It’s time for Rasner to resign As...

It’s time for Rasner to resign

As six former members of the Festival of Arts Board of Directors,

we have written a letter to board President Bruce Rasner formally

requesting his immediate resignation.

We made this request because the 40-year lease Rasner negotiated

with the city of Laguna Beach does not provide sufficient funds to

maintain the Festival of Arts/Pageant of the Masters facilities

during the term of the lease and because Rasner is taking the

unprecedented step of relinquishing control over the Pageant of the

Masters by signing a licensing agreement with the ICM talent agency.

We-along with Festival of Arts/Pageant of Masters artists,

members, patrons, and volunteers with whom we are in contact-are

convinced that this festival board failed during its protracted lease

negotiations to protect the financial integrity and to ensure the

long-term viability of the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the

Masters.

We are concerned that, to make up for this failure, Rasner and

four other members of the board have secretly negotiated a sellout

that will compromise the pageant’s character and dilute its impact by

staging it in multiple locations.

We fear that Rasner’s ill-advised actions have jeopardized the

very existence of the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters, to

which we, collectively, have given more than 100 years of our lives.

RICHARD BIANCHINO

SHERRI M. BUTTERFIELD

PHILIP FREEMAN

ROARK GOURLEY

ROBERT DONALD MATTHEWS

VERN SPITALERI

Laguna Beach

Bigger isn’t necessarily better

Laguna Beach is proud to be the home of the Festival of Arts and

the Pageant of the Masters. They are very much responsible for

putting Laguna Beach on the world map.

Many of us supported the recent efforts to save the Festival of

Arts, and prevent the then Festival President and Mission Viejo Mayor

Sherri Butterfield from moving our cultural resource to San Clemente.

It seems that we need to be concerned again. If I read correctly, the

new board is now exploring franchising the Pageant of the Masters.

While saying how wonderful Laguna Beach is, many people move here

and then pursue plans to make things bigger and bigger. I am sure

that they genuinely believe that bigger is always better, but it is

not.

We thank Bruce Rasner for his leadership in helping to save the

Festival of Arts. However, I am concerned when Festival of Arts

President and Laguna Niguel resident Bruce Rasner hired an

out-of-town executive director for big bucks it typically means

generating new and big ideas.

Unfortunately, many of these ideas are consistent with Laguna

values.

Franchising the Pageant of Masters and giving festival booths to

celebrity artists are big ideas that likely will make more money in

the short run.

However, I believe that artists earning booths by submitting their

works to be juried has served the Festival of Arts very well. Those

who tamper with a venerable institution may make more money, but

while significantly diminishing it.

GENE FELDER

Laguna Beach

We don’t need another power board

Do we have another power board? Do we have members who want power

and prestige at the cost of our time-honored Festival of Arts and

Pageant of the Masters? Do they understand the definition of the word

unique?

Most artists understand the word and the image of unique. For

those who don’t, it is an object, a piece of art, a person, that is

one of a kind. There are a few other definitions of this sort: an

edition of, and then the number of editions. When the editions become

many, the piece is certainly not unique any more. The pageant should

not become an edition of any number.

Our pageant is unique to Laguna Beach. If it becomes a traveling

circus (of sorts) it will no longer be unique.

This board may be unique in its own way but not the uniqueness we

want and need here.

As for Jane Seymour, it isn’t proper for us to be angry with her.

The Festival of Arts board made the arrangements to have her exhibit

on the grounds, not she. No doubt she wishes she had been elsewhere

and regrets her involvement.

Let’s get back to the basics of the Festival of Arts and the

Pageant of the Masters, while exhibiting art and having a unique show

seen nowhere else in the world

NANCY TARZIAN

Laguna Beach

Instead of endorsing the actions of Executive Director Steve

Brezzo, the Festival of Arts and Pageant of the Masters board members

should rein in proposals that have an adverse impact on these unique

Laguna Beach institutions.

The franchising plans for the pageant and the showing of nonjuried

paintings by Jane Seymour at the festival are examples of

inappropriate and inadvisable actions.

The new 40-year city / festival contract was designed to provide

funds for needed capital improvements and ensure financial success.

No additional revenue sources should be needed.

KEN ANDERSON

Laguna Beach

Help save the arts in California

The California Arts Council is the state agency that provides

support to arts and culture in California. The council is on the

brink of elimination.

