Changing city needs more on council
Manfred E. Wolff
Although there are many good things that one could hope for in the
coming year for Laguna, I believe the very best thing that could
happen would be a successful movement to increase the size of the
City Council from the present five members to at least seven members.
I don’t know when the five- member arrangement was put into place,
but it must have been prior to 1982 when I came to Laguna. Since that
time, our town has undergone many major changes includ- ing a major
increase in size and population through the annexation of South
Laguna, huge increases in real estate values as high-tech industry
came into Irvine Spectrum and other high-tech industry sites in
southern Orange County, and an influx of vacationers and
luxury-destination hotels like the Montage.
All of this has required many far-reaching decisions to be made by
our five- member City Council. Actually, only three council members
are needed to make these decisions. And, as we saw in the last
election of council members, big money and questionable tactics can
have an effect on electing and influencing this small number of
representatives.
Likewise, a small and divided council is no match for an
entrenched City Hall bureaucracy. Although it can be argued that
having too many representatives can create just as many problems as
having too few, I believe that many Lagunans would agree that an
oligarchy of five people is inherently too small to deal effectively
with the issues confronting Laguna, and that it’s time for a change.
* MANFRED E. WOLFF is a Laguna Beach resident.
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