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| Name of Organization: | Village Laguna |
| Date of Workshop: | June 26, 2000 |
| Number of Participants: | |
| Facilitator: | Jera Martinez |
Summary of Assets
The group identified the following community assets during
group discussion and on written comment cards.
The Environment
Natural environment
- Marine life
- Bird sanctuary
- Flowers
Transportation
The People
Education
- Well-educated, caring population
The Community
Image and Identity
- "Cockamamie streets"
- Sense of special community
- International reputation
- History of preservation
- Multiple contexts for meeting, knowing people
- Residents share common goals for community
Governance
- Face-to-face interaction with city leaders
Summary of Challenges
The group identified the following community challenges
during group discussion and on written comment cards.
The Environment
Natural environment
- Balancing need for playgrounds and open space
- Protect hillsides by eliminating private encroachments
- Do not give away "paper streets"
- Do not allow access over "paper streets"
- How do we turn "paper streets" into permanent open space?
- Create new open space from existing streets (e.g. turn Forest Ave into pedestrian street)
- Protect canyon from noxious gases - how?
- Strength of developers
- Dog trails
Transportation
- Protect Laguna Canyon Rd from widening, flooding
- Bike safety
- Traffic accidents
Infrastructure
- Ready for challenge of new technology and capitalize on it
The Community
Economy
- Keep community caring as wealth increases
- Businesses that serve residents
Governance
- Preserve historic buildings
- Responsive city council
Summary of Visions
The group identified the following as major visions for
Laguna Beach during group discussion and on written comment cards.
The Environment
Natural environment
- No off-shore oil drilling
- Water environments natural i.e. Laguna Creek - no concrete
Transportation
- Increase bus service (more often, longer service)
The People
Education
- Great schools
- Educational opportunities for adults
- Bilingual citizenry
The Community
Arts and Culture
Image and Identity
- "Village on order of English village but not frozen in time but adopting to change"
- Dog-friendly
Summary of Opportunities
The group identified the following opportunities during
group discussion and on written comment cards.
The Environment
Natural environment
- Develop a fund to purchase open space
- Enforce marine refuge beach
Transportation
- Provide peripheral parking (e.g. Irvine Spectrum, Irvine Coast)
- Provide resident-only parking in the downtown area
The People
Education
- Educate people new to community as to what it takes to maintain the community that attracted them
Communications
- Promote local NPR and cable television reporting on Laguna issues
- Make our vision clear to all
- Require all citizens' information to be listened to - info goes to city council without censorship
- Host community forums and paper
The Community
Governance
- Enforce the general plan and municipal codes
- Elect responsive, responsible council to appoint non-develop-oriented planning and DRB boards
- Expand numbers in citizens' committees
- Require city council liaison to attend committee meetings
- Host electronic town-hall meetings
- Provide more independence of city council from city manager
- Planning factions need to report directly to city council, not city manager
- Different departments need to report directly to city council - allows council to get different view points
- Encourage more participation in community planning beyond visioning process
- Institutionalize/create a culture of the initiative process to bring citizens' views to governance
- Institute electronic voting to increase participation
- Engage in effective fundraising to achieve these goals
- Establish a moratorium on growth
- Systematically monitor elected officials' performance
- Elect a new city council
- Create more initiatives
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