Generation Talk #7: JS and AR

Generation Talk #7: JS (Age 41) and AR (Age 27)

On October 20th, 2025, I had a conversation with the mayor of Newport Beach, Joe Stapleton, and the mayor of Laguna Beach, Alex Rounaghi. We discussed some of their proudest accomplishments, unique features of Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, and what it means to be a good politician. These two mayors also spoke about technology’s effects on political divisiveness in our country and shared advice for young people today.

1. Tell us about your background. How and why did you become a mayor?

AR: I was born and raised in Laguna Beach. I went to Dartmouth College, and I’ve always been interested in public service. I ran for City Council at 24 years old, and now this is my third year on the council. Last year I was the Mayor Pro Tem, and since December of 2024, I’ve been the mayor. It’s been a great experience.

JS: I was born in Orange County, raised in Arizona, then graduated from the University of Arizona. I moved to Newport Beach almost twenty years ago. I always knew I wanted to live here—I remember driving down MacArthur and just thinking what a beautiful, remarkable utopia Newport Beach is. I wanted to become part of that legacy. I’m a wealth investor, so I’m the president and co-founder of Spinnaker Investment Group. Alex is also in the private sector as a developer, so for both of us, serving in the community is a passion, not a job. We both got appointed by our council colleagues to be Mayor, and we each have seven weeks left in this role. It’s been the honor of a lifetime to be the Mayor of Newport Beach.

2. What are some projects that you’re working on right now? Do you have any plans for future projects?

AR: One of the core responsibilities aside from public safety and local government is infrastructure.

In Laguna Beach, 100% of our water is imported. There’s an interesting history where in 1925, there were a group of residents who went to Huntington Beach pretending to be duck hunters, but what they were doing was purchasing land at the groundwater basin to get access to water. In the 1940s, that groundwater was breached by saltwater, so we switched to an imported water supply from the Colorado river. But what’s great about water rights is that they don’t go away. What we’ve been doing is figuring out how we can find land in the water basin area so we can build a well and get 2/3 of our water locally as opposed to from the Colorado River. I reached out to Mayor Stapleton about a partnership between our water district and the city of Newport Beach to partner on this well in Fountain Valley. We’re going to have local water reliability in Laguna Beach and also reduce our ratepayers’ cost by a million dollars a year. This is a great example of a collaboration between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.

JS: Unlike Laguna Beach, we’re getting 85% of our water right now through groundwater. We already have two existing wells. This collaboration will bring our city to 100% water independence, and I’m really excited about that. This will be our third well site. Infrastructure and water being inside our control is really important, but paramount to all else is health and safety. A project I’m really proud of for Newport Beach is that we put over 70 Flock cameras in our city, and now we’re reading every license plate that comes in and out of Newport Beach. I just signed a contract with an American drone manufacturer called Brink Drones. We now have seven drones in the city, and these drones are first responders. We’ve got a new fire station on the peninsula. We’re also doing a dredging project, the most comprehensive dredge we’ve done in the last two decades. There’s an aquatic center that we’re looking at too. I’m passionate about creating a destination in Newport Beach for people to have access to a pool for swim lessons or therapy.

AR: We’ve expanded our license plate readers as well. I also gave a raise to our police officers. At the time we had a lot of vacancies, and we’ve been able to fill the vacancies and ensure we have a fully staffed department. We’ve also streamlined our permitting process in Laguna Beach. We’ve had a very anti-business philosophy where it becomes very complicated to open a small business in town. Chains can navigate complex regulations, but small businesses can’t. We put together a package that will streamline all these regulations.

After the Palisades, we updated our wildfire mitigation plan. We’ve spent 25 million over the last five years on wildfire safety. It’s been over 55 years since we’ve built a new fire station in Laguna, so we just got approval in August to build the first fire station in more than 55 years. It’ll be the only fire station that’s seismically sound. My goal in terms of next steps would be to have all our public safety-related facilities modernized and seismically safe.

3. What is one of your proudest achievements as a mayor?

JS: We both have themes. I think it’s important to have a theme that navigates your entire year as the mayor. Mine is “Celebrate Newport”. It means something different to everyone. I think celebrating Newport is about the people, the projects, why we are a world-class city, and the history of our city. Every council meeting we’ve talked about the history of the city, from the birthplace when Captain Donald came into our harbor in 1870 and landed at Lower Castaways to the history of our lifeguard department, to our police, our fire departments.

