Council candidates support senior center

Laguna Beach seniors got what they asked for Monday — firm support from all four City Council candidates for the proposed center on Third Street.

Candidates Kelly Boyd, Toni Iseman, Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider and Verna Rollinger made the commitment at a forum held at the Veterans Memorial Building on Legion Street, which the seniors have lobbied to have replaced as their headquarters.

Groundbreaking for the new center is scheduled for April 2007.

“We have the opportunity for a huge grant from the county, which already has been delayed twice,” incumbent candidate Pearson-Schneider said. “If the groundbreaking is not done by June 30, we will lose it. I think there are those who would like to stop it, but they will have to mow me down first.”

Fellow incumbent Iseman said the council will do its best to meet the grant deadline, even though concerns about the architecture — including rooms with skylights instead of windows — are still not resolved.

Questions raised by neighbors about the windows can be resolved by the deadline, Boyd opined. Rollinger said architectural details should not delay the project.

The forum was the first of six that have been announced. Laguna Beach Senior Center Executive Director Anne Morris moderated.

Each candidate was given five minutes for an opening statement, followed by a question-and-answer period and a one-minute summation.

Pearson-Schneider recapped her 22 years of community service, starting with a leadership role in the North Laguna Community Assn., six-and-a-half years on the Planning Commission and one term on the council

“I am running on a platform of getting things done,” Pearson-Schneider said. “A council member can just show up or really become involved in projects. For me, one of the projects was the senior center, which I have been involved in from the beginning. The seniors have become my family, because I have none here. They have wrapped me in their love.”

Other Pearson-Schneider issues: completion of the Village Entrance project; clean-up of Aliso Creek; and neighborhood parking.

“This job is as much or as little as you choose,” said Iseman, who positioned herself as liaison between the residents and government bureaucracy. “But we [the council] don’t know what the problems are unless you let us know. A lot of people let me know.”

Iseman said her fourth term, if she is reelected, would be devoted to preserving what she considers the best of Laguna, which includes the new senior center as well as the city’s image as a one-of-a-kind town with businesses that bring tourists as well as cater to residents, while retaining the village charms.

Former City Clerk Rollinger said she has been fortunate to live and work in Laguna for most of her adult life.

“I retired not quite two years ago, and I have really enjoyed it,” Rollinger said. About a year ago, she was persuaded to run for council. Since then, she has found that her connection with the city has never been stronger. She said the campaign has offered her the opportunity to meet people with the same concerns she has.

Rollinger said she is concerned about neighborhoods, the ocean, traffic congestion and the needs of every group in town that provides services.

“I have a personal interest in the senior center,” she said. “I joined the seniors in my 30s because I wanted to make sure you would have a place for me when the time came.”

Rollinger has lived in Laguna for 36 years, the longest of any of the four candidates — except Boyd.

“I am a fourth-generation Lagunan,” Boyd said. “My grandmother taught school in this very building.”

Boyd is a descendant of the pioneering Thurston family, whose name is memorialized as a street, a middle school and a neighborhood in Laguna Canyon.

He sees parking as a major problem in the neighborhoods and downtown.

“I work downtown six days a week,” said Boyd, who owns the Marine Room tavern on Ocean Avenue. “Locals tell me they won’t even come there in the summer.”

Boyd served on the council from 1978 to 1982, and said a parking study was started in 1984 and the problem still exists. He vowed, if elected, to elevate the Parking, Traffic and Circulation Committee to commission status. “A commission reports directly to the council,” Boyd said.

As for mansionization concerns, Boyd pointed out that Pyne Castle was built in the 1920s as a home and is still the biggest residence in Laguna, although now divided into apartments.

“Neighborhoods have to work together,” he said. “No view should be lost, and we have to maintain what the neighborhoods are about, but we must look at things individually.”

Among the questions submitted by the seniors was a query about the county’s offer of access stairs to beaches in South Laguna, which was turned down by the council.

Rollinger said the city should look at the offer, but Pearson-Schneider disagreed.

“The county has budget problems,” Pearson-Schneider said. “They are trying to unload a lot of parcels that have risks and need maintenance, and they are positioning them as gifts.”

She noted the county has yet to offer Aliso Beach or the money-making parking lot across the highway to the city, which the city would be happy acquire for peripheral parking, to keep vehicles out of town and relieve congestion.

The final questioner asked why the city has no view ordinance. It does. However, critics claim it has no teeth because the ordinance does not authorize the right to a view or restitution of a view. Other communities have stricter ordinances.

Rollinger said she is open to suggestions about view protection. Boyd said he’d really be mad if he lost the view from his hillside home. Iseman said she had lost her view of Main Beach.

“But I can’t tell you which tree it is,” Iseman said. “It is not 100 feet away. It is not 500 feet away. It’s way off there.”

Laguna is not a planned community, like some of those that have passed stricter ordinances, Iseman said.

In summation, each of the candidates asked for support at the polls.

Boyd said he looked forward to serving the seniors.

“I look forward to serving the city in a new capacity,” Rollinger said. “Big on my list is returning customer service to City Hall. We need a policy shift at the top.”

Iseman said one of her top goals is to prevent the erosion of Laguna’s quality of life by “outside” influences.

Pearson-Schneider ended the forum as she began it — urging support for the senior center as proposed.

“It’s a good deal,” she said. “Let’s get it done.”