The proposed abolition of the California Arts Council is part of

the legislative budget proposal. The council has never been in such a

dangerous position and legislators need to hear from you that the

arts are a vital part of California’s cultural and economic

well-being.

Elimination of the council or a severe reduction in state arts

funding will affect all disciplines -- from dance to visual art,

theater, film, folk art, literature, music and arts in education,

cutting or eliminating programs and performances that impact hundreds

of thousands of school children, youth-at-risk, the elderly, and

ordinary Californians throughout the state.

More than 850,000 students and teachers in 4,920 schools will lose

arts programming if California is the first state in the nation to

eliminate public funding to the arts. The budget of the Arts Council

is less than three one hundredths of 1% of the overall state budget.

Contact your local elected representatives. You may also wish to

e-mail them and key legislative officials by accessing this Web site:

https://econstituent. votenet.com/vh1.

RICHARD STEIN

Executive Director

The Laguna Playhouse

Column missed timing on recall

Wow, I just returned from Sicily and was rather surprised that you

would have Cherril Doty write a rather long article against the

recall without a rebuttal article. Let us hope that the Los Angeles

Times-owned Coastline Pilot in Laguna Beach, will not become the

“Left” Times of Laguna Beach.

I personally have many problems with the recall, which I heard is

true of many of the President Bush people in California and the White

House but, the Doty article was way over to one side of the issue.

To start her article with, “OK. I don’t get it.” Should have put

the radar out that if the writer doesn’t get it and states the fact

in the opening sentence, it is probably best for the Coastline to ask

her to write on another topic.

“Politics isn’t my thing;” “I did not and would not vote for him

(Gov. Gray Davis)”

The art of compromise is the ability to have positive “Muse” in

your thoughts and deeds. Compromise is finding ways to get out of

this mess. However, there is a thing called being held responsible. I

would hope that in Cherril Doty there is some “Muse” that does hold

individuals, especially elected individuals, to some degree of

responsibility?

While many individuals want to see only “positive,” it was very

evident, a few years ago, that if the “muse” people had maybe been a

little bit responsible by speaking up and not saying anything, they

would have realized that the spending spree of irresponsible

legislators has now caused some of the following negative: major

increase in school tuition, cuts in school funding, a workers

compensation program that goes bankrupt in November, a loss of money

to pay single moms who need to put their children in day care so they

can work and get off welfare, continued borrowing of money which

means for five to 10 years, our state tax money will be paying for

this irresponsible spending rather than in projects that would make

our state a better, “positive” place to live. This list can go on and

on, but the reality is a very disturbing scenario for our future that

was caused by this reckless treatment of our tax dollars.

Maybe if we go back over the past few years, we can see that our

fiscal house was falling down but certain elected officials like the

governor, the leadership of the State Senate and the State Assembly

kept their fingers crossed that they could be bailed out IF the

economy turned around. Well, it hasn’t and they had no other ideas

except to raise taxes and put our children and grandchildren in a

debt situation. That means that our next generation will not enjoy

our wonderful state because the money will not be there to build the

positive. Instead, it will be paying the interest on debt this

generation is passing on to them. That is not positive. That is a

negative.

A positive attitude is accomplished when Americans use our

democracy to speak up before the negative occurs.

FRANK RICCHIAZZI

Laguna Beach

Council ignoring city codes

The City Council is encouraging anarchy -- “the absence of all

direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes

the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups

as the principal mode of organized society.”

Some concepts are a matter of perspective others are clearly

measurable and definitive. On June 17, four out of five City Council

members voted in direct opposition of the municipal codes when they

voted to uphold Design Review Board’s approval of the building

project at Mar Vista.

The council approved a house that contains more square footage

than City Hall, a pool larger than the Laguna Beach High School’s.

The Greenhouse? Larger than Haster Grove. The garage? Four to six

times the size on 90% of the homes in the surrounding community. This

is not just a large garage. The garage can accommodate 13

automobiles. There are two auto mechanics lifters and four auto

mechanic work areas and parking for another eight vehicles. This

makes the indoor automobile capacity larger than Franks Foreign Car

Dealership.

This is more than just neighborhood incompatibility. This is

approving an industrial site under the guise of a private residence.

