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Laguna Talks to Hallie Jones · Laguna Talks

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: M Laguna's community radio k XFM.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Once it gets in you, you can't let go.
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  Speaker 1: He x FM's community radio.
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  Speaker 3: To feel that bus pas to come here.
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  Speaker 1: Well, greetings, Laguna Beach. It's two o'clock on Tuesday, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that can only mean it's time for Laguna Talks here
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: on kx FM Radio. This is my debut show after
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  Speaker 1: about two or three year hiatus, so I am thrilled
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  Speaker 1: to be back. I'm Billy Freed, and over here across
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  Speaker 1: from me is Hallie Jones, currently running for city council,
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  Speaker 1: and that's what we're going to talk about today. Hallie's
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  Speaker 1: been a guest on my show. She's an ardent environmentalists.
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  Speaker 1: She ran the Laguna Canyon Foundation for many many years. Hallie,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Billy, so fun to be back here
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  Speaker 2: with you.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, you're my first guest on my first show. That's
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  Speaker 1: kind of special.
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  Speaker 2: I feel so honored you should.
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  Speaker 1: Be, and I'm so excited that you threw your hat
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  Speaker 1: into the ring to do this job called city council.
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  Speaker 1: Because I was just asking Mark Orgill, who was here
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  Speaker 1: in the last hour, what kind of hours it takes
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  Speaker 1: to be a city councilman. And I've asked that of
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  Speaker 1: Bob Whalen too, like how many weekly hours?
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  Speaker 3: Would you ask? Mate? What do you think their answer was?
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  Speaker 3: How many hours a week?
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  Speaker 4: That is such a trick question, because I honestly do
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  Speaker 4: believe that you could put innumerable hours into city council.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, the community needs so much and in that role,
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  Speaker 4: there are so many different things you can get involved in,
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  Speaker 4: so many different places you can plug in.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm gonna guess twenty.
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  Speaker 3: Five you're way short.
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  Speaker 4: I wish when had told me that before I decided
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  Speaker 4: to run for city council.
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  Speaker 1: Well, no, tell me, Billy, Bob told me about forty
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  Speaker 1: and Mark, you said forty to fifty.
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  Speaker 2: All right, be careful what you wish for a little
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  Speaker 2: late now.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think you know probably going into it,
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  Speaker 1: everybody thinks it's going to require less time than they imagined.
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  Speaker 1: But you get so sucked up into this role that
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  Speaker 1: is so demanding and quite frankly important and needed that
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  Speaker 1: you end up showing up for events and getting involved
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  Speaker 1: in committees that you didn't want on your bingo card initially.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm looking at the places I see Mark.
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  Speaker 1: I saw him a couple of days ago at the
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  Speaker 1: Fire Department workshop. He's doing this project with George dubin
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  Speaker 1: the Land Trust. You got to show up for all
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  Speaker 1: the events and all that stuff. And I mean, seriously,
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  Speaker 1: my hat's off because I don't know how people do
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  Speaker 1: it who also have a day job, which you have,
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  Speaker 1: right I do.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a day job. I'm still raised kids.
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  Speaker 2: I got plenty on my plate.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know that any other council person is actively
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  Speaker 1: raising kids and has a well, Alex has a full
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  Speaker 1: time day job.
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  Speaker 4: You know. I was just thinking about this. I think
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  Speaker 4: that I might be the first mom with kids in
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  Speaker 4: the school system on city council. Maybe ever, certainly, certainly
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  Speaker 4: it's been decades.
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  Speaker 3: That's interest. I can't think of anybody. Wow.
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  Speaker 2: I think maybe Tony was on council when when her
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  Speaker 2: kids were little.
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  Speaker 3: That could be because she was on council for about
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  Speaker 3: seventy five years.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not going to agree with that, but she served
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  Speaker 2: this community for a long twenty five years, I believe. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, she was a single mom like
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  Speaker 4: I am, and you know, it's a lot to balance.
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  Speaker 4: And I always go back to that old adage, which
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  Speaker 4: I actually think is true. If you want something done,
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  Speaker 4: give it to a busy person, Right, Like those of
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  Speaker 4: us who are balancing so many things were really really
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  Speaker 4: good at prioritizing. We're really good at figuring out what
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  Speaker 4: needs our attention and when, where the fires are that
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  Speaker 4: need to be put out, how to keep kind of
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  Speaker 4: long term strategic work moving forward while you're managing the
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  Speaker 4: day to day. So it's going to be a lot.
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  Speaker 4: If I'm lucky enough to be elected, it's going to
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  Speaker 4: be a lot. It already is a lot to be
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  Speaker 4: frank just campaigning is a lot, really and it's super fun.
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  Speaker 2: And I think serving on council will be really fun
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  Speaker 2: as well.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that's kind of a prerequisite. You got to believe
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  Speaker 1: it's going to be fun. Right, Take us back to
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  Speaker 1: the genesis of this. How did you decide? Did somebody
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  Speaker 1: come to you and several people or what was the
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  Speaker 1: aha moment?
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's something that I've thought about for a
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  Speaker 2: long time, Billy.
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  Speaker 4: When I first started Lagunu Canyon Foundation, which was twenty thirteen, actually,
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  Speaker 4: Tony Heisman and I were chatting and she said, hey,
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  Speaker 4: would you ever consider this? And at the time, you know,
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  Speaker 4: my kids were little I was working for Laguna Canyon
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  Speaker 4: Foundation contracts with the city. You know, there was a
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  Speaker 4: conflict of interest there, and I was clear that it
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  Speaker 4: wasn't the right time.
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  Speaker 2: But I left Laguna Canyon Foundation.
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  Speaker 4: Just last year I joined Crystal Cove Conservancy as executive
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  Speaker 4: vice president, and all of a sudden, I started to
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  Speaker 4: see an opportunity.
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  Speaker 2: And I say that really carefully because.
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  Speaker 4: I think we're on the brink of having an incredibly
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  Speaker 4: effective and collaborative city council. We have a new city manager,
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  Speaker 4: we have a new city Attorney, a new Director of
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  Speaker 4: Community Development. We have kind of these big structural changes
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  Speaker 4: happening at City Hall.
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  Speaker 2: And at the same time, some of.
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  Speaker 4: The issues that I was involved in with city Council,
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  Speaker 4: with City Hall, they're complicated, they're nuanced, they're really difficult.
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  Speaker 2: Things that are going to be facing the city.
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  Speaker 4: And I see an opportunity to step in and be
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  Speaker 4: a part of some of those thorny issues. You know.
