THE URGENT BUSINESS OF SAVING THE PLANET CAN'T BE SCHEDULED FOR BUREAUCRACY'S CONVENIENCE

BY PENNY ELIA

If you don't live in Laguna Beach you are probably operating under the misconception that this city is green to the core, based on past events like many of us trying to save our Canyon from residential development by taxing ourselves and putting together one of the largest marches ever to defeat a toll road (we lost that one by the way). However, as a resident and a Laguna Beach-based environmental advocate, I can tell you that Laguna Beach is far from green and getting farther away from the mark every day. Our city has found a new green and that new green is money...as much money as the coffers can hold - that's the goal - whether it comes from development permits or simply ignoring or stalling on important environmental matters.

After a six-month delay (many would call it a total stall tactic) to allow City commissions and committees to examine the Environmental Committee's Climate Protection Action Plan (that's been in the works for far too long already), the City Council decided to delay action long enough to address City Manager Ken Frank's concerns that some of the recommended actions are prohibitively costly, others are infeasible, and still others contravene City policy.

If the Climate Protection Action Plan (CPAP) is not adopted by Council then all municipal matters involving carbon emissions coming before Council could be handled piecemeal without any set of standards to guide official decisions. In general, CPAP calls for a 10 percent reduction of all GHG emissions based on 1990 levels by 2012. Specifically, the applications are countless. For example, regarding the Athens Group massive project in Aliso Creek and the greater Aliso Canyon area, including Hobo Aliso Ridge. If CPAP is not adopted Council would be under no set of independent directives-such as the CPAP provides. These directives (see CPAP's Specific Reduction Measures 4.3.1 to 4.3.20) relate to Energy Performance Standards under California's Title 24 energy code, insulation, daylighting, shading, natural ventilation, landscape design, lighting, air conditioning, water conservation, solar electric and solar thermal systems, and more. In short, the CPAP would apply to countless construction projects in our city as well as to power-generation and the use of alternative energy sources in all City offices and numerous other City operations

A special committee has been put together to meet with Frank to assess his concerns with a view to adoption of the plan by the end of April. Based on Frank's incredibly creative way with the City's Municipal Code, General Plan and his new found use of Emergency Nuisance Abatement Orders to clear ESHA from areas of deferred certification under Coastal Commission jurisdiction under the guise of fuel mod, it is doubtful that this special committee will have much success swaying the City Manager.

In the meantime, the Planning Commission has been incorporating many of the plan's components into the draft Land Use Element of the General Plan, whose first goal now reads, Create a community that is sustainable, resilient, and regenerative. Hope springs eternal in Laguna Beach that we will once again find that inner green we cherished for so many decades versus the City's desire to pursue the other green that does nothing for our planet and its natural resources.

Don't let bureaucracy or anything else stand in your way of working with your individual cities to adopt a Climate Protection Action Plan TODAY! Take it from a city that so desperately needs to adopt a plan immediately to curtail the ongoing destruction of its last remaining natural resources.