This project isn’t compatible with any structure in this city,

commercial or residential. It is a dirty industrial site in an

environmentally sensitive area. Ten years ago, mitigation for this

site approved one dwelling. Not an automotive center, sports center

or agricultural center. Only the residential dwelling is exempt from

California Environmental Quality Act guidelines. The rest of the

project falls under the act, which has not been applied. The city is

going to make the residents of the community pay for the lack of

mitigation that would never be acceptable given today’s guidelines

and the knowledge we’ve gained in the course of the last decade.

Sometimes these laws are in place because they have purpose. The

residents expect their elected officials to uphold the laws and

maintain the foundation and integrity of this community. The property

owner expected the city to apply their knowledge and approve a course

that places them in the best position for which they can achieve the

best possible outcome from their project. The council let both

parties down.

We don’t have a bunch of miscellaneous habitats we can waste on

the City Council’s arbitrary inability to perform its elected job

duties. This project has major problems as is. If the council cannot

effectively work through these from within the framework it has been

given and accepted the responsibility for, it should move on down the

road and let someone else who is capable take the reins.

SHARON PAGET

Laguna Beach

Mar Vista appeal was as on time as possible

I am sadly disappointed in the decision, on June 17, by our City

Council to deny my appeal of the Design Review Boards approval of the

plans for the 18,000-plus square foot project in South Laguna. This

decision has done nothing to build my confidence in our City Council.

All council members considered this a “significant” development

that will have a major impact on the surrounding neighborhood. I’d

say so, considering that close to 14,600 cubic feet of earth will be

removed and over 1,000 trucks will have to cruise through our

neighborhood just to get it off site. For months our neighborhood

will be negatively impacted by construction alone. Not to forget --

compatibility, size and visual impacts.

All Design Review Board members had concerns as well but approved

the project despite them.

Councilmen Wayne Baglin and Steve Dicterow repeatedly vocalized

how problematic this project will be, but are willing to use it as an

experiment in handling the new National Pollutant Discharge

Elimination System Water Ordinances. Baglin does not want to feel he

has reneged on a deal made more than 10 years ago (with a prior

owner) dedicating open space. However, such a deal is actually an

open space required dedication, not a gift from property owner to

city. The area in question is zoned open space / conservation (the

most restrictive of the city’s open space zones), and is not

developable in any case. So the open space dedication that seemed to

have been Baglin’s reason for voting against my appeal is a

non-issue.

I was unfairly chastised for “appealing at the 11th hour” and for

not having voiced my concern at prior Design Review Board

proceedings. The travesty of the council’s decision sets a very

harmful precedent for preserving what’s left of the hillsides we

cherish in all of Laguna.

I think all of the council members, with the exception of Mayor

Toni Iseman, were asleep or could care less when neighbors and myself

expressed our numerous concerns.

I thank the mayor for showing us the respect for all of our

efforts and being the only one to truly show concern for our

community. She had the conscience to vote no on the castle

overlooking our fiefdom below.

ELIZABETH PHILLIPS

Laguna Beach

City Manager has got to go

A funny thing happened as I was picking up the local papers at the

post office. I met a man and we were in an instant agreement. City

Manager Ken Frank has got to go!

From reading the July 11 story in the Los Angeles Times, it would

seem that Councilman Wayne Baglin was duped by our city manager City

Atty. Phillip Kohn into thinking that he would have no conflict of

interest problems taking a commission representing his client in the

sale of the Third Street property because, he was assured, that he

would be protected when the city used the eminent domain procedure.

Guess what? They didn’t use eminent domain, and Baglin was left

holding an arrest warrant which must have been traumatic and became

expensive. I know the feeling, but that’s another story.

Baglin should know by now, after all these years, just who Ken

Frank is, and if he doesn’t and is that much of an innocent, what’s

he doing on council? I went on record years ago saying that Ken Frank

should move on. Frankly, I don’t want this Machiavellian character

running my town. It was nice to be affirmed that I was not alone. As

for Kohn? That’s another question?

If anything good could come out of this whole affair it would be

Frank’s retirement after 30-plus years. It’s time.

ANDY WING

Laguna Beach

The Coastline Pilot is eager to run your letters. If your letter

does not appear, it may be because of space restrictions, and the

letter will likely appear next week. If you would like to submit a

letter, write to us at P.O. Box 248, Laguna Beach, CA 92652; fax us

at 494-8979; or send e-mail to coastlinepilot@latimes.com. Please

give your name and include your hometown and phone number, for

verification purposes only.