Dear Readers,

A friend sent me this mailer a couple of days ago, and my first reaction was to laugh out loud.

Term limits are about as ordinary as local government gets. Twenty-eight of Orange County’s 34 cities have them, and so do the County Board of Supervisors and the State Legislature. None of those places has lost their way of life.

Measure E is not radical either. It allows two consecutive four-year terms, then a two-year break, after which a former councilmember can run again. It does not apply to anyone now sitting on the Council. Nobody’s right to choose “experienced, effective leaders” is stripped away; an experienced leader simply has to sit out two years. And there is nothing sneaky about a measure that 2,400 resident voters signed to qualify for the ballot. A ballot every voter sees.

So why try to scare voters? Because the “way of life” the mailer is defending isn’t yours. It’s the arrangement that keeps the same people in charge at City Hall.

Who is paying for this?

Look at the money. The elite insiders who fund the three incumbents, Mark Orgill, Sue Kempf and Alex Rounaghi, overlap with the donors funding the campaign against Measure E. Joe Hanauer, Patrick Quilter, Christopher Quilter and Cody Engle gave to all three incumbents and also to Citizens for Laguna’s Future, the committee formed to defeat it.

This chart shows what the candidates raised from July 1 to September 19, the most recent reporting period.

Then $100,000 walked into the room. On September 30, an independent expenditure committee backing Kempf, Rounaghi, and Orgill received a single $100,000 check from Regency Properties, L.P.—the parent entity of the oceanfront Surf & Sand Resort.

That single corporate check is more than double what all six challengers have raised combined.

In corporate hospitality, a $100,000 political investment isn’t philanthropy; it’s business strategy. What does a luxury resort operator need from City Hall? First, ironclad protection against any proposed increase to the hotel bed tax (TOT), which generates millions for municipal coffers but makes rooms more expensive. Second, a pliant council on coastal land-use decisions. City Manager Dave Kiff already let slip that a private party has expressed interest in acquiring the St. Catherine’s parcel—a property residents were promised would become a community recreation center. But that deal only works if the City first secures the adjacent Ruby’s site for Coast Highway access. I don’t know who that buyer is.

Whether the objective is shielding hotel tax rates or positioning for prime South Coast Highway real estate, follow the money: when an outside corporate owner drops six figures into a council race, everyone wins except the residents, and the community recreation center the City Council promised them.

Above is the form that shows Regency as the sponsor of the Laguna Beach Good Leadership Committee in support of the three incumbent candidates.

Back to Term Limits: Not one sitting councilmember supports term limits. All six challengers do. The same network funding the incumbents is funding the effort to make sure incumbents never have to step aside. Using “Our Way of Life” as a slogan makes a simple election reform sound like an attack on our religion or culture. It isn’t. Term limits will just let more residents serve.

What has actually happened to our way of life

If you want to know what is threatening Laguna’s way of life, look at what residents have lived through under this Council. Summer tourism has grown sharply over the last two years. One resident told me it took him an hour to drive from Wesley Drive to Crown Valley on a busy summer weekend. I once wrote a satirical piece claiming the Council had passed an ordinance barring residents from downtown on weekends so tourists could have it to themselves. Several people contacted me to ask if it was true. It may as well be.

Small things count: The lot at the former Laguna Drugs site, one of the few with spaces reserved for residents, was recently converted to private parking that now charges $20 a day. Now there is no parking downtown reserved for residents with or without parking stickers. A trip to Heisler Park or the Laguna Art Museum now means circling the block and hoping. It’s the little things that add up to degrade residents’ quality of life.

In our neighborhoods, the Council has been willing to allow building on steep hillsides, a move held back for now only by a lawsuit brought by candidate Joy Berry and her neighbors. Council has allowed building over watercourses and in very high fire hazard severity zones.

New luxury homes, like the one near my house pictured below, will bring in major property tax revenue. That revenue feeds City Hall’s growing payroll, and every privately owned hillside that gets built out is a money-making opportunity for a circle of insiders whose loyalty is to the current political machine.

This house on the 700 block of Bluebird will be 5,000 sq ft. It’s not neighborhood compatible and will also sport an ADU that will be 800 or more sq., yet to be built. The houses within 300 feet are much smaller, like mine at 1,200 sq. ft.

