Commentary: Laguna’s youngest politician survives first year

Nearly a year ago, Alex Rounaghi arrived in the Laguna Beach City Council chambers as its youngest member in history, believing he could revitalize a moribund, bickering group of elected leaders more than twice his age.

Now that his first-year honeymoon is ending, is he still the happy-go-lucky kid who wants to change the world?

“Yes, I am. I don’t regret it,” he said, smiling. “It’s a lot of work, but we’re here to solve problems.”

And in Laguna, there are always problems — real or imagined. The city is known for its entrenched, educated factions who know how to fight.

So for Rounaghi, 25, it’s been a lesson in diplomacy, and his efforts have not gone unnoticed.

“One of the many reasons I supported Alex for City Council was that he connects well with people — due to his optimistic and generally good nature — and his ability to grasp the issues with a healthy dose of pragmatism,” said one of his colleagues on the dais, Councilwoman Sue Kempf.

Kempf said Rounaghi is unafraid to volunteer for some of the city’s most difficult projects, such as the undergrounding of Laguna Canyon Road.

“I have also witnessed him pressing for nuanced solutions, often begun through a thoughtful series of questions,” she said. “Like most of us serving on the council, he is about the work versus sideshows. Make no mistake about it, the guy works. And he is a breath of fresh air.”

Laguna’s problems might be good problems to have for most cities, but there are some significant challenges ahead. For example, how will the city meet the relentless state mandates for affordable housing when the current median home listing price is in the $4-million range, according to Realtor.com?

It’s these types of issues that worry Chris Quilter, an affordable housing and senior advocate in Laguna, who worked on Rounaghi’s campaign and hopes he can follow through on his agenda.

“He was born in a town where he can barely afford to live, so it’s no surprise that he is our most vocal advocate for affordable housing,” Quilter said.

“Despite the state mandates that require us to act, building anything in Laguna is expensive and divisive. So any housing project Alex supports will be fiercely opposed by our many NIMBYs,” Quilter noted, using the common acronym for Not in My Backyard. “It will be interesting to see how he navigates this challenge.”

Rounaghi admits he feels like he has a long way to go. Nothing comes easy, and the machine of government bureaucracy sometimes weighs him down. He is, after all, a Gen Z with a blushing Instagram account.

“There should never be a six-hour meeting,” he said. “Six-hour meetings are not a sustainable way of having 22,000 residents being able to get involved. Most people are working, they’re raising their kids, they’re paying their high property taxes to live in Laguna Beach. They don’t have time to be involved in a six-hour meeting. I barely have enough time to do that.”

If he could wave a magic wand, he would significantly streamline the city’s byzantine regulations, starting with the Design Review Board processes.

“If you look at our design review process, that’s what I get the most emails and calls about,” he said. “It’s like hell and back to go through a remodel on your house.”

So he’s working on changing it, along with a laundry list of other issues:

· Village Entrance: “It’s been debated for 30-plus years when really it’s kind of a simple question: Is the surface parking lot there the highest and best use for that land? And I think most reasonable people would say, no, it’s not.”

· Second-story downtown housing: “It’s going to bring our downtown alive, and it’s going to create opportunity for our young people, artists, and seniors to be part of our community.”

· Restaurant closures: “I think it’s a crisis. When you talk to residents, people are pissed off. They want to be able to go to restaurants. They want cool things. But if you want to open up a restaurant in the city of Laguna Beach, it’s a hard process.”

· Rethink rules: “We’ve been sort of complacent, saying, ‘Oh, we have all these rules and we’re just going to keep blindly following them.’ Some of the rules make sense, but then others don’t. I think more broadly, we need to be more intentional and ask, what do we want for this town?”

· Business vitality: “We can get out of the way but still regulate the things we want to regulate. Every month that a business is waiting to open, that’s another month that they have to pay rent and absorb costs. The big chains can handle that; the little guy can’t. They’re going to go to Costa Mesa and open up there instead — or Dana Point.”

· Take over PCH and Laguna Canyon Road: “It’s dangerous. A lot of these cars don’t even stop here. They use it as a freeway. If we could slow it down, it would make it a lot better for residents. I think we just need to take it over from Caltrans. In the canyon, the question is not if a fire is going to start from an above-ground utility line but when. The cost of doing nothing is way higher than the cost of taking action.”

You can’t help but wonder how long Rounaghi will be content to fight the fight in Laguna. Will he move on once he gets bored or feels like he’s done enough? Perhaps, but for now he’s all in.

Alex Rounaghi with the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2015.

(Alex Rounaghi)

“I’m optimistic that for the next few years — or eight years if I’m reelected — I feel like we’re going to be able to solve some of these big problems that we’ve been talking about for years. I think now is the time to take action. That’s what makes me the most excited about being on the City Council.”

David Hansen is editor of Under Laguna in Laguna Beach. He can be reached at david@underlaguna.com.