Ashley Cintas: Laguna Beach City Council Candidate 2026

I didn't move to Laguna planning to run for City Council.

I got involved because of my experience opening a business here. Then I started attending meetings, looking at budgets and projects, asking questions, and talking to residents. And the more I learned, the more I realized that Laguna doesn't have a shortage of people who care about problems. What I think we are missing is enough focus on what happens next.

Caring about a problem isn't a solution. Pointing out a problem isn't a solution. Taking responsibility for solving it is.

That is where I think I am very different from both the current Council and some of the other candidates.

I hear a lot about protecting Laguna. I completely agree that we need to protect Laguna's character, charm, coastline, open space and neighborhoods. Those are some of the reasons all of us chose to live here.

But protecting Laguna cannot stop there.

Protecting Laguna means protecting residents' quality of life.

It means protecting our local business community.

It means protecting our firefighters, police officers and other public employees by making responsible financial decisions so we can meet our long-term pension obligations.

It means protecting the City's investments by having a plan for how we are going to pay for, operate, and maintain something before we spend millions of dollars buying it.

It means recognizing when revenues are declining and developing a real strategy to control expenses and diversify revenue instead of continually looking to residents and businesses for another tax or fee.

And protecting Laguna from wildfire doesn't mean only checking items off a mitigation list. It means testing our entire system, communications, alerts, evacuation, traffic and emergency response, together before we are facing an actual disaster.

Protecting Laguna means thinking beyond the next budget cycle. It means asking what the decisions we make today will mean 10, 15 and 20 years from now.

It means having a real tourism strategy, not just adding more enforcement tools. It means planning for parking and affordable housing before constraints get worse. It means investing in our arts community. It means transparency and public accountability.

And most importantly, protecting Laguna means taking the loss of our emergency room seriously. We should not lose months before organizing a meaningful response to something that directly affects the health and safety of this community.

All of that is protecting Laguna.

I am running because I think we need more forward-thinking and much more accountability for outcomes.

For almost two decades, I have worked in environments where I couldn't just identify a problem or talk about what should happen. I had to come back with a plan, determine who was responsible, understand what it would cost, establish a timeline, and then actually deliver it.

I also believe leadership means being willing to make the right decision even when it is not the easiest answer politically. I am not going to change my position because it is an election cycle or because a different answer is more convenient in the moment. Residents should know where I stand, why I stand there, and that I will make decisions based on facts and what I believe is best for Laguna long term.

That is the mindset I want to bring to City Council.

My three priorities are forward thinking, fiscal management, and fire and public safety.

Forward thinking means asking before we make a major commitment: What is the cost? What is the timeline? Who owns it? How will we measure success? And what long-term obligation are we creating?

Fiscal management means prioritizing, controlling expenses, and understanding what is and is not working before asking residents and businesses to pay more.

And fire and public safety means making sure all the systems we have invested in actually work together. During an emergency, residents will not experience separate wildfire action items. They will experience one system. I want us to stress test that entire system and find the bottlenecks before a disaster does.

The quality of life of the people who actually live here.

That includes protecting our coastline, open space, neighborhoods, arts, architecture and the character that makes Laguna unique.

But it also means making sure residents can still move around their own city, access essential services, feel safe, support local businesses and afford to remain part of this community.

I don’t want Laguna to become a place that is beautifully preserved but increasingly difficult to actually live in.

The decisions we make about tourism, parking, housing, public safety, infrastructure and City finances should all come back to one question: Does this make Laguna a better place for the people who call it home?

You cannot protect Laguna's character without also protecting the community that creates that character.

And I don't believe protecting Laguna means refusing to change anything. The world around us is going to change whether we like it or not.

The responsibility of City Council is to think ahead and manage that change so that twenty years from now Laguna still feels like Laguna.

Protecting our future requires more than protecting our past.

We need to stop measuring activity and start measuring outcomes.

A study is an action. A committee/ad hoc/meeting is an action. Buying a property is an action. Purchasing new technology is an action.

The question I will keep asking is: Did it actually solve the problem?

Every major City commitment should have a funding source, a timeline, measurable deliverables, a responsible party and a long-term plan.

That is how I have operated throughout my career, and I believe City Hall needs much more of that discipline and follow-through.

I don’t think these interests have to be in conflict.

Residents’ quality of life should come first. Our coastline, neighborhoods and character need to be protected. Our local businesses also need to be able to survive because they are part of what makes Laguna a real community.

And tourism matters to our economy.

The question should not simply be, “How do we get more visitors?” It should be: What kind of tourism creates the greatest benefit for Laguna with the least impact on residents?

That means using better data to understand who is coming, when they are coming, where they are spending, what areas are most impacted and what Laguna is actually receiving in return.

Then we can build a strategy around quality over volume, stronger shoulder seasons and a healthier balance between residents, businesses and visitors.