Dana Point Ca Government

The City Council has decided not to consider the creation of a Youth Commission at its meeting Tuesday, after having placed the item on the agenda in early May. At the urging of Councilman William Ossenmacher, the council recently voted 3 to 2 to take the issue off next week's agenda. The commission is the idea of students at Dana Hills High School who believe that the city's youth should have some say in local government.

South Coast Water District board members breathed a sigh of relief at a recent meeting after the city decided to withdraw its takeover bid. "Now we don't have to look back and be worried," said Mike Dunbar, general manager of the water district. South Coast had been battling the City Council's attempt to assume jurisdiction of the water district. Last month, the council decided to withdraw its application to the state to take control.

A city-appointed task force to resolve a long-simmering mobile home park dispute is making progress, and a solution may be reached in early July, according to City Councilman Mike Eggers. The City Council had taken action after six months of complaints from residents of Dana Point Marina Mobilehome Estates on Del Obispo Street, near Coast Highway. The park residents, mostly retired people on fixed incomes, had told the City Council that they could not afford rent increases being sought by the landowner.

How perfect and serene it must have seemed to the young mariner who surely peered up from his wooden tall ship and saw friendly Juaneno Indians dropping cattle hides down the distant cliff to be taken into trade. About 150 years later, here's what has happened to that beatific vision of Richard Henry Dana, whose novel of sea life, "Two Years Before the Mast," is an American classic.

They used to be an obscure group that met at each other's homes, in garages, at elementary schools, anywhere they could find a room. Today, the Capistrano Bay Park and Recreation District, though still anonymous to most of the community, has left the garages for a roomy, $1.4-million community center. And while most government agencies are scraping to make ends meet, this once-sleepy board, the only one of its kind in the county, is in the largest expansion mode of its 27-year history.

City Atty. Jerry Patterson resigned two weeks ago. The city clerk left in January. The city manager quit last summer. The economic development manager has said goodbye. A code enforcement officer split. The community development secretary changed jobs. And the senior planner has given notice. Six of the city's key employees have abandoned their positions in the last nine months.

The city's General Plan will be the subject of four community workshops arranged by city officials in the next few months. Details about the General Plan process, which provides a blueprint for how the city will be developed, will be outlined in a citywide newsletter that will be sent to residents this week. In the newsletter, citizens can get information about the major goals for Dana Point, and they may use the enclosed survey to provide information to city officials.

An official request to place water and sanitation services under city control could be approved tonight by the City Council. The city currently receives service by several water and sewer agencies, including the South Coast Water District, the Dana Point Sanitary District and the Capistrano Beach Water District. If approved, the city would file a joint application with Laguna Beach for the reorganization with the Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees such government consolidations.