MAILBAG: They were not in Kansas anymore

Your eye-grabbing account of the battle royal at Main Beach between a tourist couple and Heermann’s gulls (“Police: Kansas man attacks bird on beach,” Jan. 9) raises an interesting question. What is there about people from Kansas that turns peaceful birds into violent marauders? Could it be the hayseed in their hair?

The next time my farmer friends from the Sunflower State visit me they will have to shampoo for their own protection.

DONN B. TRAGNITZ

Laguna Beach

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Our streets can also be green for pedestrian use

Green streets “” what on earth is a green street?

Oh no! More new language, thoughts, concepts, cultural values, belief systems. What is becoming of the world as we have known it, loved it, grown up in?

I’m pleased to introduce the future of Laguna Beach Streets, well maybe, if 51% of our town’s voters want it. The world has been changing ever since its first day. In the olden days “green” meant the color green. Green is the combination of blue and yellow. Green symbolized spring, rebirth, crops, Ireland and Kentucky. Simple.

These days defining “green” has ever-expanding connotations. Some relatively new examples are “green” office buildings, houses, cars, fuel, greenhouse gases, green waste, green wash, the Green Party.

Now on to my passion “” “green” streets. A green street is a street and a combination of streets that are: safe and useable (doing chores, shopping, playing, visiting) for kids and old people who do not drive cars and trucks. Green streets are quieter, less smoky and have less urban runoff. On green streets, cars drive more slowly and people on foot and bike are not run over on a weekly basis.

Too good to be true in the real world, green streets are becoming and have been becoming a reality. So now that you’re all fired up and want to save the world “” or at least your part of the world “” what can you do?

1. Contact your City Council member and ask them to help save our town from ever expanding hordes of speeding and polluting cars.

2. Attend the showing of “Contested Streets” at 6 tonight. Call (949) 494-5960.

3. Attend the fifth community-wide drop-in bike ride at 9 a.m. Saturday. Meet in front of the Laguna Beach High School parking lot. For information, call (949) 494 5960.

MICHAEL HOAG

Laguna Beach

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Street crossings need improvement

Thank you for your article regarding “drive-by” lawsuits hitting the local businesses. (“‘Drive-by’ lawsuits hit local businesses,” Jan. 9).

I moved to Laguna Beach in summer ’06 and, within months, was standing before the traffic and circulation committee with a plea for a pedestrian-activated cross-walk across Coast Highway in my neighborhood OR an ADA-compliant sidewalk by which one might reach one of the cross walks five blocks in either direction.

My reason for being there was simple: There is no way to push a stroller on a sidewalk to a place of safe crossing on North Coast Highway for a large chunk of North Laguna. The committee responded by saying Caltrans owns this stretch, they would certainly notify them, but I should “not expect to be the mother of a toddler by the time this is fixed.”

Since then, I have had another child, but still do not imagine they will address the need in the coming years.

That said, I just wanted to note that, while the municipality will not and does not have to intervene on the part of small businesses in Laguna, they most certainly should intervene to ensure ADA-compliant routes are available.

I consider this pure cognitive dissonance “” idyllic, textured, village community meets treacherous pedestrian conditions. Stay in your cars “” don’t attempt to walk around “” hazardous to your health!

HOLLY BENNET