Laguna Beach Council: Speculative Gambling vs. Investing In Our Future

Laguna Beach City Council Majority: Out-Of-Control & Needlessly Expensive Acquisitions

The unicumber, like 4 of our LBCC members, is spineless and has no central nervous system with a clearly visible brain either.

So too the unicumber apparently survives having only a digestive tract. In other words, our Council intakes, digests and processes money and power instead of micro-organisms, excretes the waste unnecessary for its survival---in the cases of the 133, Highway 1 & parking structures, our Council "waste discharges" our precious money into an infinite, alarming future.

These acquisitions (identified as "Projects" herein) constitute fiscal suicide. The funding and goals, the objectives expressed for the 133 and Highway 1/PCH Projects never needed to be pursued in the way they are presently, basically gambling that eventually we'd get what we want.

Investing shouldn't carry the mark of the economic devil beast: Speculative wagers.

Michele Monda (in the LB Independent) has noted and been clarion-calling, pounding the warning drum out about this in recent columns: Between acquisition sticker prices added to specific alterations/improvements added to ongoing O&M costs, these 2 road movies involve hundreds of millions of $$$ in commitments today, into tomorrow and the next day and day after that.

Betting with house money (ours) that we can assume ownership and then it's "X-mas Wish List City," free presents under the tree. Ah yes, Laguna Beach City Council, where gross sum debt service is a way of life!

Bob (What, Me Worry?) Whalen going to a PUC hearing recently, kow-towing, begging for utility under-grounding in the Canyon (public safety and open space hazard issues) or Alex (Frat Boy Wonder) Rounaghi unethically cutting deals behind closed doors with politicians of questionable character and integrity aren't the most efficient or least expensive path forward.

Rogue Council members, renowned for their myopia and invertebrate leanings, aren't the funding ambassadors we should be using. As a regional, state and international destination, these Barney Fife's aren't capable of entering into high digit, underwriting procurement negotiations.

In Rounaghi's case, as outed by Michele Monda, who asked him to do this in ex parte chats before his anointment as our representative was discussed at a public hearing? No, not at end of a LBCC meeting when everyone's left or is half-asleep. At the beginning, and an action item: See who votes to delegate such a negotiation role broaching the transfer of ownership.

The French politician Georges Clemenceau said that "War is too important to be left to the generals." PCH and the 133 are too important to have Whalen and Rounaghi, diplomatic rubes, grovel, ramble about on bended knee.

Hiring a very good lobbyist firm who is ensconced in Sacramento, has experience in infrastructure, socializes continuously with key committee members in DC, in our legislature and Governor's Offices could, for a fraction of those millions, get us what we want.

That's how and why they stay in business, by succeeding. And their competitive portfolio successes can be readily accessed and appraised. If failures, they disappear, capitalistic survival of the fittest.

They often work behind the scenes, including connections with elected aides and other staff. They get the eyes and ears of officials that our Councilmembers might not ever reach let alone even be aware of. The corridors and back alleys of power are their "native habitat" as it were.

If that disturbs anyone, then grow up: Pragmatically, this is where the political system is, and as we're no longer a village or funky town but an increasingly urbanized city, we need to (as native Californian Joan Didion put it) "Play it as it lays." Wake up and smell today's reality coffee.

Co-authored grants and earmarked funds in partnership with Caltrans/DOT, plus US Department of Transportation/Commerce could provide supplemental money needed to make both arteries achieve our community's targets, the outcomes we'd all like to see.

So spending a few million instead seems intelligent---except our Big 4, like the unicumber, appear to lack any higher cerebral organs between them: Like the Scarecrow in Oz said to Dorothy, if they only had a brain.

Under the National Highway System mandates, states are encouraged to focus federal funds on improving the efficiency and safety of this network. The 133 is on this list.

And why didn't we get the 133 (Laguna Canyon Road) also listed as a State Scenic Route, like Highway 1 (PCH) long ago? Or is this Council poised to permit yet more blight, more fiascos like Louis Longi's Work/Live Folly which a SSR listing could preclude?

Considering these 2 major arteries facilitate both county and state transportation, i.e., transiting critical top commerce turf needs along our So Cal coast and especially assist tourism (of which the state gets a piece of the industry action), why do we need to purchase them?

They're assets and big ticket liabilities that we can do without. We can get the improvements, the cosmetic and infrastructural alterations we seek without buying them.....thus uncomplicated solutions.

We've already financially sacrificed by our open space acquisitions that benefit everyone, by our community's protective vigilance.

We just need to hire the right lobbyists to work their "candidate funding" magic behind the Sacramento and Washington D.C. curtains. In my field (the water utility industry), this is SOP, yet here our country bumpkin, just-fell-off-the-turnip truck Council history thrives and proliferates.

The utilities I work around keep their lobbyists on retainer, and "job out" grant writing. Who writes our grants and what expertise do they really have, especially in the transportation funding area?

Hiring lobbyists for a fraction of the costs of ownership could, within a few years, get BOTH of our main arteries listed, certified in BOTH categories, hence qualify ASAP for the ducats.

CalTrans can't very well complain if we help find the money, make it part of the decision tree equation, can they? They'll be happy to hear us stop whining and griping.

Contemporaneously, lobbyists could petition for funds to underwrite the changes we wish to see from other "buckets" like beautification, without massive $$$ encumbrances or post-ownership acquisition O&M costs.

Certainly Les Miklosy's mobility concept elements can be integrated, "efficiency and safety" implemented, can't they?

Laguna can achieve its reasonable goals and objectives regarding PCH and the 133 without a veritable tsunami of red ink.

“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.” Frederick Bastiat 1850

One can't help but assume those parking structure Projects are like the pyramids of Egypt, meant to glorify the hubris of leadership yet fly in the face of fiscal prudence, hundreds of millions wasted on visible yet seldom used urbanization homages.

Laguna isn't just an ideal, dream destination for over 7 million visitors each year: We bring in a lot of money, dispersed across County, State and even national coffer lines. Some here have embraced what a few internationally famous places do: Entrance fees!

We don't need to do instigate or initiate that "tolling" tactic. And we don't need to buy the infrastructure that assists those visitations and makes radiated commuting a more modern, pleasant and efficient endeavor (presently more like a Disney adventure ride).

Well, shouldn't these same beneficiaries I've mentioned help us modernize, preserve and protect Laguna as THEIR asset, worthy of diverted, earmarked funding? Not in speculation but in the form of an investment in its viable future?

Seems to me what's missing is any open, transparent discussion of alternatives like lobbyists, but we're stuck like a fly in amber with archaic, old school methodologies: Sic transit gloria mundi Laguna Beach City Council.