MAILBAG - Aug. 3, 2007

Laguna still beautiful despite loss of MTV

I visited Laguna with my husband and then returned two years later as the show [“Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County”] debuted with my children. I know my daughter, then 15, really enjoyed seeing the places that some of the scenes were shot at.

I think the casting is to blame for the demise of the third season; it is a beautiful area and I think anything filmed there would be a hit. I just don’t think that the cast held everyone’s attention.

We also visited Newport Beach and didn’t find it as enticing as Laguna; they actually enjoyed Huntington Beach the best.

But upon our return next year I’m sure my daughter will want to visit more of the Newport scenes and may want to skip the Laguna scene.

I will want to go back to Laguna because it is just beautiful.

MARIA BISHOP

East Haven, Conn.

Stop moaning about climate; get involved

A few weeks ago I attended a public meeting of the Climate Protection Workgroup. This is a sub-group of Laguna City’s Environmental Committee. Since the meetings are public anyone can show up and sit in on the meeting. The meeting a few weeks ago had the amazing turnout of six people! I wonder what percentage of Laguna Beach residents would say they are concerned about the environment. Out of a population of about 30,000 I would place a hefty bet that it is more than six, or 0.0002%.

I was right because at the last meeting the attendance had skyrocketed to 30! However, this is still only 0.001%

You may be thinking that the problem is not lack of support but lack of publicity, and you are probably right but at least you are now reading this and you can tell or e-mail some friends or even attend the next meeting with suggestions about publicity. As with all city public meetings, the Climate Protection Workshop meetings are posted on the city website and the local newspapers.

Laguna is trying to make itself “green.” You may think it already is environmentally friendly and sure some places will be doing better such as Seattle, Santa Monica, and of course the ultra-green Irvine. Yep, Irvine is greener than Laguna. By getting involved with this effort, you can help push Laguna Beach into the forefront of Orange County’s greenest cities.

The group has no budget so it needs the support of the residents of Laguna to help establish a plan of action and then to support the implementation of these actions.

At the last huge meeting of 30 people, a list of initial ideas for actions was established with help and guidance of Ted Flanigan from Ecomotion. The plan is to pressure some very knowledgeable person into speaking at each meeting. I think Al Gore will be the speaker in the near future but I’m not going to say which meeting, you’ll just have to come to all of them. If you complain about the traffic, parking, ocean water quality, lack of solar panels or trees being cut down in Laguna, stop moaning and get involved.

MAX ISLES

Laguna Beach

Must balance wild habitat and homes

It is sometimes hard to remember that the plant and animal communities which exist in the foothills along the coast of Southern California are extremely unique and rare, and that they are critically endangered of being wiped out of existence, mostly by the high values of real estate.

Perhaps if we had large majestic creatures like wolves, elephants, or panda bears living in our coastal sage scrub habitats we would better recognize the need to protect our environment here, as well as in exotic locations around the world.

We frequently demand that other people in places such as South America protect the endangered habitats like tropical rain forests. Or, we mistakenly believe that all of our important parks are in distant places like Wyoming and Alaska.

We seem to be unconcerned that in these far-away places people often literally balance the environment with starvation and extreme poverty.

Yet here in one of the wealthiest places in the world, in one of the most luxurious cities in the world, we debate whether homes, intentionally built within the wilderness, require unquestioned protection at any cost to the environment.

We made choices that include the threat of fire, flood, and earthquakes when we developed the hills. It is important to remember that we chose to balance development with the protection of parks and open spaces.

We should be looking to the California Conservation Corps for better solutions than goats and tractors.

Laguna Beach leaders should be looking for improved early warning systems and responses to fire, and more enforcement on the highways where most of our big fires originate.

Finally, in order to protect our local and rare environment with responsible solutions to threats, we need to support the California Coastal Commission and the California Department of Fish and Game.

SCOTT THOMAS

Trabuco Canyon

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Scott Thomas is Conservation Director, Orange County Sea and Sage Audubon, Audubon California]Fire-prevention clearing hurts nature

Barbara Diamond’s recent article on City Council discussion on fire-prevention clearing in the natural lands abutting homes in Laguna Beach points up the many confusions about how to do such clearing.

I suggest the council, City Manager Ken Frank, Fire Chief Mike Macey and his department, South Laguna resident Curt Bartsch, Park Avenue resident Dan McFarland, and especially Diamond read “Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California” (Halsey, 2005), especially chapter four, “Getting Ready for the Next One.” Indeed, all of Laguna’s 1,900 wildland-adjacent property owners should read it, and heed Chapter 4’s advice.

Lagunans worked very hard and paid a lot of money to preserve their surrounding wildlands not too many years ago.

The civic foresight and strength of will that it took to preserve these lands are an example and inspiration to land preservationists everywhere.

It will be sad if, because of the complaints of a few, fire clearing slowly removes the ambience, the natural values that all Lagunans seek to preserve.

CELIA KUTCHER

Capistrano Beach

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Celia Kutcher is Vice President and Conservation Chair of the Orange County Chapter, California Native Plant Society]Laguna can do better than using goats

Goats?

