LAGUNA BEACH : Council to Consider Update for Safety Plan

The City Council tonight will continue reshaping the safety section of the General Plan, dealing with such subjects as the city’s response to earthquakes, landslides and fires.

At the same time, the council will consider a recently released hydrology report that outlines ways to minimize the chance of flooding in Laguna Canyon and downtown.

Safety concerns have taken center stage in Laguna Beach in the past 18 months, during which time the city suffered a massive firestorm and also battled landslides and floods.

The Seismic and Public Safety Element was adopted in 1979 and has not been updated since. Assistant Community Development Director John Montgomery said the 1993 firestorm jarred the city into action.

“Everybody felt it was time to do the update and make the city better prepared for all the various natural disasters that Laguna Beach has,” Montgomery said.

City planners began developing the updated safety element in January, 1994, and have conducted Planning Commission workshops on the subject. Suggestions have been sought from residents and homeowners’ associations throughout the city, Montgomery said.

A main component of the proposal would be to appoint a full-time emergency management coordinator, an issue council members expressed mixed feelings about at the last meeting.

While there has been considerable interest here in improving safety procedures, Montgomery said the trickiest part may be finding ways to fund such changes.

“We’ve got a lot of public interest in this one,” he said. “It kind of just boils down to budgeting. Money’s tight right now.”

The council meeting begins at 6 p.m.