FREQUENTLY ASKED 
QUESTIONS

1- I care about Laguna and am concerned the lack of best practices at the city means taxpayers don’t get fair value for their dollar. Some of the remedies involve a simple copy-and-paste from cities doing things exceptionally well. Another part of the remedy involves doing a better job at tapping our incredible reservoir of local talent.

2- I feel I can draw on my business and broad community experience to help improve public outcomes. This is a big part of my motivation. Laguna residents deserve the best, and that’s what I’ll fight for.

3- I am willing to do the hard work of bringing competing interests, even bitter rivals, together to find common ground. Naturally number-three can be tough. But that’s part of the challenge: taking care of business despite the background noise; being an honest broker in service to the public.

Some ideas reflect some level of consensus already based on long and difficult recent discussions among people from opposing groups in town. I participated in these discussions and was pleased with ideas like a more formal concept review hearing for all major projects, even before a formal application is filed. The “no surprise“ rule is almost always a good idea. Provision of early explanations, early feedback, and early discussions can serve the mutual interests of developers and public at large. Beyond that there are significant opportunities to clarify and strengthen our small-scale development standards. Too much now is too vague.

Five things, mainly.

1- We must dramatically increase our environmental sustainability. That involves initiatives on multiple fronts to do more with less, generally speaking, and, more specifically, to strengthen standards governing construction, water use, and carbon footprint.

2- Although Laguna will always attract visitors, there are ways to more smartly manage the profile of tourists and adverse impacts of daytrippers.

3- we can do so much more to maximize citizen awareness and engagement. There is inherent virtue in doing this, and the payoff is real in terms of improving outcomes. These three items are all important and if elected I am prepared to work hard. But success on any front requires a real plan, and effective follow-through. 

4- I’ll be concerned about accountability, and that starts with transparency. In my judgment, there’s too little of that today at City Hall.

5- we need as a city to be more pro-active in our process and focus of strategic planning, and likewise in our strategic outreach and overall communications.

The fact that Laguna residents have to file a Public Records Act request to obtain information they’re entitled to, that’s a problem. When the City is admonished by the DA, that’s a problem. Open government is the first step in good government. That’s the law. And it should be a given here.

It requires an attitude adjustment, for starters. It involves wanting not merely to working within the law but within the spirit behind it. Beyond that, it involves embracing the idea that a truly informed and meaningfully engaged population is in everyone’s best interests. So the process in this context becomes crucial. Best practice involves strengthening public awareness, public education, timely heads-up notifications of upcoming decisions, and calls to action. It’s about creating a system and process that provides the foundation for facing criticism head on when needed, constructive conversations and building consensus.

This is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, let alone the California Coastline. Visitors will never stop coming to Laguna Beach. But at times it feels as though we're being overrun, so we have to start somewhere. We can start by sharpening our focus on who we want as a Laguna Beach tourist. Overnight visitors/hotel guests, are a fraction of the tourist population right now. While we welcome everyone, the largest percentage of Laguna tourists are daytrippers coming for the beach, the sun and the beach party lifestyle. To help minimize congestion and other factors that give us tourist angst, our goal would be to steer those daytrippers that are looking for more than our community has to offer to more convenient, and relevant places with broader beaches, more ample parking and a greater concentration of the beach party lifestyle.

For those who still want to enjoy our brand of coastal lifestyle for the day, we want to better manage parking, especially with an eye to minimizing neighborhood impacts. This will involve working more effectively with the Coastal Commission, to find more creative solutions.

