Mayor wants one more

Mayor Elizabeth Pearson is the first City Council candidate out of the gate — with a Kentucky Derby party Saturday to kick off her reelection campaign.

“The most important thing for me is to maintain the high level of service and the quality of life to which our residents are accustomed,” Pearson said. “We need to stay the course.”

Pearson, whose track record after two terms on the council is an open book, will present her platform at the event.

Her key goals include:

 Ensuring the financial stability of the city during these difficult economic times, including spending prudently — and supporting our hotels, restaurants, retail and other businesses.

 Insisting on the highest level of public safety.

 Preserving the quality of life of the residents of Laguna Beach.

 Maintaining the character of the community.

 Continuing to minimize ocean water pollution.

Saturday’s event will also include Southern-style food, gentleman’s wagers and a prize for the woman wearing the best hat. Classical guitarist Kevin Fitzpatrick will entertain.

“No matter where I lived, we always had a Kentucky Derby party,” said Pearson, a North Carolina native.

Among the host committee for Pearson’s kickoff: designer-contractor Gregg Abel; Bill and former Mayor Kathleen Blackburn; former school board members attorney Tim Carlyle and Planning Commissioner Bob Whalen; Laguna Coast Wilderness Park docent and sculptor Marv Johnson and Planning Commissioner Ann Johnson; architect Brion Jeanette; political activist Frank Ricchiazzi; Mary and Design Review Task Force Chairman Matt Lawson; arts patrons Jim and Suzanne Mellor, and Lou and Laura Rohl; developers Sam Goldstein and Joe Hanaeur; and car dealer and philanthropist Don Crevier.

The campaign party will be from noon to 3 p.m. at a private home on Morningside Drive. A donation of $99 per person is requested and may be paid at the door.

To attend, e-mail a reservation to elizabethpearson2@cox.net. The address of the event will be provided after the reservation is received, as space allows.

Toss this around

Potential City Council candidate Emanuel Patrascu hasn’t thrown his hat in the ring yet, but he is trying it on for size.

Patrascu has been testing the waters for about three weeks and has filed papers to form a committee to raise funds.

“The committee is to see how my support is — whether I can get the support I think I need,” Patrascu said.

Despite his youth — he’s 29 — Patrascu is no political novice. He is the district representative for Sen. Tom Harman. Although his boss is due to be termed out, Patrascu said he does not see a seat on the Laguna Beach City Council as a stepping stone to an elected political career.

Besides his work for Harman, Patrascu runs a business, Emotive Marketing.

Until recently Patrascu was a member of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. He has taken a leave of absence to avoid any conflicts.

“I just don’t want any negative impacts on the chamber if someone doesn’t like me,” Patrascu said. “I truly want to do what is best for the chamber.”

Contrary to rumor, former Mayor Steven Dicterow, a fellow chamber board member, is not his campaign chairman, Patrascu said.

“Steve is a friend and he supports me,” Patrascu said.

Patrascu has lived in Laguna Beach for about four years. He was born in Romania, but his father’s activities forced the elder Patrascu to leave the county.

“I was young, but I remember it vividly — people coming into our house at night and searching,” Patrascu said.

The United States gave the family political asylum in 1990.

“It took a few years for us to get out of Romania,” Patrascu said. “We were at the airport in December of 1989, but the Romanian revolution broke out and then we couldn’t leave until February.”

Patrascu is considering the run for the council seat because of changes he would like to see in city policies and at City Hall. He takes issue with the notion that the city’s budget is balanced, which city law requires, if money is borrowed from funds to pay for projects.

“It just puts the problem off to the future and doesn’t address the issue,” Patrascu said.

In the past, the council has approved recommendations by City Manager Ken Frank to appropriate unused funds for reduce payments on project such as the Treasure Island Park and the interest owed the state for retroactive benefits for city employees.

Patrascu said he also would like to see City Hall friendlier to the business community.

“We need a system where people feel they are being treated fairly,” Patrascu said. “In this bad economy, businesses need help.”

Patrascu hews to the chamber line on the provisions for the homeless population of Laguna: no shelter within the city limits.

“It is too expensive and needs to be addressed on a more regional basis than [the city] taking on the entire burden,” Patrascu said.

As for a new city manager to replace the retiring Frank, Patrascu said there should be a comprehensive national search.

The council has announced that a search firm will assist them in seeking Frank’s successor.

Patrascu has plenty of time to decide whether he has enough support to make a run for council. Candidacy is not official until nomination papers are filed and that can’t happen until July.

Local leaders fight back

Laguna Beach is among the cities supporting an initiative designed to prevent the state from siphoning off local revenue.

A group representing Orange County local governments and leaders in transportation, business and public safety officials announced Wednesday that enough signatures had been gathered to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to restrain Sacramento’s raids on local funds.

Laguna’s City Council endorsed the initiative at the April 6 meeting, as recommended by Frank.

“It’s an unfortunate situation that the cities and counties have to go back to the initiative process, because we had an initiative passed just a couple of years ago that we thought protected city revenues from state raids,” Frank said.

“But our state legislators are very creative and they have been talking about ways to raid city revenues, such as eliminating the sales tax on gas, a portion of which comes to the city, and putting on a higher excise tax, none of which comes to the city.

“They didn’t do that. They didn’t take away city money but they were thinking about it.”

If the legislature gets into June, July and August and can’t adopt a balanced state budget, Frank warns, this could come up again.

“So all we are asking is to close the loopholes in the previous initiative that were developed by our talented legislators looking for ways to raid the cities, counties and school districts to balance their own budget.”

The initiative to further amend the California constitution is intended to stop the state legislature from raiding, diverting or borrowing funding for local police and fire, street and road repair, public transit, local infrastructure and other vital services when it can’t balance its budget, according to the press release.

State law requires 694,354 valid signatures to qualify a constitutional amendment for the statewide ballot.

Hundreds of volunteers participated in the collection of 1.1 million signatures to put the Local Taxpayer, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act on the November ballot.