Groups Offer Picks in City Races

In the closing days of this political campaign, community groups have made their picks among the six City Council and two City Clerk candidates.

Village Laguna, an environmental group formed more than 20 years ago to preserve the city’s village-like ambience, has endorsed City Council candidates Ronald Harris and William S. O’Hare, both attorneys and school district activists.

The group is backing incumbent Verna L. Rollinger for City Clerk.

Rollinger, city clerk for two decades and a longtime Village Laguna member, is being challenged for the second time by R. Elaine Smith, a businesswoman.

The Laguna Beach Taxpayers’ Assn. board had earlier endorsed incumbents Kathleen Blackburn and Wayne Peterson for City Council, and Smith for city clerk.

Also in the City Council race are Linda Small Athey, who restores antique furniture, and Rickey Slater, a retired janitor who is running for the seventh time. City Treasurer Susan A. Morse is seeking reelection unopposed.

The Safety and View Preservation group, a property rights advocacy organization formed to promote a law intended to keep residents from allowing their trees to block the views of their neighbors, is backing Harris and O’Hare.

The board of Top of the World Neighborhood Assn. has also endorsed Harris and O’Hare, and is backing Rollinger for city clerk.

The Laguna Board of Realtors and the Laguna Coalition, an umbrella group that formed several years ago to represent the views of “moderate to conservative” voters, have both endorsed Peterson and Blackburn.