The tourists will keep coming, no matter how anyone sees it. One part of the finesse involves focusing not only on the numbers of visitors but what they are looking for. That math is easy: hotel guests are more desirable than daytrippers. Of the roughly 6 million visitors annually to Laguna Beach, there are only about 1,000 hotel rooms available each day. Hotel guests don’t cause that much congestion and their local spending supports local artists and merchants. It's important that we're more careful and smarter about how the City regulates commercial uses. We must be careful how we scrutinize proposed new projects, including hotels. To be clear: I am not anti-growth; nor will I reflexively vote for the next shiny new project. In fact, I won’t support any project unless I see substantial and lasting benefits for the City of Laguna Beach and its residents. It’s my view there can be genuine and broad public benefits in transforming eyesores into innovative, pleasing designs with generous spaces and nice amenities the public can easily access and enjoy. The sort of place you like to go, that you enjoy bringing your family and friends to. This is the sort of sensibility, and reflects the balanced perspective, that I will bring to to the job.

Over time I think the City has done a generally good job — Laguna could hardly be more different than most cities in Orange County, with our small-scale standards and sensitivity to sameness. On the other hand, we need to be vigilant. Recent discussions and certain of the Council’s recent policy decisions don't seem to be the best path forward for the City and its residents, and make me fear things may be trending in the wrong direction.

I am sympathetic but not supportive. In my view this initiative reflects a lack of good process at City Hall, notably a lack of transparency often combined with an unnecessary rush to make major and sometimes unpopular decisions. If elected, I will be working on alternative ways to more effectively discourage bad projects and also, equally important, more effective ways of encouraging good ones that make sense for Laguna.

I will be voting “no” on the other initiatives.

We met when Honarkar purchased properties of mine in Laguna that I had developed, owned and was operating, including Seven Degrees. Later, he asked me to work for him on some of his other projects, and I did. I had hoped to make a positive contribution; eventually, we went our separate ways.

Naturally there are questions — would I be too hard on him; would I be too soft; would I be able to vote on his projects, whether or not he remains the controlling owner — and these questions are fair. Some questions I’m still considering, but I can say this: we do not share the same design sense, vision, approach to building something that benefits the residents, or way of doing business.

There’s the public service part, and then there’s the public process part. I want to help promote a “How Can I Help?” spirit of customer service from staff. That spirit starts at the top. I want to help make “Can We Do This Better?” and “What’s Best Practice” routine questions we all ask ourselves, because Laguna residents deserve the best. 

I want everyone at the City to want this — to want the best — as badly as I do. I want everyone to be all-in on following the highest standards in municipal practice and in our public process.

One of my priorities will be to have a more revealing budget process. I envision workshops where citizens can come to better understand how public revenues are generated, where the City must spend resources, and where the City has discretion. I envision more of a give-and-take discussion, ultimately with clear direction to staff, where today more typically the City Manager proposes a budget at the eleventh hour for the next fiscal year, and it’s basically rubber-stamped without much debate or discussion of alternative tax and spending options.

Under state and local laws, of course, no one has more property privileges than anyone else, even if it can appear that way when like cases are not treated alike, or when those with special influence are permitted to short-cut the proper public process. These conditions are completely unacceptable to me. I will not stand for it. Rules should be clear and applied fairly.

Public safety naturally is paramount, but citizens should feel that all public servants are just that — there to serve the public. That “How Can I Help?” culture starts at the top, and I certainly will be a champion for making plain that’s exactly what we expect of all public servants. Laguna Beach residents deserve no less than the best!

Certainly I’m determined to try. And I expect the discord can be reduced, yes. Disagreeing agreeably may be somewhat of a lost art, but it’s my feeling that’s what people want in their City Council members.

My business life began at age 14, when I started painting neighbors’ homes. Fortunately, I’ve experienced substantial success in business, including meeting a variety of different sorts of payrolls over the years. Additionally I have served as a fiduciary for a variety of not-for-profit organizations; for example, I chaired the board of the local Community Clinic.

1- Overhaul the budget process,

2- Increase the City’s environmental sustainability,

3- Better manage the profile and adverse impacts of visitors,

4- Do more to encourage desirable beautification and community development projects, and

5- Adopt best practices for strengthening fiscal management and customer service in code enforcement and planning.