Laguna Beach City Councilmember Bob Whalen formally announced on July 26 that he will seek re-election to city council this November.
First elected in 2012, Whalen has served three terms on the city council and five times as mayor.
Whalen has a long history of public service. He has served on the city Planning Commission for four years and the Laguna Beach Unified School Board for nearly ten years. He has also served on several local nonprofit boards, including the Boys and Girls Club of Laguna Beach, SchoolPower, Laguna Art Museum and Laguna Beach Little League. He is currently on the board of the Orange County Community Foundation.
“I am excited to be running again for council,” Whalen said. “We have many important initiatives underway, and I want to keep serving to move those towards completion. I am hopeful that the voters of Laguna Beach will support me for another term on the council, and if re-elected, I will continue to work hard to move the city forward.”
Whalen has received endorsements from Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, State Sen. Dave Min and Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley.
“Cottie and Dave have been doing outstanding work for us at the state level, bringing grant funding to a number of important programs and projects for the city,” Whalen said in a release. “Katrina is providing critical support at the county level for our Laguna Canyon Road project and other initiatives. I am very appreciative of their support. If re-elected, I look forward to working with them on legislation and programs that will benefit our residents and local businesses.”
In addition, Whalen has received endorsements from Laguna Beach Mayor Sue Kempf, Mayor Pro Tem Alex Rounaghi and Councilmember Mark Orgill.
“I enthusiastically support Bob Whalen’s re-election to City Council,” Rounaghi said. “Throughout his public service, Bob has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment and ability to improve public safety, protect our environment and maintain the city’s sound financial position. Bob has accomplished so much by forging consensus and finding balanced solutions that unite rather than divide our community.”
During his time on the council, Whalen was involved in adopting the city’s Wildfire Mitigation and Fire Safety Plan in 2019, which resulted in implementing multiple other projects to enhance fire safety in the city. They included expanding fuel modification zones, improving evacuation routes and adding cameras and helicopter refilling stations in the open space to detect and combat wildfires.
“Public safety has always been number one to me and will continue to be my number one priority,” Whalen said. “In addition to the efforts on wildfire safety, I am proud of the work that I was able to do as mayor through the first two years of the pandemic. It was a challenging time, but I believe the city did an outstanding job of protecting the health of our residents and helping our business community to survive. I was pleased to assist in that effort.”
Looking to the future, Whalen said it is clear that Laguna Beach still faces challenges.
“Residents are feeling overwhelmed by visitors,” Whalen said. “We have begun, but need to do much more to implement programs and strategies to better manage the impact of visitors on our beaches, neighborhoods and parks. We also need to develop plans to upgrade our aging public buildings and other infrastructure, implement our Climate Action and Adaptation Plan and find affordable housing solutions for local artists, workers and seniors.”
Laguna Beach’s general municipal election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 5, to elect two city council members, a city clerk and a city treasurer. All positions will have a full four-year term.
The nomination period for these offices closes on Friday, Aug. 9, at 5 p.m. Whalen, councilmember George Weiss, city treasurer Laura Parisi and city clerk Ann Marie McKay are up for re-election.
As of press time, incumbents Weiss and Whalen have announced their re-election bids. Judie Mancuso and Hallie Jones are also vying for a seat on the city council.
Anthony Fisch
Alta Vista Way
• 20 min ago •
Exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or control that makes possible the manipulation of prices and behavior is the definition of public service monopoly.
This is Bob Whalen’s legacy in my opinion, but you keep electing him. How much severance did our former City Manager and Director of Community Development receive? Wiener was fired, yet still received a severance package.
A large increase in litigation against the city, at least four suits that I know of, comes out of our pockets. Laguna outspends more than Dana Point by a daunting margin. Our payroll is $44 million dollars more than Dana Point’s.
Laguna Beach has more places to buy alcohol than any matching sized city in California. We have over 140 bars and restaurants sharing 170 Alcoholic Beverage Control licenses. We have the highest number of DUIs per capita among 101 cities closest in population in California.
Bob Whalen and Sue Kempf have been Laguna Beach’s Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem for almost 6 years. Each year, the Mayoral titles get exchanged between them. How is baton passing not a leadership monopoly?
Do you feel safe or fairly represented? Do you desire a cycle change in 2024 and 2026? Will you vote for two people that will vote for your wallet and property rights?
This is on Bob Whalen’s watch!.
1. We lost six senior department heads in just over two years.
2. The City Manager lied to a police officer without investigation.
3. Evidence of body cam video from Dupuis’s traffic stop was “edited” by an outside agency and multiple sources claim the Mayor was aware?
4. Roughly 250 CEQA (CA Environmental Quality Act) exemptions have been issued by our community development director over two years — causing damage to our Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas (ESHA) in a coastal zone.
5. These are also violations of CA Supreme Court law. See Banning Ranch vs. Newport Beach requiring all lead agency projects on ESHA property to enforce initial CEQA review, and/or biology for status and, or EIR.
6. Not applying CEQA exceptions to exemptions and violating ADU law means there are more state laws and guidelines for development being violated.
7. Piecemealing, cumulative and over densification damage is increasing, destroying open land, sensitive areas, wildlife corridors, and canyons. And your views and real property equity. Traffic from this and unchecked ADU’s have turned our evacuation route into a fire pit that will kill us.
8. Staff has misrepresented state code and self-manufactured misinformation on-the-fly while advising city council in 60% of meetings.
9. Projects like Sweetwater got approval even when it’s been proven that deadly contamination exists. In this case, which cause cancer and led poisoning. Whalen supported building it anyway without remediation.
10. DRB members Gibbs, Sheridan, and Weil have led approval of CEQA exemptions without study or expertise as our city attorney, an alleged CEQA expert, sits idle.
11. The city violated FCC law and lead agency guidelines on wireless facility expansion without public notification.
This list goes on. If the election cycle through 2026 does not reverse the current 4-1 vote in city council, our real property equity will be halved.
You may just see a 2-story, 25 ft. tall ADU in your face, as others have. Since 2018, residential over-development has greatly impacted parking and traffic, wildlife corridors, and canyons. Note new coyote packs hunting daily. No ADU in this city is used for affordable housing and never will be.
Weiss and Mancuso address these concerns and will fight for us, George listens. If voters let this continue and we are silent, we get what we deserve. We need and want safe, quiet neighborhoods with good schools and fewer fees, bonds, taxes and tourists.
We want a response to our questions, not a deaf ear waiting for personal opportunity.