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  Speaker 2: I have this poster on my wall, Billy that my
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  Speaker 2: mom designed.
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  Speaker 4: Back I want to say, like in nineteen seventy nine,
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  Speaker 4: when there was a height limit proposed for buildings along
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  Speaker 4: Pacific Coast Highway, and this poster was in support of
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  Speaker 4: this high limit. And I think all the time about
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  Speaker 4: the priorities and the decisions and the fights that people
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  Speaker 4: had in this community back then, right, and how grateful
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  Speaker 4: we are today for those choices. And I wonder what
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  Speaker 4: choices we're making right now that fifty years from now
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  Speaker 4: people are going to look back on and they're going
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  Speaker 4: to say, Gosh, I'm so glad, I'm so glad someone
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  Speaker 4: did that.
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  Speaker 2: And I want to be a part of that. I
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  Speaker 2: want to be a part of those choices.
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  Speaker 1: You know, that's probably one of the graces of having children,
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  Speaker 1: because you really are forced to think not just about
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  Speaker 1: your immediate impact, but what's the world that they're going
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  Speaker 1: to inherit? And you feel a responsibility, right, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: we have so many issues, not only in this town
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  Speaker 1: but globally that threaten the very life of our children
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  Speaker 1: and the next generation to come. What were some of
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  Speaker 1: the issues when you were at lagunakan found Laguna Canyon
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  Speaker 1: Foundation you were just speaking of that were complicated that
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  Speaker 1: you needed to bring the attention to and you had
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  Speaker 1: you felt were a long and what were the hurdles
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  Speaker 1: that you had to deal with with the city. Give
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  Speaker 1: us some examples of things that you felt that you
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  Speaker 1: could perhaps remedy going forward that because you were on
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  Speaker 1: the other side, which is extremely valuable.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know how many city council.
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  Speaker 1: People have had that experience of bringing change to their committee,
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  Speaker 1: to their organization and had to go through the process.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, I think.
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  Speaker 4: One of the thorniest issues that we deal with in
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  Speaker 4: our open space, and we're still dealing with it today,
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  Speaker 4: is over use, right, over use of our open space.
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  Speaker 4: You and I have talked about that a lot over
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  Speaker 4: the years. We're seeing that on our beaches too, just
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  Speaker 4: in our community, right. We have so many people in
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  Speaker 4: this town, so many people visiting this town, people who
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  Speaker 4: don't always understand the environmental ethics of you know, how
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  Speaker 4: do you use.
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  Speaker 2: A beach appropriately? How do you use a trail appropriately?
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  Speaker 4: And I know that I have, you know, twenty five
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  Speaker 4: years of conservation experience right working in ocean conservation, land conservation.
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  Speaker 2: Now at Crystal Cove, I get to do both. So
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  Speaker 2: my experience in.
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  Speaker 4: Making conservation issues accessible and clear and holistically integrated into
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  Speaker 4: everything that we're doing as a community, I think will
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  Speaker 4: serve me.
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  Speaker 2: Well. We don't have a whole lot of.
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  Speaker 4: You know, deep science expertise on council right now, and
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  Speaker 4: that's something that I would bring.
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  Speaker 2: I have a degree in English.
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  Speaker 4: Literature, but I've worked in conservation for so long that
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  Speaker 4: I do have a deep understanding of those issues and
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  Speaker 4: the way the science works. And I think one of
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  Speaker 4: the other things that was a real integral part of
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  Speaker 4: my time at Lugunu Canyon Foundation and kind of a
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  Speaker 4: training ground for me in terms of working with disparate
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  Speaker 4: groups of people was just around the mountain bike community
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  Speaker 4: and the environmental community. When I first started at Lagunu
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  Speaker 4: Canyon Foundation, I was so startled by how entrenched these
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  Speaker 4: groups were. These user groups were in their own positions
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  Speaker 4: and not interested in being collaborative or seeing eye to
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  Speaker 4: eye with each other. And I remember having a conversation
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  Speaker 4: with somebody who was a mountain biker and he said
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  Speaker 4: to me, you know, I'm out on my bike in
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  Speaker 4: the open space five days a week.
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  Speaker 2: You think that I don't care. You think that I
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  Speaker 2: don't care about these hillsides.
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  Speaker 4: And it was a real eye opening moment for me
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  Speaker 4: right to understand that even though these people were on
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  Speaker 4: kind of opposite sides of the room, let's say they
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  Speaker 4: shared something really deep and they.
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  Speaker 2: Shared that that was a love for open space.
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  Speaker 4: And I see that even right now with the three
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  Speaker 4: other candidates, there's four of us running for these two seats,
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  Speaker 4: we share something, you know, that is much greater than
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  Speaker 4: our differences, and that's a love for this community.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: I love hearing that because we don't ever hear that
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  Speaker 1: on the national level, and it's really refreshing to hear
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  Speaker 1: you acknowledge that you have these issues in common.
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  Speaker 3: What you're saying reminds me.
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  Speaker 1: Of I don't know exactly when it was, but when
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  Speaker 1: they elected to make our ocean a marine conservation or a
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  Speaker 1: marine reserve, and this was a coastal commission that it
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  Speaker 1: was the MLP, the Marine Life Protection Act, and the
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  Speaker 1: people that were somehow arguing against the ban were fishermen,
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  Speaker 1: of course because it affected their livelihoods, but they were saying,
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  Speaker 1: you know, nobody's more conservation minded than we are, because
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  Speaker 1: we need to have a sustainable source. And that was
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  Speaker 1: eye opening to me as well to hear, and it
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  Speaker 1: made sense. Right, they care about the environment, they'll do
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  Speaker 1: what they need to do. And of course in those days,
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  Speaker 1: not that this is relevant, but I thought you know
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  Speaker 1: outright bands are pernicious. They you know, it's penalizing people
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: who are really abiding by a sensible practice. For instance,
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  Speaker 1: I always felt that fishing in this area was benign.
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  Speaker 1: You see kids come out with their parents casting from
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  Speaker 1: a rock single line, or somebody fishing from a kayak.
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  Speaker 1: We don't see trawlers going across scraping the bottom. So
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  Speaker 1: I always was like, well, let's how about education, limits
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  Speaker 1: and seasonality. Let's have some controls on it. I wonder
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  Speaker 1: if there's a correlation to the issues in the open
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  Speaker 1: space with mountain bikers, so that, as you said, there's
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  Speaker 1: a fair compromise where there's use and there's also protection.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's always a balance, right, It's always
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  Speaker 4: a balance between education and enforcement, and you know, sometimes
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  Speaker 4: we need more one, sometimes we need more of the other.
