Baglin needs to admit his mistake As...

Baglin needs to admit his mistake

As much as City Councilman Wayne Baglin believes in his innocence,

it is obvious he is guilty. More egregious than this is that he

knowingly and with full knowledge abstained from voting because of

this conflict of interest, however, his constituency was left without

representation on this very important issue.

What is sad is that the decision to purchase the property was a

good one, but Baglin’s involvement was illegal. He should have made a

deal with the commission, paid a fine and the money back, admitted

his mistake and moved on.

He has his right to a trial, but don’t ask this citizen to be

there to support him.

BILL LAPOINTE

Laguna Beach

Councilman Baglin was big help to us

We have never met councilman Baglin in person, although I have

spoken to him on the phone and via e-mail. However, our impression of

him and the help he rendered us warrants notice, especially now when

his integrity and reputation not to mention civil liberties are in

serious jeopardy.

My wife and I have grown up in Orange County and always dreamed of

a home in Laguna Beach. Well, in September we purchased our dream

home, an old cottage charmer near the Village.

As the first winter storm rolled in, we noticed a very old,

overgrown tree in our neighbor’s yard, leaning directly on the high

voltage line supplying our home with electricity. The power lines

stretched like a rubber band. It was quite frightening. We questioned

our neighbor, who told us for 12 years he had been trying to have

either Edison or local agencies assist in the potential catastrophe,

all to no avail.

A Santa Ana condition the following week and being away all day

prompted me to contact Edison. Edison told me it was not their

responsibility but it was truly a potential catastrophe and it was

not their problem. I proceeded to call our city manager who directed

me to the parks department who directed me to the fire department who

directed me back to Edison! I even called Edison administrative

offices in San Francisco, then after 40 minutes on hold they told me

it was not their responsibility even though a potential catastrophe

did exist and had been documented by my persistence.

Then we contacted Councilman Baglin as a last resort pleading that

someone in this city go to bat for us as our neighbor remained

oblivious to our concerns. Councilman Baglin came out the following

day and concurred this was really a potential fire hazard. He then

contacted Edison. And to our amazement the same gentleman at Edison

who told us it was our problem to fix did a complete turn around and

told us Edison would re-route the power line in a safe way. It was

taken care of within a few weeks after our local councilman got

involved.

It should also be noted when Councilman Baglin took the time to

help us he was probably under immense pressure and very busy

preparing himself for the allegations he is currently defending

himself from. He is a gentleman and accountable as our story

illustrates .

We wish you the very best Councilman Baglin.

FARLEY AND ROXANNE BROWN

Laguna Beach

Nothing wrong with Baglin’s actions

I am so disgusted with the city of Laguna Beach council for what

they are doing to Wayne Baglin.

Baglin is one of the most honest people I know. Over the years he

has done so much for our city.

His has been in the real estate business in Laguna Beach for

years. This big stink over his collecting a commission from the sale

of one of his client’s properties to the city stinks! The client paid

him the commission, not the city.

BERNICE COLLIER

Laguna Beach

Baglin would never be dishonest

In response to your question, “Will you support Councilman

Baglin?” my response is absolutely.

Baglin is a successful businessman in Laguna and has no need to do

anything dishonest. He is a fellow veteran and served our country

honorably. He has served our community in public office for many

years, which has required countless hours of public service. (You

should see the huge amount of material council members have to study

even before spending long tedious hours at the council meetings.)

In the past, he was elected by his real estate peers to head up

our local board of Realtors. And, he did triple duty by serving on

the San Diego Regional Water Quality Board. This is quite a record of

public service for his fellow citizens.

I have had several years of interfacing directly with Baglin on

city issues and feel qualified to state that Baglin always tries to

do the right things. Yes, Baglin is his own man and can be difficult

to deal with sometimes; but being dishonest or careless is not in his

character. He takes his responsibilities and duties seriously and I’m

confident that he would never risk years of hard work by doing

anything shady. I certainly hope that Baglin will not become the

victim of some meaningless bureaucratic ruling or technical

oversight.

