SURFING SOAPBOX: A Laguna for the people

It’s almost funny sitting here inside Starbucks, watching everyone typing away on their laptops, myself included. Perhaps I should clarify which Starbucks I am in, since Starbucks has blossomed onto nearly every corner like wildflowers in the springtime. I think the total in Laguna is now six.

In this sophisticated moment of laptop bliss, I find myself plugged into the Starbucks downtown, not the one closest to the movie theater but the other one.

The one directly across from the lifeguard headquarters, which is stuck below a dilapidated viewing deck, closed to the public but good enough to keep our lifeguards housed in and on top of an old sewer pump that stinks as bad as our City Council.

It seems our council is more interested in making Laguna the home of fine arts and fine cuisine.

Now the people have to rally against the powers that be just to save their favorite local spots. Exhibit A: the Roof Top; and Exhibit B: Ocean Avenue Brewery Company. If it wasn’t for the people of the community fighting tooth and nail to save them, our council would have said adios to both.

Instead we now have groups of people rallying around what they believe in and one common theme I have heard is that we need some new blood injected into our council.

We need to get back to the type of council that is “of the people,� the type that would march down Laguna Canyon in order to save it, the type of council who would find it appalling to charge beachgoers or downtown shoppers 75 cents per 15 minutes of parking or $9 for three hours, the maximum allotted time allowed in the parking lot just off of Coast Highway and Broadway.

Talk about highway robbery — and I’m not just talking about the parking.

Peace.

JAMES PRIBRAM is a Laguna Beach native, professional surfer and John Kelly Environmental Award winner. His websites include AlohaSchoolofSurfing and ECOWarrior Surf.com. He can be reached at Jamo@Aloha SchoolofSurfing.com