LAGUNA BEACH : A Healthy Checkup

Barely a year ago, the Laguna Beach Community Clinic was running on empty. A $20,000 loan from the city was past due. The health clinic was paying a steep $3,500-a-month rent for its counseling center. Fund raising was lackluster. Federal money had dried up.

But recently, the clinic celebrated its 20th anniversary in good health. By cutting staff, adding pay-as-you-can patient fees and finding cheaper quarters for its counseling services, the clinic cut its $500,000-per-year budget by $50,000.

The city, acknowledging the clinic’s importance in the community, forgave the loan. Fund raising picked up. And now there is the prospect of $75,000 in new funding this year because of Proposition 99, which put a 25-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes.

The once-free clinic was started in another era, when hippies and yippies gathered in Laguna Beach to celebrate the Age of Aquarius.

Since then, it has evolved into a family clinic of vital importance to immigrants and those who are uninsured or otherwise on the economic edge of society. Among its many services are prenatal care, AIDS testing and prevention education and family and group counseling.

It would have been easy to let the clinic sink from its own financial burdens. Its volunteers, directors, workers and supporters didn’t let that happen.

They deserve the community’s thanks.