Louis Weil announces candidacy for Laguna Beach City Council

Louis Weil, a local real estate agent, has decided to put his hat in the ring for the Laguna Beach City Council race.

Three seats will be up for grabs on the five-person panel — those currently held by Mayor Sue Kempf and council members Peter Blake and Toni Iseman — in the election in November.

Weil, a 12-year-resident of Laguna Beach, has held several public service roles in the city, most recently on the design review board, for which he has served as chairman the past two years.

He has also been involved with the Affordable Housing Task Force, and he is a former board member of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce.

“The three key buckets are just really working together, focusing on residents’ needs and strategic planning,” Weil said of his priorities in a phone interview Tuesday. “Laguna Beach in the ‘80s and ‘90s really brought the community together and created some really forward-looking documents that helped create the aesthetics and the vibrancy of our community.”

Weil, 39, contends that there is more that the city can do to plan for the decades ahead, adding, “When you look forward, there’s not enough in there for what 2030, 2040 and 2050’s needs are and the needs of current changes in our town.”

In his time as chairman, the design review board updated its bylaws, including the addition of a term limits clause. Board members can now serve up to four consecutive two-year terms, and then they must sit out a term before putting themselves back up for consideration for reappointment.

Weil also mentioned a desire to hold more community events in town upon making his announcement.

“Hospitality Night is great,” Weil said in a statement announcing his candidacy. “We’ve got that covered. How about a beach festival to kick off the summer? My kids would love that. I’d also like to see more of a focus at our community center on music and performance art for kids, along with the great dance academy that currently operates there.

“I feel strongly that we must protect our wilderness areas and our beaches so that our kids and our kids’ kids have the same access that we enjoy today, thanks to nonprofits like the Laguna Canyon Foundation.”

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