Here’s to another exciting year

We can hardly believe a year has passed, but it has.

That’s right folks, Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the

Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot.

What a newsy first year it has been.

There was a shooting on Coast Highway in which a local officer was

injured, a council and school board election, the indictment of the

mayor, the grand opening of the Montage resort, the school budget

cuts and the ceaseless debates over mansionization, hedges, sewers,

business signs and where to place the corporate yard.

It just proved what we knew when we started -- that this would be

no typical community paper. No typical community. It’s Laguna Beach!

We know some readers worried about an outside influence on their

community paper, but we hope we proved otherwise thanks to the

continuing talents of Suzie Harrison, Barbara Diamond, Mike Sciacca,

Mary Castillo and now Mike Swanson roving the streets and gathering

the facts.

We also can’t begin to thank all of our columnists and freelancers

and cartoonists, who have added a personality to the paper that can’t

be manufactured.

But as important as that personality is, the integrity of the

paper is still top priority.

The Coastline’s content is not about who our friends are and our

opinions of what the news should be. It’s about journalism, about

getting the whole story with the hard-to-find details.

So with our anniversary upon us, we’ll keep digging for the

stories and the scoops. And to our faithful readers, we hope you’ve

enjoyed some good reads.

And feel free to pass any more along to us.