Mayor proposes bond to ease woes

Barbara Diamond

What the city did before, it could do again, according to Mayor Toni

Iseman.

“I am suggesting the possibility of a bond,” said Iseman Monday

night at the Laguna Canyon Conservancy dinner.

The mayor was the guest speaker at the dinner, which was also

attended by council members Cheryl Kinsman, Elizabeth Pearson and

Wayne Baglin.

A bond, Iseman said, would mean the city could immediately address

a whole raft of problems that need funding, rather than waiting for

bed taxes and parking meter revenue.

“I just want you to know that if we move the corporation yard to

ACT V, we won’t have enough money to fix up the Village Entrance,”

Iseman said. “We are a city of wealthy people, but we are not a

wealthy community. We have to do things right.”

Iseman reminded the audience at the dinner that in the not too

distant past, the city approved a bond to buy Main Beach, a

$20-million bond to buy Laguna Canyon and a school district bond for

campus improvements.

Improvements funded by a bond could include parking structures

that would help make city streets safe and congestion free.

She supports peripheral parking, preferably starting at the ACT V

lot in Laguna Canyon.

“I think grabbing vehicles on the way into town and parking them

in ACT V was the best thing we ever did,” Iseman said.

Iseman doesn’t want to see parking spaces reduced by relocating

the corporation yard there.

“We could loose more than half of the spaces by relocation and

perhaps gain back half of those at the Village Entrance,” Iseman

said.

Iseman adamantly opposes relocating the corporation yard while ACT

V is still under county jurisdiction.

She supports the design approved and later abandoned by the City

Council that combined the corporation yard and the Village Entrance.

“I have talked to Elizabeth to see if we can’t come up with some

compromise,” Iseman said. “If we don’t do ACT V and the Village

Entrance right, we won’t have another shot at it.”

Conservancy President Carolyn Wood said parking at ACT V was

approved by the California Coastal Commission as a condition of the

art festivals operations.

“If we take away parking, we will have to decide which festival

has to go.” Wood said.

The news was not all bad.

Iseman applauded Pearson’s pursuit of peripheral parking at

Crystal Cove with expanded shuttle service.

“There also will be parking at South Coast Medical Center,

hopefully, not too much, and the shuttle service will be extended

next year to Three Arch Bay,” Iseman said.

A traffic consultant is currently studying the city’s parking and

circulation problems and public input is sought. Forms are available

at City Hall on the rack opposite the main desk.

Iseman also cited as positive the opening of Smithcliffs Park and

the rapid, trouble-free construction of the “beautiful” affordable

housing project on Glenneyre Street.

However, Iseman said, despite the hard work of the council,

problems still abound: lack of parking, lots that are unsuitable for

development but are legal building sites, unstable bluffs at Heisler

Park, unsightly and polluted Laguna Creek and insufficient funds to

build the Village Entrance.