DAVE CONNELL

Laguna Beach

There Newport

Beach goes again

Apparently, Newport Beach will never give up its efforts to breach

the letter and spirit of the Base Realignment and Closure Act that

gives residents living adjacent to a closed military facility a

decisive voice in its reuse planning.

That is why an obsessive compulsive cabal, determined to create an

unwanted, unneeded, inappropriate commercial airport at the El Toro

Marine Corps Air Station, gleefully greeted Los Angeles Mayor James

Hahn’s covert scheme to resurrect the corpse of El Toro and convert

it under the auspices of the Department of Transportation to a huge,

24-hour-per-day nightmare and total disaster for some 500,000 south

Orange County residents, ignoring the will of Orange County voters

who passed Measure W in 2002 by a 58% to 42% margin.

The Airport Working Group, founded in 1982, had one objective:

Close El Toro and move John Wayne to El Toro, knowing both airports

cannot operate concurrently. The working group is the epitome of

NIMBY and principal cheerleader for the carpetbaggers from Los

Angeles.

Lost in this 21-year old battle are the results of an in-depth

study commissioned by the Orange County Board of Supervisors and

conducted by 300 leaders from all parts of the county over a period

of 20 months from May 1988 through December 1989 at a cost of

$700,000 that rejected El Toro as a candidate site for an alternative

commercial airport.

Using 21 selection criteria, El Toro ranked 15 out of a possible

17 medium-haul airports and was dropped from the list of candidates

in July 1989 despite the large contingent of Newport Beach residents

who participated in this thoroughly objective study by the Airport

Site Consensus team.

For anyone sincerely interested in learning why El Toro was

rejected, copies of the team’s final, 312-page report of March 12,

1990, are available from your county supervisor. Please get a copy

and read it.

DAVE BLODGETT,

Member Airport Site Consensus Team

Laguna Woods

Airport proposal unsafe for area

Airport proponents are once again offering “compelling arguments”

in support of a million air passengers per year airport proposal

secretly submitted by Los Angeles to lease El Toro for the

construction of a 28-million air passengers commercial airport.

They are still repeating the same misleading arguments that were

used in the county’s campaign opposing Measure W. And of all of the

issues presented, there was one half-truth that I consider to be the

most egregious, namely the FAA approval declaring El Toro to be a

safe airport for arrivals and departures.

After extrapolating the 4 million air passengers per year data,

the FAA reported that a 28 million passenger airport will create

delays such as one hour in the surrounding airports and thereby

creating unsafe conditions.

Please take note that this argument was never rebuked by the

county or other airport proponents!

PAUL WILLEMS

Laguna Niguel

Ad is misleading, El Morro is open

In reference to the “Your Beachfront Property” ad in the June 20

Coastline Pilot:

For starters, El Morro Trailer Park is not. It is El Morro Village

and has been for some time. What does it mean when people say “the

public still can’t get in or use it?” Since when?

I have been a resident since 1977 here at El Morro. At no time has

anyone been forbidden to use it. The only time cars are stopped at

the gate entrance is to show their car passes which are issued yearly

or if they’re visiting someone who lives in the park. What’s wrong

with that?

We could be robbed blind if anyone walks through without proper

authority, especially in these times.

We rent / lease our premises from the state and we pay taxes to

Orange County. So what else!

And to get back to my starting paragraph (about the ad), just

where was this (“keep out” sign) picture taken? Nowhere on the El

Moro Beach does such a sign exist.

MARIA PANDOLFI

Laguna Beach

Mansions don’t concern council

Our new council majority had an opportunity last week to show us

how serious it is about protecting Laguna from mansionization, and

the answer seems to be “not at all.”