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  Speaker 2: I think the MPAs in particular.
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  Speaker 4: I worked on the NPAs when I was at Heel
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  Speaker 4: de Bay over fifteen years go, and that was Those
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: were some of the most contentious meetings that I've ever
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  Speaker 4: been in. And I've sat in some contentious conversations, but
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  Speaker 4: people were so upset and so concerned, and understandably so, right,
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  Speaker 4: this is part of our community culture.
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  Speaker 2: People were really concerned.
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  Speaker 4: And I think we would all agree today that the
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  Speaker 4: MPAs have been a resounding success. We are seeing an
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  Speaker 4: incredible increase in the marine life that's out there right now,
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  Speaker 4: and the NPAs are a huge part of that. And
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  Speaker 4: I think it's a reminder again that you know, when
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  Speaker 4: we work together, we're going to end up with something
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  Speaker 4: that's better than if we if we come in single handedly.
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  Speaker 4: There's an organization that I'm not a huge supporter of,
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  Speaker 4: but they've done more to conserve wetlands in this state
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  Speaker 4: than any other group, and that's Ducks Unlimited. It's a
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  Speaker 4: hunting advocacy group and that group has preserved more wetland
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  Speaker 4: open space than any other nonprofit and that's because people
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  Speaker 4: were able to work together, even though their uses of
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  Speaker 4: the land were different, they were able to work together
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  Speaker 4: for a common goal and a common good. I think
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  Speaker 4: that's really important.
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  Speaker 3: Very important.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking to Hallie Jones here, candidate first City Council
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  Speaker 1: here on the all new KXFM Radio, Laguna's Community Radio. Hallie,
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  Speaker 1: let's get to the to the big issue, the elephant
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  Speaker 1: in the room, which was the over tourism this summer.
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  Speaker 1: That because it relates to what you're talking about, which
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  Speaker 1: is the care and feeding of our environment.
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  Speaker 3: We all saw the images.
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  Speaker 1: They were horrendous, you know, the amounts of trash. What's
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  Speaker 1: your what's your thoughts, What's what's the remedy for this problem?
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  Speaker 2: You know, every summer is difficult in Laguna.
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  Speaker 4: Right, we always deal with the traffic and the you know,
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  Speaker 4: over tourism and too many people. And I have to say,
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  Speaker 4: I was born and raised in this town, Billy, I
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  Speaker 4: grew up here. I have to say that this summer
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  Speaker 4: was the worst that I've ever seen.
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  Speaker 3: You're here, yep.
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  Speaker 4: I kind of blame social media. I kind of blame
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  Speaker 4: the discovery of our beaches by so many, so many people.
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  Speaker 4: And I'm honestly, I feel a little conflicted about one thing. Right,
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  Speaker 4: Coastal access is important. Our beaches belong to all of us, mandated.
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  Speaker 4: It's mandated by the State of California, the Coastal Commission.
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  Speaker 4: That's why the Coastal Commission was created. Right to protect
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  Speaker 4: our coastline and to protect access to our coastline. We're
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  Speaker 4: incredibly lucky to live in this community, and I welcome
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  Speaker 4: people to come enjoy the incredible natural beauty that we
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: have here and we absolutely can't let that impact our
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: natural resources or our quality of life as residents.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 4: So it's it's enforcement, particularly when we're talking about trash
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  Speaker 4: on our beaches and you know, our tide pools. We
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  Speaker 4: have to enforce the laws that are on our books.
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  Speaker 4: We have to do that more aggressive, and I think
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  Speaker 4: we have to make those fines hurt a little bit
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  Speaker 4: more so that people you know, are actually it's a
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  Speaker 4: real deterrent. And education is also a component of that.
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  Speaker 4: But it's not enough to educate people on why our
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: natural resources are so important, right, Like that doesn't resonate
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  Speaker 4: with everybody. You know, oh, this is a marine protected
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  Speaker 4: area and you know, don't leave your trash, right, That
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  Speaker 4: doesn't resonate with every person who's going to be visiting
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  Speaker 4: our beach. So I think that part of this is
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  Speaker 4: around education around those enforcement tools. Right. So, if you
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: here are the rules, you don't follow the rules, you're
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: going to get a ticket and it's going to hurt.
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  Speaker 4: And I think that that's an important part of the
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  Speaker 4: education component as well.
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  Speaker 1: Do we have the manpower though, to really do that?
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  Speaker 1: That was a question people have asked me. You know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: what does that take to have people rangers and police
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: or whomever. You can't have the general public doing it
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: right going out. We have the tige pool dosins, but
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: they've been told don't confront people because you're playing clothed
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and you might get it. You might end up up
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: in some sort of violent encounter.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I think that we're getting there.
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  Speaker 4: We're getting to the point where we do have the
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  Speaker 4: human power to enforce those laws. Our park ranger program
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  Speaker 4: in the city's police department is fully up and running now,
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  Speaker 4: and I think that those folks can make a big difference.
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  Speaker 4: I really want to make sure we're not asking our
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  Speaker 4: lifeguards to enforce those laws.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 4: Lifeguard's eyes should be on the water, that's where we
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: want them, So we need to make sure that we're
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  Speaker 4: not overburdening our marine safety team. I think that the
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: park rangers are an important component of it. You know,
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: police are an important component of it. And we can
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  Speaker 4: have these community partners, the tidepool docents, etc.
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  Speaker 2: People whose job it is.
