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.