MAILBAG - June 30, 2006

‘Greeter’ sculptor remembered

With all the fanfare regarding construction of the Old Pottery Place, specifically the current refurbishing of the fronting Eiler Larsen statue, why has there been no mention of the unrequited sculptor who originated this piece? The artist was the late, great Charles Beauvais, a supremely talented force, most renowned in the ‘60s and ‘70s. On a recent tour of “Art In Public Places,” in fact, the narrator was unaware of who created the Eiler Larsen work until I mentioned the illustrious Beauvais.

Among Laguna’s most prolific artist/sculptors of the era, the gregarious Beauvais was also famed for his entertainingly dramatic palette-knife presentations. He especially enjoyed plying his art in local nightclubs. Grasping a frosty cocktail in his left hand, a cigarette and palette knife in the other, he would proceed to deftly design, perhaps a seascape or landscape, to the delight of his rapt audience. When the painting was beautifully complete, always to avid applause, the animated artist would dramatically mutilate the colorful image by swiping his knife across the canvas, much to shocked despair, then immediately proceed to deftly convey a totally new, different and equally fascinating painting.

My late husband, novelist Skip Fickling, and I often fondly recalled a rainy evening when Beauvais stopped by to share the warmth of our hearth over a glass of wine. He was en route to Las Vegas and wanted to borrow a pair of shoes. He actually wore those comfortable black canvas slip-ons until the day he passed on in the early 1970s, a true loss to the art world and his many friends.

May the multifaceted art of this dramatic, early-era genius live on forever.

GLORI FICKLING

Laguna Beach

City should enforce Coastal order

[Re: “Should the city enforce the Coastal Commission order to halt work at Mar Vista?,” June 23]

Absolutely.

The city has a moral and environmental obligation to enforce the Coastal Commission order to halt work on the obscenity that is the Mar Vista project.

NADINE NORDSTROM

Laguna Beach

Developer has right to proceed

In response to your question as to whether or not the city should enforce the Coastal Commission order to halt work at Mar Vista, I respond as follows:

1. Based upon my understanding of the facts in this case, the city has met all ofits legal obligations in connection with the processing and permitting of this project and, therefore, has no legal obligation or jurisdiction regarding enforcement of the Coastal Commission’s stay order.

2. The stay order on the permit appears to lack legal sufficiency based upon the legal facts as set forth in the various articles that I have read and, therefore, I believe that the developer is entirely within his rights to proceed with the permitted improvements to his property.

3. It is my opinion as a nine-year resident of South Laguna Beach that the project as it has been approved by the city is a well-conceived one that incorporates significant safeguards to the environment and exhibits great sensitivity to both the environment and surrounding properties.

4. In closing, it is my recommendation that all of us residents of Laguna Beach focus on how to encourage positive and sensible growth such as the developer is attempting in this particular instance and forego our no-growth (no change) attitude cloaked in the pretense of protecting the environment.

JIM BARISIC

Laguna Beach

‘People’s Council’ a piece of junk

The Coastline Pilot’s article on this piece of junk we must now endure (until someone has the brains and courage to remove it) is a joke!

What is the paper ? a shill for Brunker? The thing is ugly, ugly, ugly. Is this the best that Laguna Beach can do? No ? because Brunker’s from Riverside, where at least they’re smart enough to get that stone monstrosity out of their county.

Another $80,000 shot, and for an absolute monstrosity. Next time, check with me!

JOSH ZUCKERT

Laguna Beach

City still thinks its 1969

[The following letter was addressed to the Laguna Beach mayor and City Council.]

Having once served as Laguna Beach’s first full-time permanent lifeguard, I am well aware of the “seasonal working as full-time” employment policy, established in 1969, that created the personnel predicament we are facing today.

You’ve all heard the axiom, “That was then, this is now.” The seasonal versus full-time employee issue Laguna Beach’s Marine Safety Department is facing is that “this” is still “then.” And “now” is not only being ignored, but given retrograde status.

Functionally, administratively, our Marine Safety Department is operating under a circa 1969 jury-rigged solution.

A little history: A near-disaster occurred in the late 1960s. A U.S. Marine Corps jet fighter crashed at sea just off Abalone Point, narrowly missing destroying Irvine Cove. Shortly after, at the end of the summer season, a drowning at Diver’s Cove left the city vulnerable to potential litigation.

We needed two more full-time lifeguards who had undergone the recently instituted U.S. Department of Transportation Emergency Medical Technician training, but the city didn’t have budget to hire them. City Manager James Wheaton and our part-time Chief Lifeguard La Verne Dugger sought to find a solution to the Lifeguard Department’s dilemma.

Under California’s Fair Employment Practices, we could legitimately hire local seasonal recurrents on an “as needed” basis, continue to pay them hourly, sans benefits and ergo ? mission accomplished.

Again, that was then. We can no longer afford to use an expediency to cover an insufficiency.

One of the most important lessons learned in public safety service ? be it police, fire or lifeguard ? is that even the best is barely enough.

Constant training, retraining and re-certification to meet always-improving standards and the relentless re-evaluation of skills are necessary to ensure that saving of lives and avoiding liability form a parallel continuum that affords the public a high degree of protection and the city an equally high degree of professional indemnity against incurred liability.

Your Marine Safety Department is now being institutionally constrained.

Neither of these two important factors in this ever-changing continuum is being met. Thus, we are facing two rather obvious choices: operate as we have done in the past, as we did “then,” or move into “now” and begin doing the city’s lifeguarding business in an approved manner, ensuring the city’s reputation as a place where our citizens and always economically important beach-going visitors can be safe.

Laguna’s visitors come here to enjoy our beaches. The most important city representatives they will see in that hopefully safe and delightful experience will be wearing red trunks with a city of Laguna Beach Lifeguard patch. Don’t let them, or our community, down.

CRAIG LOCKWOOD

Laguna Beach