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  Speaker 4: You know, not to enforce the laws, right, but to
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: make phone calls when they need to, so you know,
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  Speaker 4: maybe they're volunteers. They're out there in the typles and
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  Speaker 4: they can call on the Marine Safety officers or whoever
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  Speaker 4: need they need to call on for enforcement when necessary.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes that's enough of a deterrent, And quite frankly, you
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  Speaker 4: know a little bit of education around why it's important
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  Speaker 4: to not take things out of tidepools could make a difference.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it does appear that this year was
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: really acute in the amount of trash left behind. But
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  Speaker 1: I would also point out we had more lenses and
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: more people posting this stuff. Maybe that we've just never
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: had so much attention put on it. But we had
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: an experience here at the station a couple of weeks
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: ago where we were going through radio camp training our
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: new jocks.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: A kid comes in.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I go out to greet him and he goes, I
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: just wanted to see the station because I listened to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it religiously from Phoenix. I'm like, really, how did that happen?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And he goes, I came here once I learned about
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the station, and I've been addicted ever since, which was
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: heartwarming for us to hear. But he went on to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: say that he had read my column that morning about
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: mitigating this crisis, and he said, you know, I want
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: you to know that I'm one of the good visitors.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: When I come to a town, I bring gloves with
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: me and a little shovel, and I want to be
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: part of the solution. And I go up and I
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: pick out trash. He goes, why don't you put those
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: little trash whatever they call them, the little things that
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: you use to pick stuff up without your hands. Put
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a bunch of those and some signs at every beach
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and say, be a part of the solution instead of
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the problem. And I think that's an interesting concept of,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: you know, encouraging and deputy deputizing the good people to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: go and take some ownership of these beaches, you know,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: instead of just issuing them tickets. Empower them to do good.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Because I do think we're lumping them all into this
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: basket of day visitors, bad, overnight visitors good they spend money.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of day visitors that are respectful
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and spend money here and just you know, adore this
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: town the way we do.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. You know, I just started playing beach volleyball. I'm
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: so terrible at it, and I'm having so much fun.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: And you grew up here and this is you're just starting.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I'm just starting. I'm forty six years old. I'm just starting.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Good for you.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I'm down at Main Beach the other day and I'm
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: playing beach volleyball with my friends. It's a beautiful, hot day,
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: such a fun time, and it's packed. It's a weekend
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: day at Main Beach. And I walk down to jump
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: in the water, and you know, there's families everywhere, right,
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: people everywhere, And there's this gigantic piece of plastic cellfhane trash,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: you know, right kind of at the wave line in
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: the kelp.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And I don't even think about it, right, I bend
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: down and I pick it up.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: And then I started to think about it, and I
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: started to look at the other people sitting around me
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: and realizing, like not a single one of them. How
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: many people walked past that piece of trash and didn't
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: bend down to pick it up?
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: And I can't pick up every single piece of trash,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: but I.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Would say that that everybody listening right now is the
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: kind of person who's walking down the beach sees a
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: piece of trash, you just pick it up. And I
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: think that education is important. I think normalizing that normalizing
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: that sense of stewardship for our beaches and for our streets,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: for everything starts to not only make a difference in
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: the amount of trash, but I would hope that if
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: somebody's sitting on the beach and they see someone like
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: you bend down and pick a piece of trash up
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: while you're walking down the beach, they're going to think
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: twice before leaving their garbage on the beach.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Right, You would hope.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: You would hope it starts to kind of shift that
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: cultural norm.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And I think that's part of it too.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about the bigger macro issue of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: just the volume of people coming into our town. I've heard,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you have proposals such as we need to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: put an additional tax on the restaurants because they are
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: mostly visitors serving and the visitors need to pay for
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: their share of services. I've heard we should increase the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: parking fees. That's another way to capture money. There's this
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: narrative amongst people who are just classify as anti visitor
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: pro resident. I happen to think it's not a binary world.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: You can be both. But these people are very strident
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: about believing that the problems in our town are caused
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: by visitors. We should discourage them or penalize them. What
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: have you thought about how do we stem the incredible
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: amount of traffic which phrase our nerves causes pollution, noise
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and air. You have any solutions or is this a
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: as one council member said recently on unsolvable problem, I.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Don't think any problem is an unsolvable problem.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: I think decreasing the number of people who come to
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: Laguna that's probably out of our control, right. How can
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: we decrease the number of people that come to Laguna?
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, I certainly think you know, we're let's not
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: advertise our beaches, right, people know about them. We don't
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: need to advertise our beaches. But I do think that
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: the negative impacts of visitors on our community this summer,
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: for me, was related to people's cars. I don't mind
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: people sitting on the beach. Yeah, sometimes it's a little
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: bit hard to find space when the tide gets high, right,
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: But the traffic and the cars and it takes forever
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: to get anywhere, and you know, the air.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Pollution and the noise.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: I think that's something that we can really work on.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: And that's basically just getting people out of their cars, Right,
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: how do we get people out of their cars and
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: make our community more bike friendly, more pedestrian friendly, so
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: that people are parking on the outskirts and they're moving
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: through our community. Maybe that's going to help our businesses,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: you know, because people are going to see something that
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: they want to stop and you know, grab a drink
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: or whatever.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: So I support that. I also think that we.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Do need to figure out how to recapture some of
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: the incredible costs of serving these visitors. We need to
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: recapture that a little bit. And you know, maybe the
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: easiest way to do that is through is through increasing
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: parking fees, which you know, as you know, is mandated
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: by the Coastal Commission. Right, we can only increase our
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: parking rates by certain amounts certain times, So working with
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: Coastal Commission to figure out how to do that. I
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: think that the Coastal Commission itself is starting to understand
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: that their mission to increase coastal access is starting to
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: be in conflict with their mission to protect our coastal resources.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: So I think that's a continued conversation. I know that
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Coastal Commission is not always the easiest agency in the
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: world to work with. I've worked with them, you know,
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: very successfully over the last twenty five years. Those are
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: my people, right, I mean, these are these are marine
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: resource people, and they're reasonable human beings as long as
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: we can sit down and collaborate with them and try
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: and solve these problems together, right. I know that sounds naive,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: but I think there's I think it's a possibility.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I know that they're not hard and fast on some
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: of the rules and doctrine that they used to impose,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: such as you have to replace any parking that you
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: remove on a one to one basis. I know that
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: went away with complete streets, and that if you add
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's for six bike corral spots that would
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: count as a parking space, and they're not as they
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: look at things case by case. Now, so let me
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: ask you a few things on this topic that are
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: just simple, specific tactics that you would support or not support.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: You mentioned parking on the periphery of town that would
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: naturally entail building some parking structures.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: You support that.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: I support parking structures with two caveats is not the
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: right word, right. Two priorities first and foremost, they need
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: to be fiscally responsible, right, Like, we as a city
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: have a limited budget. We need to be careful where
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: we're spending our dollars. We have a huge amount of
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: differred maintenance, so we need to, you know, think long
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: and hard about the cost of something like that. I also,
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: I don't want to see a parking structure that sits
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: vacant eight or nine months out of the year, right,
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: so we need to look at building parking that is
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: that is used year round. There is this idea of
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: a parking structure behind city Hall, which I think is
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: an interesting idea. And part of the reason why I
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: think it's interesting is because it could be used for
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: employees of local stores and restaurants, city hall employees. It
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: could be used year round, so it's not sitting vacant
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: the rest of the year. And I think that you know,
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: you talked a little bit about the distinction between you know,
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: visitor serving and residence serving, and I agree with you.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: I don't think that it is a black and white choice.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: I think we can do both. I think that we
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: can manage our visitors in a way that improves our
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: quality of life as residents. I mean, like I said,
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: I was born and raised here. I'm raising my kids
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: here now. My day to day life is in this
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: five mile bubble, and I don't want to decrease my
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: own quality of life in service of visitors, right, And
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: I don't think we have to.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: I think we can balance those things.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And as far as costs, I would like to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: point out that I think the city of del Mar,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: amongst others, have built parking structures as a private public
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: partnership and the ground floor was all retail. And that
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: might be another way that you can bring year round
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: parking because they're actually patronizing these retail stores. And that
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: way you get the developer to fund a large part
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of it and maybe perhaps all of it, and we
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: just keep the parking revenue they get to rent and lease.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Out the stores.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: There are creative ways, I believe, to build these things
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: without coming out of our pocket exclusively. How about congestive
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: pricing tax Are you familiar with that concept?
