Laguna heads to the polls
- Published:
- 2024-11-08
- Retrieved:
- 2026-05-23
Indy election-day piece with press-time preliminary vote totals for the 2024 LBUSD board race and City Council race. Documents Morgan's first on-record post-election statement ("keyboard mafia" framing) and George Weiss's losing City Council reelection bid — establishing Weiss's pre-Substack identity as a sitting Council member who lost reelection in November 2024.
Key points
- 2024 LBUSD vote totals (press-time preliminary): Sheri Morgan 4,795 (1st); Howard Hills 4,709 (2nd, 86 votes behind Morgan); incumbent Jan Vickers 4,515 (3rd, lost by 194 votes to Hills); Lauren Boeck 4,135; Margaret Warder 2,280.
- Morgan's first on-record post-election statement uses the phrase "keyboard mafia" for her online critics: "We stood up to the fabricated narrative demonstrated by the keyboard mafia, who I am confident have never stepped foot in the board room and haven't spoken to me or volunteered for our schools in years."
- Morgan implies pre-existing tension with sitting board members: "past and current board members, most of whom I had championed and, at times, challenged to be accountable."
- George Weiss lost his City Council reelection in this same cycle (4,301 votes, 3rd) — his Substack writing emerged after losing his elected role, not before. Major biographical reframing for the corpus.
- Weiss farewell statement names his unfinished Council projects: library renovation; cliff-face and tide-pool protection; St. Catherine's community-center conversion; S. Laguna parks; visitor-impact reduction.
- City Council winners: incumbent Bob Whalen (5,834) reelected; Hallie Jones (5,609, Crystal Cove Conservancy EVP) elected to the open seat.
- Note: more than 350,000 OC ballots untallied at press time; totals are preliminary, not final certified.