By Gene Felder

The following is not the Laguna Residents First board ’ s position , but mine .

Laguna Residents First is a grassroots organization formed to preserve Laguna ’ s quality of life and give voters a say in development . Its supporters collected 2,679 signatures , and its ballot initiative

Measure Q was on the Nov . 8 , 2022 ballot . The City Council voted 3-0 on July 19 , 2022 on a resolution opposing Measure Q . In addition , the City Council was encouraged to craft an opposing ballot initiative . The result was that Ordinance 1675 was approved on Aug . 16 , 2022 , by a vote of 3 to 2 ( Whalen , Kempf & Iseman for , with Blake and Weiss against ).

This ordinance states that a building cannot be longer than 125 feet , but then states that “ Longer building lengths may be approved by the Planning Commission .”

Not so good , but it might curtail rooftop decks on new buildings as it included , “ No element of a new building shall exceed thirty-six feet in height , including but not limited to rooftop elevators , equipment , furniture , and other design features ”.

Not addressing parking or intensification of use , we thought Ordinance 1675 was “ Measure Q Light ” and unacceptable as the public could not vote to overturn when the council did not enforce the law , namely parking requirements . However , local businessman and investor Mo Honarkar moved

successfully to stop it by gathering sufficient signatures to qualify for referendum to repeal the enactment of the ordinance .

It ’ s tough to fight City Hall even when , by law , they are to remain impartial . Former City Attorney Phil Kohn had the duty to write an impartial analysis for Measure Q , but what he wrote was false and misleading in the Voter Information Pamphlet .

This included “ A majority of the ‘ Laguna Beach Electorate ’ ( commonly defined as the total number of registered voters ) voting ‘ yes ’ is required to approve a project .”

This caused quite a distraction , and instead of us using time to explain the initiative , we were bombarded with questions about the word “ electorate .”

It is difficult to understand how a city attorney could write such a statement . We all know that propositions and measures do not require a majority vote of all registered voters but rather a majority of those actually voting . His research should have quickly disclosed that such an

interpretation has never been upheld by the California courts . The California Attorney General opined definitively on a similarly-phrased initiative in 1983 , construing the 1978 Proposition 13 “ is also in accord with the almost universal rule that , “ where the requirement is that the issue by approved by a prescribed majority of the qualified voters of the municipality , or other language of similar import , the decision usually hold that a vote of the majority of all the qualified voters is not required but only the requisite majority of the qualified voters voting at the election .”

The Attorney General also noted that the United States Supreme Court adopted the interpretation in Carroll County v . Smith ( 1884 ) when interpreting a provision that required “ two-thirds of the qualified voters of such county ,” to “ require only two-thirds of those voting , not two-thirds of the registered voters .”

The City did not stop there . The city clerk determined that the post office was a polling place , making us move our Measure Q outreach

FELDER , PAGE 20