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's such an interesting concept. I don't
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: know what the Coastal Commissions position is on that, right,
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: but certainly, let's make it a little less comfortable to
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: come to Laguna on a Saturday afternoon in the summer.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I support that, I understand that.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Just to be clear for people, this is something that's
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: been implemented in a lot of major cities London, Singapore, Milan,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and the concept in Oslo, Norway is that you assess
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: a tax for people to drive into the center core
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: of your town, and it can be quite exorbitant twenty
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: five dollars I believe in London just to come into
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the center of town.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: So it's a big deterrent.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Of course, we would have to provide other parking for them,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and you'd have to obviously give stickers to the residents
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and to the workers so they don't they're not penalized
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: It's a radical thing.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I think it only happens if we take control of
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: our streets, which I should sidebar and ask you about that,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: because all of the things that we talk about in
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: terms of mitigating traffic comes down to us having a
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: control of a coast highway and the Laguna Canyon Road.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Have you done a deep dive on.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: What it would take for us to acquire these roads
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and manage them from Caltrans?
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: So to be clear, those are the only two roads
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: that are Caltrans owned in our community right The rest
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: of our streets are are owned by the city and
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: maintained by the city, but Laguna Canyon Road and Pacific
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: Coast Highway are owned by Caltrans. I don't think we
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: have those numbers. We don't know exactly what it would
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: cost to maintain Laguna Canyon Road specifically. We do know
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: that we would not be purchasing it from Caltrans, so
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: these relationships. Traditionally Caltrans would pay us a nominal amount
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: of money to take ownership of Laguna Canyon Road, but
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: we don't know how much it would cost to maintain it.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: And we don't know about the liability, right, I mean,
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: the liability of that road is huge. We all know
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: how many acts and terrible accidents happened on the Gouna
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Canyon Road. So I think it's something that we could explore,
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: but I'm cautious about it. I'm cautious about it because
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: of the financial implications.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Ironically, I just have to say, because this has been
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: a topic that I've been interested in. This goes way
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: back to Ken Frank as city manager, and then subsequently
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: John Patig and then Charre Dupuis. Every city manager has
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: looked at it. I don't know if it was at
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the request of city council. The standard answer I've always
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: gotten from them is liability. But then I look at
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Corona del Mar and Dana Point, who have both done
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: acquired and made some major revisions to their grid that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in most cases has been productive and positive. And you know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I have to assume there's this thing called insurance that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you can buy. But it's amazing to me that we
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: still don't have the answers on this, that we don't
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: seem to have the will to take on the big
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: infrastructure projects. And you talk about but you know, a legacy,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the legacy that you'll leave your kids, and how you
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: can impact that as being a city council person. And
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I feel strongly that this is the big this is
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the number one issue, because we felt it so acutely
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: this summer, and we've got to take big, bold steps.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: And there's no one single answer. I'll give you.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: My number one answer is you build a structure at
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: back five and then we have a gondola that takes
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the tourists. Can you imagine they call we think we
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: have a village entrance. Now we call it the village entrance.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: But what an entry. What a dramatic theatrical entry that
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: would be. And I'm only half joking about this alley,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: because there's cities in South America, Bogata, places like that
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: that are mountainous and they have a mass transit system
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of aerial trams that move people around and they're very successful.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: They're they're almost I think there's zero energy. And you know,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I just obviously this is something that's fanciful, but you know,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: finding ways to move people around. As you said at
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the top of this conversation, that's not in their car.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: And I think we can agree that no city that's
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: as old as us was designed for the amount of
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: cars coursing through here. Now, nobody, the city planners back
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: in the day did not ever imagine. I'm not going
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to say six million visitors because I don't believe that number.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I wish we would do another study and put that
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to bed once and for all. But we all know
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: it's ginormous and we're not alone. We saw what happened
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: in Barcelona this summer and other cities. You know, every
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: beautiful place is suffering from over tourism. And you mentioned, yeah,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: they come here for the ocean. They have the right
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: to enjoy it. They come here to escape the heat.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: They come here because we have so many new homes
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: in South Orange County and more on the way, and
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: this is the natural quarter.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: We're not doing anything to.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Impose an impact tax on the developers like the Irvine
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: company in five Points, and I think there is something
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I've heard called an impact tax, and I say we
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: get them to spend it on a fleet of shuttle
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: buses and offered as an amenity to their homeowners that
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: they can take a shuttle into town. I mean, these
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: are all tactical. Nothing's going to solve our problem. But
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I think if we do a lot of these things,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: we can change and then for us, I mean what
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you mentioned bicycles. You have specific thoughts on how to
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: make this more bike friendly.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we need to make it safe, right
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: and right now, this is not a safe community to
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: cycle through.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Do your kids ride bikes in town?
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: No?
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: Is that you won't allow.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: It or you know, my little one is going to
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: be sixteen next week, and he's a boy, and when
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: he was let's say twelve thirteen, right, all of his
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: friends are on e bikes and I was chatting with
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: him about it one day and I said, you know,
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: what do you think, buddy, would you want an e
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: bike save me a lot of time?
