Pleased with the festival direction Re: Does...

Pleased with the festival direction

Re: Does the recent change to the festival board make you worry

about the festival? (Coastline Pilot, April 9)

Not at all. As an 18 year exhibitor at the festival, I am bullish

on the direction that the new majority seems to be going. I assume

you are referring to the fact that Bob Henry had to cut back on his

responsibilities at the Festival of Arts for some unanticipated

business reasons and recently announced that he was going to step

aside as president.

We are very fortunate that Henry, a terrific fellow and talented

former television director, will remain on the board as vice

president while he pursues a special television project related to

his former career.

Anita Mangles brings to her new role as president her savvy

business skills and special talent for communication which will act

as a positive force to move the Festival of Arts into the 21st

Century without any of the negative energy that we saw before this

new board majority was elected this past October. While we will be

keeping an eye on them, I expect that this board will one of the

better ones in recent years.

BILL AGEE

Capistrano Beach

As a member of Festival of Arts I am please to see this new

change.

I am certain that Anita Mangels with her involvement in the city

of Laguna Beach will be an advantage to the Festival of Arts.

I personally will be looking forward to Mangels’ new elected

position and her undertaking the task.

ROSS FALLAH

Laguna Beach

Bigger worries on festival than swap

I am not worried at all about the Festival of Arts board being

headed by Anita Mangels with Bob Henry swapping jobs and continuing

as vice-president. After saving the festival, these folks have saved

the pageant as an unique Laguna Beach event.

I am concerned about the continuation on the board of Bruce Rasner

supporters like John Campbell who have a grandiose vision for the

festival that included hiring for something like $175,000 a year an

executive director and voting to have him pursue licensing the

Pageant of the Masters even though it is contrary to the new lease.

I’d feel much more comfortable if we can get more supporters of

50-year Festival Board member David Young supporting his view to keep

the Festival and Pageant small town and uniquely Laguna events.

GENE FELDER

Laguna Beach

Has to be an answer to tide pool robbery

A letter from Nancy Bushnell (“Shout it out if you love our

oceans,” Coastline Pilot, April 2) warns us that we need to provide

law enforcement if we are going to save our unique marine habitat in

Laguna Beach. Docents are doing a great job but they alone cannot

“fight the tide” of harmful trespassers.

Several months ago I saw an individual busily tearing mussels off

the rocks below me at the north end of Crescent Bay. He ultimately

walked away with a bagful at least 15 to 20 pounds.

When I first saw the man I called the lifeguards. They referred me

to the police department, who referred me back to the lifeguards.

They then suggested I call a fish and game county officer, where I

was passed through three different departments. Nobody had an idea as

to the legality or as to enforcement much less the existence of any

regulations.

By this time the perpetrator walked away with his illicit catch.

Somebody in this city has to take on the job of stopping the

vandalism. The county is already not prepared and at the moment our

local officials appear not to have a clue. What do we do?

BILL MCDONALD

Laguna Beach

Plenty more to know about area lifeguards

Re: “New bill could help save lives,” (Coastline Pilot, April 9)

My name is Api Weinert and I am the recurring director for the

county of Orange Lifesaving Assn. I am writing to thank you for your

recent editorial regarding the legislative drive to standardize

lifeguard-training in California. To enlighten your readers a bit

more, I looked on the www.usla.org (United States Lifesaving Assn.)

website and gathered statistics for 2002 in the southwest region of

the United States.

Total visitors to beaches: 169,686,052

Rescues: 39,256

Drownings: 14 (13 occurred in Hawaii)

For reference it took Disneyland from July 17, 1955 to Jan. 8,

1981 to reach as many visitors as did our beaches in one year.

Statistically speaking, it would appear that having lifeguards

protect the public sure pays off. In comparing statistics with the

California State Firefighters Assn., and Police Officers Research

Assn. of California it is clear that dollar for dollar lifeguards

provide the most efficient form of protection. Laguna Beach

lifeguards are some of the most highly trained and dedicated. Having

traveled the world, lived in Hawaii and visited all but three

lifeguard agencies in California I can tell you that the

professionals working the beaches in Laguna are assets to the

community they serve.

While our association members have not had ample time to evaluate

either Assemblyman Tom Harman’s bill, or the current situation of

discontent between the Laguna Beach Lifeguard Assn. and their

employer, I can personally speak to the fact that I support both

Harman and the Laguna lifeguards.

I also wanted to submit a correction in your editorial. The county

of Orange is the responsible party for protecting beachgoers from

Aliso Beach (in Laguna Beach) south to Shore Cliff’s Beach (in San

Clemente) except for Doheny State Beach.

I encourage your readers to educate themselves as to their

professional lifeguards serving tirelessly in their community, by

seeing the figures themselves at www.USLA.org.

API WEINERT

County of Orange

Lifesaving Assn.

Laguna Beach

Working with art students was a treat

Thank you for your nice article about the abstract art workshop I

conducted at Laguna Beach High School last week. I wanted to make one

correction: Roxy McKnight wasn’t the young woman in the photo, but

she deserves to be recognized for her contribution to the workshop.

Peter Tiner asked her to assist me. I e-mailed McKnight a list of

artists and paintings and she pulled images off the web to create a

wonderful Power Point presentation on 20th Century art history. This

was a tremendous help and McKnight was just one of the wonderful

students in Tiner’s art class.

I was so impressed by the students’ enthusiasm and polite good

manners, and their obvious respect for Tiner.

Last week I was also up at Thurston Middle School, teaching a

week-long class on Laguna’s early artists for Mrs. Erickson’s

advanced art class.

We had a slide show; group projects on artists Cuprien, Hills,

Wendt, Payne, and Kleitsch; and an oil pastel project. Once again I

had great students and a wonderful teacher to work with.

These programs are coordinated by Laguna Outreach Community

Artists, but I could not have done the Thurston project without help

from many others. These include the Festival of Arts and Ray Redfern

who helped me with slides; but most importantly Christine De Witt,

education director of the Irvine Museum in Newport Beach. De Witt

allowed me to duplicate numerous slides, and generously donated

dozens of beautiful books and art catalogs to Thurston and LOCA. If

you love Laguna’s early artists as I do you owe it to yourself to

visit this wonderful museum.

Thank you again for your coverage on arts education in Laguna

Beach.

HEDY BUZAN WILLIAMSON

Laguna Beach

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