Council already losing the vision You posed...

Council already losing the vision

You posed the question: Is the City Council on the right road with

Vision 2030? (Coastline Pilot, March 7) My answer is, I think not.

As a member of the Vision Laguna Steering Committee, and one of

more than 2,000 community members who put a lot of time and effort

into this project, I was grateful to have the council finally accept

our final report and strategic plan at their last meeting.

The issue now is how we go about implementing the plan. The

direction proposed by the current council does not square with the

principles that have guided this project to date -- namely, that

implementing the vision be a true collaboration among City Council,

city staff, community groups and interested individuals, with

adequate built-in mechanisms for accountability and oversight of

progress.

The recommendations in the report are clear:

The City Council and city staff must weave the Vision Laguna Final

Report into the city’s planning process.

The residents of Laguna Beach participate in public and private

sector initiatives that assist in accomplishing the goals and

projects recommended by the community strategic planning groups.

The report goes on to say: To institutionalize this partnership,

the Vision Laguna Steering Committee recommends that the City Council

establish a Vision Implementation Committee to review progress in

implementing the strategic plan. The composition of this committee

should include members of key city committees and commissions,

members of the City Council and representatives of the public to be

appointed by the City Council. The City Council should appoint the

director of community planning as staff liaison.

It appears that a majority of current council do not see a need

for:

1) mailing the summary of the findings to the entire community;

2) appointing an implementation committee;

3) encouraging participation by individual community members who

may not be members of established community organizations and, above

all;

4) setting up a mechanism for insuring that the Vision report

serves as a template for future council decisions and is part of the

annual planning and budgeting process by city staff.

The need for an implementation committee was reaffirmed at a

recent town hall meeting on visioning sponsored by the League of

Women Voters, where the idea was endorsed by a number of former

mayors (of all political stripes), and the many others present who

were active on one of the seven vision strategy teams (community

character -- people, community character -- place; resident and

visitor mobility; environmental responsibility; arts and culture;

economic sustainability; governance and civic participation).

Since the council has not concluded their deliberations on this

matter, I urge them to heed Mayor Toni Iseman’s suggestions at the

last council meeting that the summary report be mailed out to inform

everyone in the community of the work of the strategy teams, that

visioning recommendations be integrated into city planning and

budgeting and that we insure this remains a dynamic process with deep

grass roots involvement of individual citizens, not a process

controlled solely by people already in power.

Visioning was a process initiated by the City Council in 1999 by

council members Kathleen Blackburn, Steven Dicterow, Paul Freeman,

Toni Iseman and Wayne Peterson. It was always envisioned as an

inclusive collaboration between all segments of the public sector

working with the City Council and staff. Almost $200,000 of city

funds have been spent on the enterprise. Now that we have moved from

visioning and strategic planning to the implementation phase, let’s

stay true to the vision of what visioning was supposed to be about.

MARION K. JACOBS

Laguna Beach

Sight of buses

gives inspiration

Three local buses behind each other in a row going up Glenneyre

Street last Friday afternoon!

That kind of service made me contemplate giving up my reliable ’84

Nissan Sentra with the rising insurance rates and the rip off every

time I go to the gas station. It may even be a better deal to take a

taxi to do my weekly errands than own a car at all.

ANDY WING

Laguna Beach

* If you would like to submit a letter, write to us at P.O. Box

248 Laguna Beach CA 92652, fax us at 494-8979 or send e-mail to

[email protected]. Please give your name and include your

hometown and phone number.