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Right? And he just looked at.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Me, and you know, I think he was angling, like
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: to get some brownie points or something, because he just
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: looked at me and he goes, Mom, I just don't
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: think i'd be safe, and he meant.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: It, Wow, that's a self aware kid.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: I saw a kid get hit on Park Avenue on
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: an e bike by a car. The kid was turned
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: out to be okay, but I didn't think it was
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: going to be okay, and it terrifies.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing that we haven't had a tragic fatality.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: This all really happened in sort of a you know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: unexpected way during COVID and myself being a bike advocate,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I was kind of hardened to see this proliferation of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: kids on e bikes gives them a sense of freedom
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't otherwise. Have the kids the mountain bike. It's
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the coolest thing in the world. They can ride out
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: of their house and up into our open space. But
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: we can all agree that there's you know, their prefrontal
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: cortex is not fully developed, and there's they put two
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and three kids on these end. They're glorified motorcycles, if
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: we're honest. They have pegs and not pedals, and they're
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: roaring around town and a lot of them are not
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: wearing helmets, and so you know, that doesn't help in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: terms of this perception that this is a dangerous place
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: to But how would you specifically make it safer?
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: I think we have to create more bike paths, more
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: bike access, right, I mean, the way to make it
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: safe is to separate cars and bicycles quite frankly, yep.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: So when we look at the Laguna Canyon Road master
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Plan and what we want to do with Laguna Canyon Road,
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: bike trails are a component of that. I think that
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: they're a really important part of that. I would cycle
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: through town if I felt safe. So, you know, do
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: we take away traffic lanes to allow for bike movement?
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: I don't think we're quite at that point yet. We're
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: just we have too many cars still. But whatever we
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: can do to start to encourage people to move that direction, right,
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: and parking for bicycles is one thing. But safety, getting
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: from you know, point A to point B, that has
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: to come first. Because if I felt safe riding my
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: bike around town.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: I would, well, I feel safe riding my bike around town,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: I must confess. But there are some little fixes that
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I think would go a long way. And I'll just
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: propose to you that Glen Airy we do own and
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: from about Legion, you know, up till traveling north from
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: South Laguna, let's say, are from Central Laguna, let's say
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: from Bluebird Canyon. You've got four lanes and parking and
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: you could, theoretically, against a lot of people's better judgment,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: take either the parking lane out or one of the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: vehicular lanes and create a north south safe passage for
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: bicycles the area where it narrows, which is around Legion.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I think you got an issue there for sure, but
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: you could still. I think there's one point where they
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: could turn right on Legion and go down an alley,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: which is already part of our bike route. To me,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: that's the biggest challenge is a north south safe passage.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Because the side streets, perpendicular neighborhood streets, let's say benign,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: they're safe, and part of making a town bike friendly,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I believe is having more bike corrals visually see bicycles
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and places to park them kind of encourages people to think, oh,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: this is a bike friendly town. You've got to put
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: in the infrastructure. And then I think, you know what
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: would be really cool because I happen to think, we're
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: only seven miles long, we have gorgeous weather, great scenery,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: it's healthy, it's you know, such a fun way to
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: get around. But we need also these bike kiosks. And
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: they now have electric bike kiosks. And wouldn't that be
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: even for the visitors if they if we had them
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: attached to these parking structures, one way to encourage people
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: that this is a bike friendly town.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: I would love to see rentable electric bikes in this community.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: I think that there are plenty of times where people
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: would you know, take a local someplace, be downtown, and
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: need to get back home and be happy to hop
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: on r entity bike and get back home.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah work.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: And you know, you see in a lot of cities
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: where they're branded with a sponsor like City Bank, the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: City Bikes in New York or whatever. And I've done
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit of investigation on how that works and
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: if you got a private partner to be the sponsor
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: of it it ends up costing a city very little money.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: On the flip side, if the city owned it outright,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: you could actually generate revenue after the sun costs of
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: building this out you actually charge for it. And there's
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways to go on that we won't
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: get into the weeds. What about the toll road? Can
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: we make that free?
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: That is one of the things that every time I
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: drive out Laguna Canyon Road, it breaks my heart a
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: little bit.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: I think that the toll road.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Environmentally is so problematic, right, it really fragmented our open space. Ye,
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: you were against it, absolutely, absolutely, I was.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And the thing was never intended to be a toll
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: forever as I understood it, it was only supposed to be
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of time. They would retire the bond.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: It's my understanding that it was supposed to be a
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: certain amount of time and then it would revert to
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: being a public street or a public highway. And it
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: didn't pan out financially, which I would say. I was
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: not part of that fight, so I really would defer
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: to the people who were. But I think that that's
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: what people said would happen. I think that the people
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: who were fighting against the toll road predicted this, It
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: predicted we'd be in this situation, and it's a shame.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: It's exorbitant. And you know, I know certain people in
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: this town. I'll just name Sam Goldstein as an example,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: who believes that that's another problem. That people used Coast
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Highway not to come into Laguna, but as a commuter
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: road going from let's say Newport to Data Point because
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: they won't get on the seventy three because of the cost.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: So again another tactic. I don't know what we can
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: bring to bear. It seems like there's a lot of
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: collusion on a political level that keeps the thing going.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: From what I understand, there's some heavyweights and Anaheim and
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: lobbyists and who are somehow enriching themselves too because they're
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: getting fees as consultants to keep this thing going. Anyway,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: it's something I think that we have to look at holistically.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: You know, we.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Commission all these research studies, complete Streets being one of them,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: and these, and then we pat ourselves on the back
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: and then we put it in the desk and we
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: never act on it. And there just seems to be
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: a bureaucracy in this town. And i'd like to actually
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: make that a transition point to ask you, how are
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: you familiar with hallie with the problems that are going
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: on in city Hall right now for developers and architects
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: and builders to get their permits through the system.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, But I want to go back to your last post,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: kay Billy. I do think that we as a community, right,
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: we are smart people, We are well resourced, and we
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: have good ideas, and yet we have wasted our time
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: and our resources at city Hall fighting, throwing each other
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: under the bus, not just focusing on the work. And
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: I think that that is something that I would bring
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: to council if I was elected. Right, I don't want
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: to hear it. I don't want to hear it. I
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: just want to sit down and focus on the work.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of good things we want to do,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: So I think that there's a bureaucracy component of it, right,
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: but there's also just a true dysfunction in city government
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: that we are ready to resolve. And how do you
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: do it, just like we're doing right now, one human
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: being at a time? Right, you elect people who are
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: focused on solutions, who are collaborative, who want to solve problems,
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: who are dedicated to being honest and transparent and committed
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: to the needs of the residents.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Right, yep.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: You elect those people and you make sure that they
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: work well together, and if they don't, you get them
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: out of office.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: All right, let's stay on this topic. I think you've
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: picked up on something very important. Let's go through some
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: of those I haven't even you know, I've been a
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: little busy with this radio station, so I really don't
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: know what your platform is and which is good. I'm
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: coming at this fresh, but maybe you can tell us
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: what are some of the big issues we've talked about
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: over tourism.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: And polluting our beaches.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: And that's sort of a softball for you, being an environmentalist,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I would expecting no less sally, But what are some
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: of the other issues that you feel are stuck with
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: inertia that need to be activated and completed?
