LAGUNA BEACH : Council Candidates to Get Local TV Time

City Council candidates will get three televised minutes apiece to speak to the public at the beginning of Tuesday’s council meeting.

“It’s a chance, early in the campaign, for people in town to get a brief introduction to who the candidates are,” City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said.

The council had promised in February to make such local cable-access television time available to non-incumbents when it passed a law limiting campaign contributions. Opponents had said the law would give an unfair advantage to incumbents running for reelection.

As it turns out, with three terms expiring this year, Mayor Ann Christoph is the only incumbent up for reelection. Both Lida Lenney and Robert F. Gentry decided not to run again.

Many are predicting that 1994 will be a crucial election year for Laguna Beach, with the council’s liberal majority possibly losing control for the first time in more than a decade.

“This is probably the one election the citizens of Laguna Beach need to be involved in more than any other in the last 12 years, no matter what they believe in,” Gentry said.

The other nine candidates are: real estate broker, Wayne Baglin; attorney Steve Dicterow; community relations specialist Paul Freeman; attorney Ronald Harris; legal clerk Darin Henry; artist Beth Leeds; former professional football player Mel Owens; administrative assistant Mark Petersen, and media consultant John Schug.

A new political group Protect Laguna ’94 this week endorsed Christoph, Freeman and Harris. Baglin and Dicterow won the nod earlier from a political action committee formed by city firefighters and from the Laguna Coalition, an umbrella group representing dozens of civic groups.

The council meeting begins at 6 p.m.