Mailbag: Lifeguards deserve recent praise

How great of Shane Brolly to acknowledge his Labor Day swimming peril and the heroic feats of the lifeguards.

I too was in the water that day and managed to swim back in, but there were times when I wondered if I would make it to shore.

Thank you for giving such acknowledgment to the lifeguards and to your own fears.

John Benecke

Laguna Beach

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Four lanes in canyon is logical

Common sense loses again.

How sad that the efforts to widen that six miles of congested dangerous canyon road has been killed again.

I suspect that most of the loudest voices against improving things came from the south part of Laguna Beach, where they can use the nice safe four-lane Crown Valley Parkway.

I recognize that some of these same voices of never-ending opposition to progress also opposed the widening of Laguna Canyon Road years ago. A road where many had been killed and injured on a two-lane dangerous section.

Fortunately, sane people at Cal Trans and others finally prevailed and went ahead, after years of delay, and built a beautiful highway in that section of the road — a section that is now safer rarely congested, except sometimes the incoming section where it is caused by a backup from the remaining two-lane bottleneck section.

Widening the rest of Laguna Canyon Road into four lanes would not be an engineering feat and should be accomplished concurrently with the undergrounding of the utilities.

I have nothing to gain by supporting a good and safe road as I am too old to ever get to use it, even if work started today. I just hate to see common sense ignored over and over again and that younger residents and visitors will have to continue suffering the delays and dangers of the last remaining two-lane section.

Dave Connell

Laguna Beach

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Laguna has done much for homeless

Regarding the Amercian Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit filed against the city of Laguna Beach, I applaud the City Council’s decision to “vigorously defend the city against the lawsuit” as stated by City Manager John Pietig in his commentary, “ACLU lawsuit against Laguna Beach is misguided,” Sept. 4.

No city in Orange County does more for the homeless than Laguna Beach and this is especially significant considering the relatively small size of our city.

The cliché that “No good deed goes unpunished” seems especially apropos here. I cannot comprehend the mindset of the ACLU in filing a lawsuit against the one city in Orange County whose support of the homeless community is without peer.

Does the ACLU really believe that Laguna Beach has a legal obligation to provide permanent housing for every homeless person who knocks on our generous doors?

If its answer is yes, why not proceed with this same litigation against every other city in Orange County? Or does Laguna Beach get targeted because we have worked hard to provide a compassionate and humane approach to dealing with a tragic situation?

I was on the city’s Homeless Task Force and I have been a longtime supporter of the Friendship Shelter and I will continue to be. But certainly the question that begs to be asked is whether or not the city and its generous citizens will continue to have the will to support the Alternative Sleeping Location and everything else we do in support of our homeless population given this new litigation.

It would sadden and disturb me beyond words if we were to discover that the ACLU was encouraged to file this new lawsuit to put additional pressure on the city to find a location and to fund a permanent housing facility by supporters of the “housing first” model, who believe that the best way to solve homelessness is to provide permanent housing for every homeless person.

No city, especially a small community like Laguna Beach, can or should be expected to bear this burden by itself.

Michael Gosselin

Laguna Beach

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Time to clean up homeless problem

I support the unanimous decision of the Laguna Beach City Council to fight the ACLU lawsuit, to clean up Laguna Beach and make our streets and beaches safe again.

Please check the weekly police blotter in our local newspapers, the majority of infractions list the perpetrators with no known address.

My office is across the channel from the bus stop. My staff and visitors witness firsthand the lewd acts, public urinating, yelling using foul language and harassment of visitors on a daily basis by homeless individuals.

They occupy the shaded benches for hours with bags and suitcases strewn out, taking up all available seating areas.

Panhandling, smoking of cigarettes in posted no-smoking areas, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana are daily activities witnessed by passersby and from our office windows, and the litter and food left behind attracts flies, rats and other vermin.

I support the views of City Manager John Pietig in his recent commentary.

Keith Gallo

Laguna Beach

Homeless issue just getting worse

Ditto to Mark Christy’s letter to council members, “Regional approach is required,” Commentary, Sept. 4.