What is waiting until after the election

The people behind this slogan, and their allies on the Council, have plans that they are holding until the votes are counted.

If the incumbents keep their seats, here is what to expect:

• Ocean Avenue’s trees. An arborist report more than 600 pages long claims most of the trees are sick, and the Downtown Action Plan calls for “modernizing” the street. The Council quietly tabled the project as the election season began. We have seen this before on Forest Avenue.
• A taller, denser downtown. The proposed Downtown Specific Plan update would allow commercial buildings of 24 to 36 feet across more of downtown, up to 87 units per acre, with as little as half a parking space per unit. The Council says this is about housing, but landlords won’t build affordable units over their stores. The logical result is expensive condominiums, many sold to out-of-town buyers and rented out as short-term lodging.
• A different Laguna Canyon. Alex Rounaghi and former Mayor Bob Whalen have tried, without success, to sell residents on the “Protect and Connect” plans. Alex, like the other incumbents, now says he no longer supports spending $141 million to underground the utilities along Laguna Canyon Road, but he has not disavowed the plan’s other elements: a wider roadway, bike and walking paths, and four new stoplights. Alex has worked for housing developers, and that background shows.
• A rewritten Canyon Specific Plan. Once the incumbents don’t have to face voters for another four years, expect Protect and Connect to return, along with a revision of the Canyon Specific Plan that opens the canyon to new residential and commercial development, just as the Council did downtown. In 20 years, Laguna Canyon won’t be rural or rustic.

This is not hyperbole. If the incumbents who oppose term limits keep their seats, our town will be unrecognizable in 20 years, but it will be more vibrant, busy, and noisy.

The money is running out

On the financial side, the Council has driven the City into a ditch. City positions have grown from about 273 to 359, and wages have risen 84% in a decade. The General Fund has been “balanced” three years running only by drawing on capital funds, $7.19 million this year. City cash fell from $165 million to $146.6 million in a single year, and the City’s own forecast shows deficits starting in FY 2027-28. The Council even lent $8 million from the Vehicle Replacement Fund to buy artist live-work properties.

Without a staffing cut of 10 to 20%, a major tax increase, or both, the outlook is bleak. I have written about this many times, and the numbers are the City’s own. Meanwhile, Mayor Orgill, in the candidate forums, says our finances are fine. That is like saying the sun is shining while it’s raining.

Promises and performance

Mr. Orgill’s answer to every problem is to talk things over with residents, staff or other council members. He believes that if he talks long enough, we will come to see his side of the story and agree with him. I supported his first run for Council and sat beside him on the dais for two years, and my conclusion is that he is not what he seems to be, a humble, “aw shucks” kind of guy that says he’s in your corner. At heart he is a developer and a storyteller.

There is more: A former senior City building official told me Mayor Orgill was as responsible as Mo Honarkar for the permitting problems that kept the Hotel Laguna project from moving forward years ago.

And Mr. Orgill does not always keep his word: just over two weeks ago he dropped, at the last minute, an appeal he had promised Ann Christoph and the South Laguna Civic Association he would pursue.

Sue Kempf has her own record. She wanted the trees on Forest Avenue gone for years, and she finally got her way in what residents call the “Midnight Massacre.” She and Orgill also gave us the Promenade, which cost far more than promised and delivered far less. She actually did try to sell the library, and she supported building a taxpayer-funded parking structure for the Presbyterian Church. Asked about the parking structure at the GOP forum, she said, “I don’t even remember the vote.”

It gets worse. The drainage under the Promenade appears to have problems. A supervisor with the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District said the drains were not intelligently designed, asking, “Did anybody use a level?” Mosquitoes have been plaguing the security guard who works for Rubel Jewelers. You can’t make this stuff up.

Protect residents’ quality of life

Our “way of life,” or more honestly, residents’ quality of life will continue to erode if the incumbents win. Vote for Joy Berry, Laura Parisi and Ashley Cintas instead. And vote yes on Measure E. Term limits will open seats, bring in new people, and make future Councils answer to residents instead of to a donor network that has had City Hall to itself for too long.

The incumbents don’t deserve another opportunity to spend and tax us while they erode our quality of life.