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: You and I do this so well together, Billy, because
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: I'm going to take this right back to the question
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: that I didn't answer earlier, which is streamlining things at
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: city hall?
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: Are residents are business owners are bumping into incredible delays
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: at city Hall? There is a backlog of permit applications
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: and redevelopment applications. That is not only unwieldy, right, particularly
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: you know for a small business owner who wants to
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: open up a store and you know, is paying rent
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: and yet can't get their permits through, but also for
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: us as residents, right if you want to remodel your
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: home or you know, even make some minor additions.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: And I've spoken with our new city manager, who I
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: think is great by the way I've spoken with him
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: about this, Like, first and foremost, we've got to get
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: through this backlog of permit applications at the city.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: That's the first step. And then we have to change
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: the process.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: We have to change the structure so that we don't
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: end up in this same position again.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: And there's a few different ways that I think we
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: need to do that. Right.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: We have to make things more streamlined. By our code
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: itself is complicated. I'm not going to use those words,
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: but it's it's complicated, right, And we haven't been able
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: to retain staff long enough for them to get really
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: expert in the code.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: So we need to make the code more simple.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: We need to recruit and retain employees so that people
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: actually invest years working here and they start to understand
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: the way things work. Right, we need to do both
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: of those things. There are cities, and we've done this before.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: I don't think we're doing it now, though I could
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: be mistaken about that. Don't quote me on that in
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: case I'm wrong. There are places where, you know, if
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: a project comes through, all of the different departments come
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: together and they sit down and they look at this
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: project and they look at it with the applicant and
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: they say, okay.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: What are we going to do with this project?
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: And what that.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: Allows is it it prevents you from having to go
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: through zoning, building plan check, DRB, planning commission, all those
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: things Fire department as separate, discrete circumstances. Right, You're able
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: to start to work on these things together, and the
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: departments themselves are able to work together. So you're not
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: going to end up in a position where everybody else
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: says something is okay and then Fire has some concerns. Right,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: You're able to start to tackle those things at the beginning.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: So that's just an example of a way that I
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: think we could streamline things. I'm not a planner, so
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: I don't want to pretend to be an expert on everything.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a really interesting point that brings
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: up something that I've experienced personally.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: To bring it back to me, Hallie.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: But you know, I have property out in Joshua Tree,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: and that's San Bernardino County, which a lot of people
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: look at as a very dysfunctional county.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: It's gone broke a few times. It's very poor.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: And first of all, they have switched everything in their
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: permit application process to online. There is no counter. You
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: upload it, and I was terrified that this would go
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: into a black hole. And my god, it works. I
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: upload a permit application within a day or two, I've
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: got a response from a planner. It's all housed online.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I've got my own portal I go in, all my
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: records are kept there. I've had a number of permits
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I've applied for that have gone very, very smoothly. Additionally,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: to your point of collaboration between departments, they have something
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: called a pre development Application review that you apply for
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: and you go in and you sit down with every
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: department head and you pitch what you're doing before you
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: make the application, and they go around the room and
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: they tell you every single code that you have to
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: meet for their Department to satisfy them. Oh my god,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: what a process saves you so much time and frustration,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: because you and I want to contrast that with a
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: story about this little radio station that I've applied for
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: a conditional use permit to move to a new location
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: so we can save money and better serve the community.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: And it took four months for them to review an
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: application that mostly was we copy and pasted from our
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: original application, not a whole lot new, no variance, nothing
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: that would require Planning Commission review or anything like that.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: The day that they finally told me I was on
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: the Planning Commission agenda, which is October third, they said
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: it was twelve noon. I got the email. It says,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: by five pm today you need to pay your application
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: fee of ninety six hundred dollars and you have to
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: show us a receipt that you've also paid to have
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the noticing done. If you want to pay by credit
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: card this fee, it has to be in by three o'clock.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: They literally gave me three hours to come up with
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars, which I had no prior knowledge that
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: that was going to be the fee base. Now we're
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: a nonprofit, I asked if there was any special carve out. No,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: they don't have any special car. This is a minor cup.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: A major cup is twenty three thousand dollars. Now, this
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: was done apparently by council a few years ago, and
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it was based on consultants that went and
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: measured the amount of time. But you would think in
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: a functioning system that they would have told me upfront.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: So I had some prior knowledge to this fee, which
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: they admitted was a mistake. And maybe they're trying to
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: help me by getting me on the earliest agenda they could.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: But I really see that, and I took it up
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: with our new city manager, who I agree with you
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: is very promising and he's very transparent, which is refreshing,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: and he's admitted to the problem. And he's also said
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: we can't even attract good people because they hear about
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: how dysfunctional it is and they don't want to work
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: for the city. So I'm glad you mentioned you brought
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: that up about how we cultivate people. So it's not
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: a turnstile, because every time we lose somebody, we lose
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: critical time because they have to be brought up.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: To speedolutely, you know, I have. I have led organizations
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: for a long time, right, and your people, you are
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: your most important asset, right, And I would say that
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: goes for our residents and our city staff. We need
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: to invest in making Laguna a great place to work
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: for these people, right they do they hear about how
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: hard it is to work here.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: And I don't think we as a council have done week.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: Do you like that? Do you like that?
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: Presumptive week you should talk to I don't know if
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: that our council has done a great job of supporting
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: our staff, to be quite frank, And of course it's
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: the council's responsibility to hold stuff accountable. We have to
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: do that too, But I think that there is a
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: way of building team. You know.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: It's funny.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: There was a head of community development too, was fired
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: by our interim city manager, and I guess the rap
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I was trying to find out why, you know, he
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: was like go and the consensus was he was too
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: too friendly with residents. He was too prone to or
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: too apt to approve things without taking it through. I'm
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: losing my hearing on this piece, this thing, but I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: think I'm still coming through anyway. My experience and a
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: lot of other people was This guy was great. He
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: was doing every he was doing his job to help us.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: He was like, let me see how I can get
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: this through for you. And yet there was a counter
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: opposition to him, saying he was allowing things to get
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: approved that shouldn't have been improved. And so I think
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: he lost his job over it. He's now at another
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: city loving it. You know. He says it's way less
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: of the pressure cooker that he had here. But this
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: is the tension that we have here. You know. I
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: know that there was an unpopular city councilman than the
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: last term who came in intentionally to break things. He
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: was a guest on my show many times, and he,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: you know, came in as a reformist, and he did
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: quite a job of reforming design review from what had
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: been in the past. They changed all the people, and
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a great step forward in
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: helping homeowners get there. And then it seems like we've
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: taken a step back again. And there's this new policy
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: that was implemented that everybody seems to agree with, which
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: is every single staff report now has to be peer
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: reviewed and reviewed by our legal team.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Are you familiar with that.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I am.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: And what is it?
