Mailbag: Access to high school track curtailed

I have been exercising at the Laguna Beach High School track and field for the last five years. The beautiful setting and the caliber of people exercising and interacting with students has always been positive.

The high school administration is backing out on their side of an agreement to allow the public to use the track during school hours. The people of Laguna Beach gave millions of dollars to build the high school track years ago. There were no “restrictions” of track use when the school had their hand out for donations. I was notified recently that the public can only use the track lanes, and the “grass area” is off limits during school hours.

When the public gave money to the high school track it was not for just the running lanes, it was for the entire track area. I called the principal, Mr. Austin, and he said that “...the infield has had some problems.” Where is the notification of these infield problems to the public and school children? Nothing has been posted around the field.

More importantly, what is the difference of the “infield” between 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m? I have never witnessed Austin on the field monitoring the events during the mornings that I exercise. On Monday, I saw school personnel having to monitor the adults exercising around the school track. Is that what the school is choosing to do with school personnel’s time, monitoring adults who want to exercise on the track? I urge the school board and administration to keep the agreement made and allow the public right to use all of the track during school hours.

JILL RICHARDSON

Laguna Beach

Inappropriate language heard in parks

I’ve heard that some of the homeless in Laguna have been uttering profanities within earshot of non-homeless locals. Today I witnessed this disturbing behavior while on a morning run through Heisler Park. An individual was shouting “I love you” to a person or persons within his klatch.

Fortunately no children were within earshot. On a similar note, several Saturdays ago while running along the boardwalk, I passed a group of homeless being lectured in loud fashion by a man holding up a Bible and proclaiming that laughing non-believers in Jesus would laugh themselves all the way to hell. Once again no children were present. Thank goodness for that as well.

STEVE LONGO

Laguna Beach

Caltrans project punishes residents

The federally funded Obama stimulus paving project by Caltrans in Laguna Beach constitutes cruel and unusual environmental punishment.

This fiasco of this pitiful paving effort by the ironically-named All-American Asphalt has slipped into Twilight Zone mode.

First, they made residents park off Coast Highway for more than a month at night while they tore up or ground down the old pavement. The enormous grinding machine noise was deafening and earth shaking, but as the temperatures were late summer elevated, closing windows wasn’t really an option.

They left pulverized bitumen powder, a highly carcinogenic key ingredient, all over our yards, cars, streets, sidewalks and embedded in our lungs. They did street sweep each morning, but not thoroughly and didn’t clean the sidewalks at all. No side streets were swept.

Moreover, the highway looked like brown fog for weeks when cars drove by, the airborne particulates causing nearby residents coughing problems. People broke out breathing masks. Bitumen is a hydrocarbon, contains sulfur and several heavy metals such as nickel, vanadium, lead, mercury chromium and also arsenic, selenium, and other toxic elements.

Second, they didn’t pave curb-to-curb, kind of a quilt or patchwork pattern, left numerous car-chattering dips. Why?

Third, right now (Monday) they’re back, jackhammering in about 20 to 30 places here in Victoria Beach on the inland side where they apparently buried utility access, removing what they just freshly paved! Are they digging for gold? How do you spell ineptitude? Caltrans!

Fourth, when it rained a few weeks ago, all of that pulverized bitumen flushed through our storm drains onto our beaches because Caltrans didn’t properly cover or place the right filter BMPs in place. That’s our federal tax dollars polluting our beaches and our marine life. Who needs a State Marine Reserve to protect the ocean when Caltrans can extirpate all species, humans included? Wonder how many surfers, skimmers, divers and beach walking locals came out black?

Fifth, I haven’t seen the asphalt top coat (slurry) crew we were warned about working 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., have you? Now we’re not allowed to park during the day on Coast Highway. So basically no parking for months on end!

Sixth, why is this nightmare unending, interminable on such a heavily-trafficked commuter zone? Didn’t Caltrans require a “Performance Bond,” a surety bond that motivates, so that every day All-American Asphalt is past their deadline they pay compensation money or penalties back? And shouldn’t we, the residents near to Coast Highway get that money for our health impacts and inconvenience?

Seventh, and just what mitigations, what protective measures were supposed to be in place, enforced or monitored by City Hall?

Why isn’t our city manager holding them accountable, or AQMD or the Water Quality Control Board? No one is being held liable or accountable, contrary to environmental laws.

ROGER VON BÃœTOW

Laguna Beach

A new form of capitalism needed

The origins of government are based on protecting the members of the tribe from predators. This includes the practices of large predatory corporations that are facilitated by government.

I believe in profits and the ability of individuals and corporations to operate in a free market; however the market is not always free! It is manipulated by the financial, and multi-national oligarchies in concert with the government. I am pro-business, especially small business.

I believe small business should be given incentives for taking risks by more lenient tax accommodation and less regulation. Governments create the environment and rules that business operates to make profits. If the game is rigged for only the powerful, government is not doing its job for “We the people.”

I only propose that if we can consider “trickle down economics,” why can’t we explore “trickle up economics?” No country is as free as the lowest rung of its society. Bring up the bottom and you bring everyone up. If only the rich get richer and the poor get poorer (and more of us are becoming poorer and poorer) the top becomes disconnected from the rest of the society, which is the current situation.

I suggest that we explore the evolution of “isms” “” feudalism, fascism, Communism, capitalism, socialism... what’s next? How about exceptionalism? No idea is 100% right or 100% wrong. Let us not be distracted from the connotation or blasphemy of these “isms,” but explore that which works and that which does not. Adam Smith, Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith and others have shaped and defined this invention called Capitalism. I call for an objective review to invent an updated economic model that addresses the inequities and benefits of all of the above.

In 1893 the industrial revolution was born. It promised the people of the world “” if they would embrace the concept of the assembly line where every man does one small part rather than living an agrarian life style and providing for his family by doing all the parts “” society would be able to eliminate poverty, hunger, pestilence, beastly burden and the end of war. (Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Board of Lady Managers Manifesto.) I do not believe that those promises have been kept.

MICHAEL R. EVANS

Laguna Beach