"The People's Council" must hear what we have to say…
Editor:

Outside of our City Hall is a work of public art. It consists of sculptures arranged in a circle and includes a stone-like bench on which are inscribed the words: "The People's Council."

This means that our elected body that deliberates on Tuesday nights twice a month is not the special interests' Council, not the developers' Council, but the Council of the voters and those too young to vote. These are the majority stakeholders in Laguna Beach's future.

In our turbulent times Laguna Beach is experiencing many of the same travails that beset other seaboard cities. Our beaches require attention in the face of sewage spills and urban runoff. Our coastal canyons are being transformed into ever more dense human habitats that little resemble the wild, pristine outlets to the sea at which earlier generations of Lagunans marveled. Our climate is warming at a rate that atmospheric scientists say will soon no longer be tempered by ocean absorption.

The farsighted and little implemented Vision Laguna 2030 Report anticipated some of these challenges. What is particularly noteworthy about that document is that it was the work of the people - 2000 people who cared a lot about Laguna's future. Their Report is premised on the fundamental American principle that the people - not the rich special interests, not the developers - have the ultimate power in our city. Those words, "The People's Council," inscribed on that small granite-hard bench near City Hall, remind us of this enduring principle. Our nation's founders proclaimed this, even if their actions were at times inconsistent with it, writing a Constitution that begins with the words: "We the People . . . "

So when we participate in the Aliso Canyon "walkabout" on Saturday, May 10 from 2-5 pm let's remember that we're not just potential customers in search of the amenities being offered by a business. Far more importantly we're citizens with legitimate and powerful voices for an exquisite canyonwatershed that cannot speak for itself. "The People's Council" must hear what we have to say.

And at a later date when Laguna Beach's Climate Protection Action Plan is agendized for deliberation, let us fillthe chamber and speak to what is arguably the most critical issue facing the planet.

Our city has a role to play in these decisions; "The People's Council" needs to hear the voices of "We the people…"
Tom Osborne
Laguna Beach