State and local officials talk public safety in Laguna Beach
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State Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach) was joined by local police and fire personnel Wednesday morning for a sparsely-attended conversation on public safety issues at Jedidiah Coffee in Laguna Beach in an event billed as a town hall.
Strickland spent a good portion of his opening remarks advocating for funding for Proposition 36, “The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act” passed by voters in 2024.
It allows for some drug-related and repeat theft offenses to become felonies and can lengthen certain jail and prison sentences. The legislation also created an option for some drug offenders to enter treatment programs instead of serving jail time.
“This is the initiative that passed [in] all 58 counties,” Strickland said,” and when it came to the Legislature, [Gov. Gavin Newsom] didn’t fund it. That was disappointing, because a budget is nothing but a blueprint of your priorities. I happen to believe that should have been the first thing that got funded.
“I will give credit to my Democratic colleague Tom Umberg, who pushed back along with a lot of us to try to get funding, and we only got $100 million for three years, which I think is a slap in the face of the people who voted for [Prop.] 36, because we had zero money for probation, which is the accountability part of [Prop] 36. It will fail if it doesn’t get the proper funding.”
Strickland added that ideally, Prop. 36 would be supported with $400 million annually.
Laguna Beach Fire Chief Niko King and Police Chief Jeff Calvert then addressed those assembled on the patio with a review of what their departments are doing.
King touted the importance of partnership at the state and local levels.
“We saw what happened on Jan. 7 here in Southern California [with the Los Angeles area wildfires] ,” King said. “It kind of changed the landscape of the fire service, and it continues to evolve our approach on how we’re going to fight fires. It’s really about the steps that we can take before the fire happens in preparedness and mitigation.
“Right now, the city of Laguna Beach has about half a dozen grants that come through the state for mitigation. The city spends about $1.5 million a year for the fuel modification, and there’s 27 zones that surround the city of Laguna Beach.”
King credited Gov. Newsom with issuing an executive order aimed at expediting the permitting process for fuel modification work.
The Laguna Beach Police Department issued a media release in September, highlighting the city’s designation as the safest coastal community in Orange County for violent crime. The release cited the Department of Justice as the source of the crime statistics, and it added that Laguna Beach is second to Dana Point among the county’s coastal cities for the lowest rate of property crime.
Laguna Beach reported 37 violent crimes and 210 property crimes in 2024, according to the news release.
“We are the safest coastal community in Orange County for violent crime — sorry, Huntington Beach,” Calvert quipped in standing next to Strickland, Surf City’s former mayor. “... Our mission is to be the safest coastal community in Orange County through community outreach. Our community is looking to support what we do day in and day out.”