Laguna Beach is the crown jewel of the Gold Coast, one of the most coveted of all coastal destinations in the world, the most blessed with natural beauty.

And we use goats to mow down and destroy this priceless area to save a little time and money? How reckless is that?

The net effect is that the Laguna Beach hilltops now look like some third world country, stripped bare and criss-crossed with goat paths.

We all agree that fuel modification is important, but so are the plant species unique to our area in the world, which we need to protect.

Laguna Beach deserves a balanced strategy that meets both needs.

There are many options. The strategy should be one that is worthy of the amazing natural world that we call home.

BOB NENNINGER

Aliso Viejo

Laguna should protect its beauty

I have read with interest some of the recent articles and letters to the editor in the local Laguna Beach newspapers regarding fuel modification.

As a task force co-chair for the Sierra Club in Montebello Hills, our group is being challenged with destruction of habitat all the time, but it’s usually by companies interested in oil production.

I would like to urge the decision makers in Laguna Beach and their fire department to step back, take a deep breath and think about superior alternatives to over-grazing with goats.

Those of us in Montebello Hills are doing everything we can to save our endangered species. We ask you to do the same.

These species were not always endangered. Inappropriate existing development along with proposed development have created much of the problem.

You’re the jewel of the coast, Laguna Beach. Please do your part to protect our natural resources.

LINDA STRONG

Montebello

‘Open space’ may not mean what you think

Your question of the week “Should the Caltrans-owned parcel in Laguna Canyon be designated as open space?” is a trick question, because what the city has planned is not what most people would think “open space” means.

What the city was planning to zone the land as is called “open space-passive” and then they would grandfather in the existing Day Labor Site.

There were even quotes from city officials saying they may pave over the land and build permanent bathrooms for the day labor business.

If that were to happen this property would be the furthest thing from the open and natural environment that most people think of when they think “open space.”

With an expanded permanent Day Labor Site, all that would happen is more workers and contractors would be drawn to the area. More trucks, more cars, more foot traffic, and more congestion.

Our canyon is already a dangerous road to travel. In addition, the city taxpayer will shoulder a heavier burden for potential liability lawsuits if there is ever a mishap on the property.

My first choice for the land would be to remove the Day Labor Site completely and return the land to its natural environment, which is wilderness area.

But, if the city insists on operating a business on the spot then at least have a legal and legitimate business that will pay property tax and generate sales tax revenue, and one that carries their own insurance instead of making us responsible for accidents.

EILEEN GARCIA

Laguna Beach

Illegals are taking jobs from citizens

I read the Sounding Off, “Immigration is a two-way street,” (Coastline Pilot, July 27).

Congress did not fail to pass a bill. Congress did their job “” they listened to the will of the American people and did not pass amnesty legislation.

And currently, the law clearly states, if an individual is in the United States illegally, that person is to be deported.

The American people want the laws upheld.

We are a republic. A unique government. The government is to reflect the will of the people. Not the will of corporations. Not the will of the president. But the will of the people.

David Peck writes, “What is clear is that most of the 12 million people who are in this country illegally are working.”

Where is his evidence? Where are the facts and figures to back up this statement? What percentage of this figure are in the school system, in the jail system, or simply unemployed?

Peck uses an outdated and false statement when he claims “they are working at jobs which others do not want.”

I personally know the following American citizens out of work or with less work due to an illegal labor force taking their job:

All of the above individuals I know and they and others like them are livid when Peck and others say illegal aliens do the work Americans won’t do.

We have American citizens who want to work “with their hands” “” not at desks “” who are competing fiercely with an illegal labor force that undercuts their wages and who are willing to work in abusive and illegal conditions for law-breaking employers.

The premise of this article is wrong. It is intended to create fear and panic by scaring people into thinking they cannot function without a slave-like labor class in Laguna Beach and other places.

The truth is, if illegal aliens went home employers would hire American citizens. Teens. High school dropouts. Moms at home. College kids. Workers from other states.

Out-of-work laborers, etc. would be in demand. If illegal aliens went home, the workers of the United States would be sought after, and a U.S. workers’ renaissance would follow.

I only hire American citizens. I never had any illegal help with my child.

When I have work done on my home, I always tell the employer I only hire American citizens. I have had no trouble finding American citizen labor. Do I pay more? I have no idea.

I do know this “” American citizens do excellent work. I know because they are the only workers I hire!

ROBIN HVIDSTON

Upland

Site supporters are ‘slave-traders’

Reading all the pro-illegal alien invasion/Day Labor Site propaganda letters from those who hail from Laguna Beach, it appears that community has a lot of low-life, self-acclaimed intellectuals engaged in the 21st century slave labor trade.

Their arguments parallel perfectly with the arguments of the unscrupulous southern Democrats who made an earnest profit in the pre-Civil War slave trade. That is nothing to be proud of.

JIM GILCHRIST

Aliso Viejo

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Gilchrist is Founder and President of The Minuteman Project.]