Positive about Laguna’s future

Cheryl Kinsman is running for a second consecutive term on the City

Council, positive that the future bodes well for Laguna Beach.

“I am proud of what the City Council has accomplished in the past

four years and the direction it is headed,” Kinsman said.

Council accomplishments of which she is most proud include reduced

sewage spills and beach closures, the successful battle to prevent an

international airport at the former U.S. Marine Corp airbase at El

Toro and the city’s solvency in the face of the state’s economic

crisis.

Kinsman is a certified public accountant, in business in town with

her husband, Michael, who she married in 1970. She has a bachelor’s

degree in economics and accounting from Scripps College in Claremont

and a master’s degree business administration in taxation from Golden

Gate University in San Francisco.

Kinsman worked in San Francisco while her husband earned his

master’s degree and doctorate at Stanford University.

The Kinsmans moved to Laguna Beach in 1978. They lived in Arch

Beach Heights and started their company in North Laguna, where she

served as president of the North Laguna Community Assn. before moving

themselves and the company to South Laguna.

Her community service included a term on the Parking, Traffic and

Circulation Committee and five years on the Planning Commission.

“I ran for council because I was tired of the commission being

overturned,” Kinsman said. “I was not happy when the council gutted

the view ordinance after Commissioner Norm Grossman and I had worked

on it for two years as a sub-committee. I also was particularly upset

when the commission was kept out of the loop on Treasure Island. I

think we could have made a better deal.”

Kinsman’s sisters say she inherited her interest in public

service. Their father, Albert “Ab” Brown, served as mayor of

Riverside, where he and his wife, Virginia raised their daughters,

Becky, Susan and Cheryl.

As a young woman, Laguna’s mayor played the French horn

professionally in the Riverside Symphony orchestra.

She met her future husband when she was a student at Scripps

College and he was a student at Claremont Men’s College, now

Claremont McKenna.

The Kinsmans have two sons, Josh, 17, and Nicholas, 10.