Council meetings are joy to view

Mary Dolphin

Something terrific happens every other Tuesday night in Laguna Beach.

Believe it or not, that something is the Laguna Beach City Council

meeting.

Unscripted and totally unrehearsed, these meetings might be called

“Democracy: Raw and Unedited.” Let me tell you about this.

First, there is Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman. Who can ever forget

the famous line, “You better pray I’m wrong, Tony ....”? Well, at the

council meeting on Oct. 21, Kinsman got so excited by something that

Councilman Wayne Baglin orated that she gleefully broke from protocol

and said, “I’m with you, Wayne ....” It was a wonderful moment

because it was so, well, fresh. Fresh. Our politicians at the local

level are, in my opinion, so fresh that you can still smell the soil

from which these little tomatoes and cabbages were plucked. This is

not your carefully canned spinach, so bland and wilted! Oh no!

Another reason to turn off Seinfeld reruns and tune in? Wayne

Baglin. Baglin doesn’t attend council meetings so much as he emerges

from out of his corner. After his recent acquittal, he has his gloves

on and he’s in a fighting mood. He is not going to put up with

you-know-what from anyone, anyhow, anymore. Plain-shooting,

plain-talking Baglin seemed almost to punch out his speech at

Tuesday’s meeting, as though dancing like a butterfly atop the dais

rather than seated in his chair.

Thrusting and jabbing with stinging words, delivered true and

hard, had there not been a mayoral dictate against clapping, the end

of his oration would have earned him clapping aplenty.

“We are good people,” he said of his fellows on the council. He

was arguing against disclosure of campaign contributions that might

be too detailed. The voters, he said, didn’t need to know if

contributed money was from a housewife or whomever and such

information need not be listed in a candidate’s report. Well, as

already reported, clapping was not allowed but it was at that point

that the exuberant Kinsman sang out, “I’m with you, Wayne. I’m

changing my vote!”

They are all so entertaining it’s hard to know where to turn next.

But ah, yes! Elizabeth. To watch Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson for

even a few minutes is to get a whole semester’s course in body

language. What Pearson says can never compare in weight to how she

says it. As someone else wrote in a recent letter to the editor, she

is the master of the icy stare.

Truly, it seems more and more plausible, that Pearson could sit

down upon a small fire and demurely exclaim, “Oh my, I think my

backside is getting a little heated. Perhaps I should move to the

next seat over.” That said, she would push aside the microphone, to

her left, lift her hair on either side and calmly stand and move

over. It would be a breathtaking feat of southern belle composure. It

would be a moment that Scarlet O’Hara could only hope for in her

dreams.

And in the center of the dais, presiding, for now, over all of

this is Mayor Tony “Am I Really Here?” Iseman. Iseman parks her white

steed out in the parking lot and lowers her lancet as she enters the

chambers. She is close to discovering the grail but is waylaid by the

louts and clods the developers keep putting in her path to foil her.

Follow the career of Iseman for it is sure to lead to wisdom and

enlightenment; at least Village Laguna people are convinced of this

and would follow her over the cliffs at Treasure Island Park if she

so commanded, such is her loyal following.

Now legend has it that Councilman Steve Dicterow walked to every

house and spoke to every citizen in the city of Laguna Beach when he

ran the first time for City Council. So darn nice, he makes Ron

Howard seem like Hannibal Lector, he’s someone a voter could not

refuse. During his moment of infamy at the meeting Tuesday it was

difficult to follow where his thoughts were going. He was concerned

about spin and whatever it was he was saying well, heck, he’s just

such a neat guy that you come away thinking, “Steve -- that’s swell.

Heck, you’ve got my vote!”

And then comes the “must-not-miss” duo of Captain Ken and Captain

Phil. As the council members and members of the audience frequently

go into an interpersonal, issue-related, communications nosedive, a

deadly pitch and roll that would send any 747 belly up and toss

passengers to the cabin floor, cool and unflappable at the controls,

buckled in, sit City Manager Ken Frank and City Atty. Phil Kohn. This

will never go down on their shift. Inwardly they may be pulling

levers and pushing buttons desperately, frantically working the foot

pedals; we “passengers” will never see them break a sweat. It is all

cruise control and totally cool up front with Ken and Phil.

Captain Ken knows the inner workings of this mini-behemoth named

“Laguna Beach City Government” and Captain Phil knows the physics of

flight -- it’s all in knowing the laws and he’s read them cover to

cover. These two are masters and we will never know how often

disaster is averted and collisions narrowly missed. “Thanks, Captain

Ken and Captain Phil. We rest easier at our seats knowing you are in

control.”

Finally, I have to recommend you pay close attention to certain

members of the public. A “must see” is Jeanne Bernstein. In other

cultures, age is accorded respect for its wisdom. With gentle and

wise words, Bernstein, in granny dress and ‘60s lovebeads, suggests

that it might be a good idea to cling fast to values that are not

corrupted by greed and the all-consuming quest for the power we give

money. She deserves the highest respect and esteem in my opinion.

And Roger von Butow. Von Butow is this character who seems to be

writing “The Story of Roger Set Against the Forces of Laguna” and

doing it, edits, rewrites and all in front of anyone and everyone who

listens to him at meetings and reads his letters to the editors. The

“Story of Roger” seems never-ending.

Those are two of the regulars and then, last night, there was the

citizen who compared eucalyptus trees to weapons of mass destruction

followed by another citizen who made a connection between child

abduction and hedges or the lack thereof. Oh dear.

So there is my recommendation for fun and frolic. In Shakespeare’s

day, we of the audience would be groundlings pelleting our favorite

villains of this political comedy of errors and cheering our heroes.

However, in our more circumspect times we sit in our chairs and only

in our minds do we get the pleasure of tossing one over-ripe cucumber

and landing it squarely between the eyes of the overly pompous, self

important ones we call our elected city officials. Play on.

* MARY DOLPHIN is a Laguna Beach resident.