Visitors are shocked by the throngs of homeless in our city. It seems that it is getting worse.

Merchants downtown are the most affected. The word is out, visitors beware — we don’t recommend walking our town after 9 p.m.. Hard to believe this is Laguna Beach.

Dan Burge

Laguna Beach

Don’t fall for ACLU rhetoric

As former chairman of the Laguna Relief and Resource Center, which now serves the Laguna Beach community as The Laguna Food Pantry, I feel compelled to write this letter. I write it in support of John Pietig and all who worked so hard on the ASL in its infancy.

I have just finished reading Pietig’s lengthy and comprehensive article, plus all of the accompanying letters from people in response to his article. So much that is said, by so many, is so right on point. Mark Christy’s letter stands out as highly relevant, both at present and also at the time of the ASL initiation, in response to the ACLU’s first lawsuit.

But first, an important moment for personal disclaimer: I am neither a liberal, nor am I a conservative. I am a registered independent and intend to remain that way until I feel our two parties are finished coalescing around their own selfish interests instead of serving the interests of communities who elect them.

From a personal standpoint, I place the ACLU at the service of the head of the liberal snake.

The trouble with liberal organizations like the ACLU lies with their core methodologies. One of them is that they look for the deepest pockets, the pockets where they can either make or create headlines most easily, whether the overall general population’s effect is good or not.

Making it look like you are always defending the downtrodden or disadvantaged not only brings headlines, but it also brings support. I suggest that the support they engender is often illegitimate or misguided.

Don’t be fooled by the ACLU’s actions. They are misguided, and in this case, if they really wish to be effective, they should be guided to neighboring communities, and to communities around our state and our country, instead of coming back for some more of this low-hanging fruit.

Christy is right. While setting up the ASL, what many of us feared the most was non-action by neighboring communities, whose non-action sent their homeless here with a one-way ticket offering free room and board at our ASL.

We had to fight hard to keep the sleeping location’s population our own, and not that of neighboring communities. If that doesn’t tell you who the “bad guys” are, I don’t know what does.

And, as Pietig points out in his piece, we were pretty liberal in deciding who we accepted as community residents, based on what I felt were the generous selection criteria we developed.

So I say, go away ACLU. Go bully deeper pockets in places like Newport Beach and Dana Point. They have much larger populations, and thus many more total dollars and greater headline-grabbing potential, too — unless, of course, you are looking for depth of emotion and caring. You’ll never find deeper pockets for that than in Laguna Beach.

That’s why I live here.

Jason Paransky

Laguna Beach

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Problem with homeless stems from outside

On the morning of Sept. 4, I was driving south on Coast Highway at Broadway Street when I saw a man who looked homeless beating up a disabled man, who also looked homeless. I started screaming at him to stop but he just ignored me.

I left my car in traffic and ran over to stop him while calling 911. He was striking the man’s head with his fists and screaming he was going to kill him for giving his friend four pills the night before that made him overdose and die.

I separated the two and kept him away from the victim until the police arrived.

Four police cars showed up and even with a police presence he kept shouting that he was going to kill him. I gave my statement and info and went home.

Two days later I was walking my dog at Main Beach and there was the same man who was attempting to hurt the other man, sitting under an umbrella with some other homeless-looking men laughing and enjoying the day.

What are we supposed to do about this problem? In the meantime, our city is being sued because it hasn’t handled the homeless problem to the American Civil Liberties Union’s satisfaction.

This is not a problem the city of Laguna Beach has caused. These issues are beyond the city’s control. I’m sure our police are as baffled as the rest of us: Why wasn’t this man kept in jail? Is he staying in our shelters?

I don’t have the solutions to these problems, but I am absolutely certain they’re not going to be solved by the impending lawsuit. We need help from beyond our city’s borders to solve these issues.

I understand that a lot of the homeless are stranded and I appreciate their plight, but we also have to consider the mortal peril our community is being subjected to and that heightened scrutiny is needed to remove the violent criminals and drug dealers/abusers that are occupying our town.

Mark Evans

Laguna Beach