Brushing aside clear provisions in the municipal code designed to

preserve our hillsides and our neighborhoods from out-of-scale

development, they upheld the Design Review Board’s approval of a

house on a hillside and canyon site overlooking the village of South

Laguna that will have 11,333 square feet of living area, 1,507 square

feet of decks, 575 square feet of storage and greenhouse, and a 4,769

square-foot garage, for a total of 18,184 square feet. The largest

houses in the adjacent neighborhood are between 4,000 to 5,000 square

feet, and the cottages below tend to be 1,800 square feet or less.

Some 9,000 cubic yards of earth will be removed from the site to make

all this possible (more than 1,000 truckloads)--indicating that the

development is not only too big for the neighborhood but too big for

its hilltop site.

The municipal code states: “New development should be compatible

with the existing development in the neighborhood and respect

neighborhood character. Neighborhood character is the sum of the

qualities that distinguish areas within the city, including

historical patterns of development (e.g. structural heights, mass,

scale or size), village atmosphere, landscaping themes, and

architectural styles.”

The section that applies to the residential / hillside Protection

zone in which this property lies, specifically says: “In addition to

the mass and scale of the residence, the total square footage shall

also be maintained at a size compatible with the open space

characteristics of the hillsides. Residential designs should blend in

with the surroundings, while minimizing their prominence to public

view. As such, larger lots shall not necessarily enable the

development of correspondingly larger homes.”

Wayne Baglin started the ball rolling toward the 4-1 approval of

this project with his assertion that the neighborhood-compatibility

criterion didn’t apply here because “the house is in its own

neighborhood” and that a very large house is an appropriate trade off

for the dedication of open space on this property. All but Mayor Toni

Iseman agreed. Cheryl Kinsman explained that when the council members

adopted the anti-mansionization recommendations some time ago they

“knew that there would be mansions because there are some large

lots.”

This is an egregious example of the kind of development that

threatens our community’s character, and the council majority has

failed to use its own adopted policies and ordinances to protect us.

If you, too, are concerned that very large homes, out-of-scale with

the immediate area, threaten the character of neighborhoods, call or

e-mail Council members urging them to uphold the Neighborhood

Compatibility guidelines in our city’s code.

GINGER OSBORNE

President, Village Laguna

Mansionization being ignored by city

Who cares about the city’s anti-mansionization policy? Who cares

if an 18,000-square-foot house doesn’t have compatibility with its

closest neighbors in the village atmosphere of South Laguna? Who

cares about the environmental risks of scraping 14,600 cubic yards of

hillside out of an environmentally protected zone of globally rare

maritime chaparral habitat?

Apparently not the majority of your city officials.

Such a project was approved by the Design Review Board on May 1,

and sustained by the City Council on June 17. Every council member

agreed that it was a mansion, agreed that it posed many serious

problems. But in the end, all but Mayor Toni Iseman agreed to allow

this environmentally insensitive, more-than-mansion into our city.

While Baglin seemed quite troubled by the project, he felt bound

by the agreement made by the city some 10 years ago in which the

former property owner traded the house design for about six acres

granted to the city for open space.

However, that building permit lapsed years ago; neither the city

nor the Design Review Board had any obligation to that obsolete

agreement. Baglin did warn them to be really careful not to let any

dirt or building pollution slip into the environment or close-by

watercourses. Great. But who’s enforcing that warning, and with what

teeth?

Over seven of my houses will fit inside this proposed “house,” and

my research tells me my house is just about average for my

neighborhood, over which this mansion will loom. Over five of the

average newer/larger houses would fit. And we’re not even talking the

hard-scape for the pool, terraces and circular driveway, literally

large enough for fire trucks to circulate.

Is that “neighborhood compatibility” as prescribed by city

guidelines? No.

Is that within the city’s “anti-mansionization” guidelines? No. So

why did four City Council members and the Design Review Board before

them approve such a travesty on our pristine hills? This approval

sets an alarming precedent for all of Laguna.

I am outraged. If this information outrages you, please call or

e-mail your city officials. Tell them you care about our town’s

environment and character, neither of which includes such an

outlandish project as this.

ANITA DOBBS

Laguna Beach

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