City names environmental committee

It took four rounds of voting for the council to choose seven members

from the 13 applicants for the new environmental committee.

Steven Alan Erger, Tom Girvin, Arnold Hano, Greg O’Loughlin and

Fredric Sattler were selected on the first ballot. Susan Wilson and

Lisa Marks were chosen on subsequent ballots.

Appointments were made Tuesday after oral presentations by the

applicants.

The five picked on the first ballot will draw straws to decide

which of them will serve the four terms that end in March 2007. The

others will serve through March 2006.

Terms lengths are different so that future appointments will be

staggered.

Erger has lived in Laguna Beach for 29 years. He is a retired

landscape gardener and an attorney.

Girvin is president and a founder of the Village Flatlanders

Neighborhood Association and a member of the board of Clean Water

Now.

Village Laguna founder Hano, an environmental activist for the 50

years he has lived in Laguna Beach, said he was sorry to hear the

council was looking for new blood for the committee.

“Mine is probably the oldest in the room,” he said. “Think of it

as vintage.”

O’Loughlin said he wanted to do more than pick up cigarette butts

off the beaches

“It’s time for me to step up my efforts,” he told the council.

Sattler is chair and founder of Ocean Laguna Foundation, founder

and coordinator of Tide Water Docents, and a member of Laguna Canyon

Conservancy, the Vision Laguna Economic Viability Task Force and the

Festival of Arts.

Wilson has been a resident of Laguna for more than 30 years. She

has been a Crystal Cove docent for more than 10 years. She hopes to

help the committee add public scoping sessions to ensure that

environmental impact reports are not biased.

She also said she would like to see a city-wide biological

resource survey, similar to the one conducted years ago in South

Laguna.

Marks said the Vision Laguna strategic plan is an excellent

starting point for what the committee can do.

The environmental committee replaces the open space committee and

concentrates a broad spectrum of oversight duties in the hands of the

seven members.

In other action, the council also made three appointments to the

city’s personnel board, which meets only if a city employee or

employee association asks for a hearing.

Incumbents Delano Dinelly and former mayors Neil Fitzpatrick and

Wayne Peterson were reappointed for terms that end in October 2007.

“We haven’t met in the two years that I have been on the board,”

Peterson. “It means the system is working.”

The council also heard a report on recommended revisions to the

housing and human affairs committee, prompted by a memorandum from

disgruntled committee members.

Four of the five committee members declined to reapply for seats.

They said they were frustrated by the lack of a clearly defined task

and an inefficient use of their time.

Allowing the committee to continue functioning as is, they said,

would likely frustrate and disappoint new members.

Council members Toni Iseman and Jane Egly volunteered to look into

the issues raised by the committee members. They worked with the Rev.

Colin Henderson, the only continuing member of the committee.

Two suggestions met with unanimous council approval: change the

name to housing and human services committee to better reflect its

role; and discard the “affordable housing” terminology, which has a

legal definition, for the more inclusive “housing opportunities for

all segments of the community.”

Applications for the committee will be in the city clerk’s office

in City Hall, 505 Forest Avenue. Applicants for the committee will be

interviewed by the council at the Nov. 1 meeting. For more

information, call (949) 497-0705.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Does the city need an environmental committee? Write us at P.O.

Box 248, Laguna Beach, CA, 92652, e-mail us at

o7coastlinepilot@latimes.com f7or fax us at 494-8979. Please give

your name and tell us your home address and phone number for

verification purposes only.