of megamillion-dollar homes. We need a council that will stop the bulldozers. We need a council that will say “No” to a 51-foot hotel. We need a council that will say you can’t build those residences in open space. We need a council with courage and the will to say “hold on” to Athens.

And with a new council, I see a newer, better Laguna. With a new council we will realize a greener Laguna. We will live in a town of quiet greatness. A town that honors its residents and their needs before cowing to corporate takeover. We need Jane Egly and Verna Rollinger to take us there.

ARNOLD HANO lives in Laguna Beach. ARNOLD HANO lives in Laguna Beach.