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, was it because we messed up and we
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: got sued by applicants and so we figured, you know,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: our legal team, I mean, we had the same legal
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: counsel for many, many years. Maybe he got lazy, Maybe
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: it wasn't really scrutinizing. Now it seems like we're over
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: lawyered on everything.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: Well, I think that's true, and I think that that's
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: true for our society and our country for sure. Right yeah,
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: people are way too litigious, way too quick to jump
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: on things like that. And as as the leader of
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: any organization, your first responsibility is to is to protect
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: you know, the organization from liability, right, same reason we're
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: concerned about about Lagun and Canyon Road. So I think
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: that there is a way to be forthright, be transparent
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: about what we're dealing with, make the code easier to
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: understand and a little bit less gray and murky, let's say,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: so that it's predictable. People know what's allowed what's not allowed.
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: You know, I'll tell you a story. When I was
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: at Lagun and Canyon Foundation, I had this this group
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: come to me and they said, hey, you know, we
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: want to build a one hundred thousand feet square feet
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: of self storage out in.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Laguna Canyon Rite a big bend.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: And you know, I sat down with them and I
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: looked at their plans and I said, yeah, this is
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: never going to fly.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Like, no, this is never going to happen.
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: And the guy, you know, he just he looked at
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: me and he said, show me where it says that
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: I'm not allowed to do this. And I said, it doesn't.
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: It doesn't show you anywhere that you're not allowed to
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: do this. But let me tell you it's never going
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: to happen. Right, So let's codify some of those things.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: Let's make it a little bit more clear so that
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: nobody's wasting city staff time bringing forth a project that
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: we know is not ever going to be viable. Right,
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: Let's make it a little bit more clear.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Halle, we have limited time. I just saw the
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: next host peek in here starting the setup, so I
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to just close with a few you know, we
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: could go on for another hour, but like a few
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: other you know, agendas, a few other things in your
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: on your campaign that you believe not speaking very clearly,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: one of.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: The big belly.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: You could just stopped right there. You know, public safety.
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: Public safety is so important in this town. I was
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: a junior at LBHS in the in the ninety three fires.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: I remember that fire so clearly, and that is something
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: that keeps me awake at night, the threat of catastrophic wildfire,
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: because it's not a question of if it happens, it's
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: just a question of when and if we're ready for it.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: So, you know, continued.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: Vegetation management to make sure we're protecting our open space
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: and our neighbors. I think that's really important. We covered
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: streamlining things at city Hall, and then I'll go back
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: to where we started, which is, you know, our natural environment.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Our twenty two thousand acres of endangered coastal sage scrub
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: are incredible marine protected area. We have to implement our
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: climate action plan. We have to do that effectively, and
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: I think that I have the experience and the expertise
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: to do that.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: I do too.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I'm glad. Let mean the last point I want to make.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: I sat on that fire safety meeting and one of
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: your colleagues from Laguna Canyon Foundation, who spoke very highly
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: of you, is in charge of the wildlife mitigation. He
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: works with the Fire Department. Do you remember his name?
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Who that would be?
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Probably Alan Kaufman.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, probably Alan Kaufman. I said to Alan Kaufman, why
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: can't you use us, the citizens of this town, to
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: come and be part of your crew to help mitigate
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: and clear some of this wildlife vegetation, and we can
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: make it a community effort. It could be the KX
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: you know, mitigation crew, because these things really do foster community.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: And afterwards you can have a pot luck lunch like
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: we used to do Transition Laguna. We would create gardens
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: for people and then party. And then he gave me
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: the answer of liability that you have to be trained.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: You know, there's obviously certain native species you have to
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: leave a little bit of that. And I thought to myself,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: another layer of bureaucracy. We could recruit dozens of able
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: fit people from the community that I think would love
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: to get up in the open space and do some
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: of that, but apparently we can't.
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: So I don't work for Laguna Canty Foundation anymore. So
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: I get to answer this question differently, Right, I say.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Go for it. Here's what I need from you.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: I need somebody to manage those volunteers, right, and I
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: need to make sure that those volunteer, those volunteers are
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: trained in their plant identification skills so that they are
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: not pulling up, god forbid, crownbeard, right, a federally listed species.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: You can't be pulling that up, right. We don't want
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: you to be pulling up California sagebrush, any of our
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: native species.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: Right, certainly not live forever.
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: Absolutely not our dudlias. So you need to be well trained.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: You need to know what you're doing out there. And
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: if we have a crew of people who know what
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: they're doing, absolutely someone to help manage those volunteers.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: I think that that might.
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: Be a really valuable tool in our fire mitigation efforts.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: You know, particularly is we start to have really difficult
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: conversations around how we're tackling these invasive species. You know,
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: the use of synthetic herbicide is such a controversial issue.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: How do we manage for fire safety, how do we
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: tackle some of these really problematic invasive species. And I
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: don't think that there's one silver bullet, right. We need
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: to be looking at all of these options, and a
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: real dedicated volunteer or might be part of that.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Hallie Jones for City Council. Everybody, it's two fifty eight.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate you coming on the show, and I
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: wish you nothing but luck. And I'm not going to
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: say publicly that I endorse you, because we have a
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: policy now at the station to be fair and balanced.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: But I do think you have incredible chops and experience,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: and it's great that you've worked on the other side
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: where you've been a partner to the city but not
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: inside the city, so you see it from both directions.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Are you having fun, I'm having fun. I'm having fun.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: It's fun being here with you, Billy.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: I'm so happy what you're doing with the radio station,
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: such a community resource, and you and I I've worked
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: together on a bunch of different things over the years
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: and it's great to be here with you.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: My first guest, Hallie Jones, running for city council. Everybody
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: here on Laguna Talks. I'm going to pass it over
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: now to my man Pat Parnell, who's going to do
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: a deep dive for you on the three o'clock hour
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: of Laguna's Neighborhood block Party.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Hang on, everybody,