I love Laguna Beach, its charm, its beaches and hills. I have lived here for 45 years and been involved with the community at various levels; early board member of school power, elected to school board etc. I’ve even been a member of Village Laguna. I am in favor of keeping Laguna a village, but Prop Q is the wrong way to go. It will basically shut down all development since It requires 51 percent of the electorate for a project to be approved (not 51 percent of the voters but percent 51 percent of all registered voters). We never get 51 percent of the registered voters voting on local issues let alone get 51 percent to vote the same way. Our much beloved Montage Hotel would never have made it through the election if this prop was in place also the Pottery Shack project would have faced election and couldn’t have passed with the 51 percent requirement.
Almost all financial development falls under the umbrella of this prop. Even if the proposed project isn’t large if there is a change of use for even a small project it requires a vote. No developer will want to take the risk and expense of going thru design and review, City Council then a general vote, which they know can’t pass. Q will electively prevent almost all projects and let our village stagnate in the past.
The City Council has blocked such block development in the past and has already beefed up some of the restrictions that are called for in prop Q. The argument that it can be turned back with a different council doesn’t hold since if we elect people who agree with our point of view that won’t happen. That’s where the public’s vote should come in and not a badly worded prop that can only be reversed again by requiring 51 percent of the electorate.
Vote NO on Q.
Harvey Triebwasser, Laguna Beach
This LTE writer interprets the term “electorate” wrongly. Elections are decided by the Electorate, but the word Electorate gets used in two contexts. In a broad sense, it means all voters. In the outcome of an election, it means the subset of voters who actually voted. People who don’t vote don’t have a say in the election. That is how all elections work. Falsely claiming that “Electorate” means something else in this context is distorting reality. In its usage in Measure Q, “Electorate” means the subset of voters who actually voted, and hence, a project that trips any of Measure Q’s triggers needs to get a majority (50% + 1) of those voting for the measure to remove the subject property from the Beautiful Laguna Overlay Zoning District.