BREAKING NEWS

There will be some excitement in the race for Laguna Beach City Council after all.

Former City Clerk Verna Rollinger became the fourth and last candidate for city office in the 2008 municipal election. Rollinger will vie with Mayor Jane Egly and Mayor Pro Tem Cheryl Kinsman for one of the two open seats.

Rollinger filed nomination papers and her candidate’s statement late Friday afternoon, less than two hours before the 5 p.m. deadline. The nomination document was submitted to the county Registrar of Voters for official verification that at least 20 of all 30 signatories are registered voters in Laguna.

This will be Rollinger’s second run for a council seat. Rollinger, who was elected to seven terms as City Clerk, came in fourth in the 2006 election, behind incumbents Elizabeth Pearson and Toni Iseman and businessman Kelly Boyd, who had last held office more than two decades earlier.

“This is the first election I have ever lost,” Rollinger said at the time. “It’s not as much fun as winning.”

The election results were certified by City Clerk Martha Anderson at the Dec. 5, 2006 council meeting.

Anderson reported a total of 10,494 votes cast in the municipal election: 5,731 for Iseman, 5,331 for Pearson-Schneider, 5,217 for Boyd and 5,079 for former City Clerk Verna Rollinger.

Some local political pundits shook their heads at the results. Rollinger’s campaign was considered a model by many.

“She did everything right,” said Pearson-Schneider campaign treasurer Anne Johnson. “She got better and more comfortable with each forum.”

Planning Commissioner and political advisor Norman Grossman said Mayor Steven Dicterow’s decision not to run was a factor in Rollingers’s loss that she could not control.

“If he had run, the Republicans would have had three candidates, which might have benefited Verna by splitting off some votes from Kelly,” Grossman said.

City Clerk Martha Anderson and City Treasurer Laura Parisi will run unaopposed, as they did in 2004.