Council lists goals

Laguna Beach City Council members listed their goals for the coming year at a council retreat Jan. 19.

 Elizabeth Schneider said her top priority is “to eliminate the Measure A tax. It is better to remove it before we go on a spending spree.”

In response, Mayor Pro Tem Cheryl Kinsman said she will wait to hear what the Measure A Oversight Committee thinks about the idea, but she wants to see the tax revenue build an emergency fund of $10 million.

 Kinsman’s goal: “I want a community theater. It is a terrible problem.”

The city’s performing arts groups have no place to call their own and trouble reserving existing facilities such as the Artists Theatre on the Laguna Beach High School campus or the Forum Theatre on the Festival of Arts Grounds.

Kinsman also wants to see an improvement in the relationship between the community clinic and the medical center; an adequately sized lifeguard headquarters, implementation of the South Laguna landscape and sidewalk projects and construction of mini-skateboard facilities.

 Councilman Kelly Boyd said, “I don’t want to see the artist live-work [concept] go by the wayside.”

Boyd also wants to start resolving homeless issues. Another goal is to deal with tree maintenance issues, which might solve view and fire problems.

“I also want the three palm trees on Main Beach lighted all year,” Boyd said. “It’s so pretty.”

City Manager Ken Frank said the special year-round lights would cost thousands of dollars.

“Find a donor,” said Schneider, an expert at fundraising.

 Councilwoman Toni Iseman wants to educate the public to avoid giving money to homeless supplicants. Another goal is to find parking in less obvious places, a project she and Schneider have been working on for years; and to put the OCTA bus depot to better use, preferably by moving it from the parcel between Ocean Avenue and Broadway.

“It is prime real estate,” Schneider said. “We should look at alternative sites in the central business district, but there may not be any.”

Kinsman said relocating it would inconvenience students who ride the buses and she opposed it.

Iseman’s last goal was to take a look at conditional use permits and how they are tracked and enforced. She said the planning commission questioned why they had to observe the rules, after the council overturned them on ruling a popular rooftop bar an illegal operation because it didn’t have a permit.

Boyd said some establishments, including his Marine Room Tavern, were in business before conditional use permits were required and they are not obliged to have one.

“The Downtown Specific Plan calls for the nighttime downtown to be vibrant,” Boyd said. “We can’t close down every place because of one place.”

He was referring to complaints about how The Brewery on Ocean Avenue has evolved into a drinking-and-dancing establishment.

The Brewery is on the planning commission’s Feb. 13 agenda. The preliminary vote was to allow dancing, but reduce the allowed occupancy from 170 to 110, with a trial period, Assistant City Manager John Pietig said.