Baglin affair is just getting started

Roger von Butow

Your editorial suggesting that Lagunatics “take a cue from the Baglin

jury and put this thing to rest” flies in the face of your own

comments (Editorial, July 18). As you noted, we don’t know what

everyone was thinking, nor do we even have a complete picture of

exactly who was saying or doing what, nor why they were doing it.

Fine for Yogi Berra-types, circular argumentative “wonks” maybe, but

the inherent uncertainty will not subside. Inquiring minds, as they

say, want to know how a Laguna Beach City Councilman, with almost

5,000 votes, got into this mess when the fiduciary responsibility of

our city manager and city attorney should have been to simply invoked

eminent domain to keep a public elected and popular official’s neck

from that noose. At best, they were unknowledgeable or inept

counselors. We deserve better. There are lessons to be learned from

this fiasco which only further study will provide.

As pointed out by numerous activists in letters and at City

Council meetings, the California Environmental Quality Act requires

an environmental study before a public agency can move to acquire

land like this meant for redevelopment. So it wasn’t only Baglin’s

questionable behavior, it was the questionable behavior and faulty

advice by city staff, who don’t know the simplest of municipal

standards and state regulations. Who is going to investigate that?

First you note the possible calamities and decimation to Baglin’s

personal, political and business life if convicted. Then your

editorial questioned the benefits to further inquiries, even Baglin’s

right to sue for reparation. You argued both sides of the coin in one

fell swoop. It was his life jeopardized and filled with anxiety, it

was his business affected during this protracted Kafkaesque nightmare

and it was his fiscal stability under assault. Can anyone measure the

decreased value of his probity or good will of his real estate

brokerage? Who knows the sum of his defense bills? It is, therefore,

his litigious prerogative, not the media’s, to seek expiation, a

redress of grievance and damages.

As for the jury’s verdict, I believe you’re inferring resolution

and closure. You were correct in using the “battle” metaphor -- this

Wagnerian Opera of his trial is only one skirmish in a long war. The

suspicions and distrust fomented by the city manager, coupled with

the City Council’s failure/refusal to censure or fire him, is

insulting to our communal intelligence. Hopefully, this isn’t over --

it’s just the beginning of the end for this city manager, who has

overstayed his welcome.

* ROGER VON BUTOW is the founder of the Clean Water Now!

Coalition.