I did the Ben Did Go 10.0. Ben Carlson was a lifeguard that lost his life in 2014. They started raising money the year after he passed away for water safety and different lifeguard programs around the world. They created the Ben Carlson Scholarship Foundation, and instead of going to a ballroom and having people raise a paddle, they said, “Why don’t you paddle from Catalina to Newport?” This year was the 10th anniversary paddle. It’s a 30-mile journey on a prone board, and everyone goes out and raises money. I told people a long time ago that if I’m ever the mayor of Newport Beach, I’m going to do the paddle. So, I started the journey back in April. I bought my board and spent four months training—50 training paddles, 450 miles, and 132 of us on September 13th at 6:10am, and we made the 30-mile journey across the open ocean. We raised $450,000 for the Ben Carlson Foundation. I don’t know any other mayor that’s done that, so that was pretty cool!

AR: For me, the proudest achievement was the response to the Rancho Fire in July. We had a wildfire that could have been devastating. It was my responsibility to be the chief spokesperson for the city and to be in the emergency operations center and watch all our public safety officials collaborate with each other. It was a proud moment because it marked how all our preparedness efforts had paid off. For example, we invested in fuel modification. That was one of the big issues with the LA fires, was that all the brush above the Palisades was not cleared for decades. We had gotten this fuel modification implemented several months before the fire, and you can see what an impact it made.

We also added firefighters to our staff for the first time. We saw the impact of that. It was just a great example of how preparedness from the top can really pay off. We also appreciate all the mutual aid from our partners like Newport Beach, Orange County Fire Authority, and the Sheriff's Department. I think that was my proudest achievement, being able to respond so effectively to the fire, and then communicate to our residents about what was going on.

JS: Yes, I think the way you communicate is huge. The mayor of any city looked is the face of the city. And Alex really took that upon himself to really get out there and communicate, and he did a great job. I think the residents felt really safe and secure, knowing that he was in a leadership position. It’s important to have good leaders. 

4. What are some of the unique differences in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach despite their proximity?

AR: I think they're similar in that we both have highly educated and engaged constituents. I don't think there's another city in Orange County that has more residents who follow what's happening in local government as closely as Newport Beach and Laguna Beach residents.

JS: Well, I think we’re also beach communities. We’re both familiar with the impact of tourism. We can see how that negatively impacts a town when you don't have the right resources to deal with it. Alex and I are both trying to balance maintaining a good quality of life for our residents while also being a travel destination for visitors. We’re both blessed with some of the most natural beauty, the cliffs on the coast and beautiful harbor. There are a lot of similarities and challenges that we both face, so it’s great that we have a good relationship because we can bounce ideas off of each other.

AR: I think we're both also full-service cities. We each have our own police, fire, lifeguards; everything happens within our cities. It's not like we contract with outside services. What do you think is the biggest difference?

JS: Well, the biggest difference is politics. But Alex and I are both in nonpartisan positions where we're here for the community. One reason Alex and I are so able to get along when so much of this country's divided is because despite our differences in some politics, we both care about our communities. We can both roll up our sleeves and do what's best. That's what I'm most passionate about—people coming together for common good.

And aside from politics, the biggest difference between Laguna and Newport is the harbor. We also have a downtown environment. I think you guys have more forests and stuff. We have high rises and big buildings. We also have 84,000 people. How many does Laguna have?

AR: 23,000.

JS: Yeah. But there are so many similarities between our residents. We have so many different boards and commissions. Alex and I are blessed that we've got experts in all these fields willing to step up and volunteer their time.

AR: Whenever we receive applications for city boards and commissions, we have applications from lots of people who've been CEOs of major companies. So many of them are applying that you sometimes have to reject really qualified people, whereas in other cities, you would just be begging for anyone to apply. We both have very sophisticated and talented residents.

5. What do you think it means to be a good mayor and politician in general?

AR: Well, I would quote Mayor Stapleton in saying that you want people who see this leadership position as a passion, not a job. We have far too many career politicians who are laser focused on how to get reelected as opposed to using public service to better their community, since being a politician is their full-time career. A good politician somebody who wants to serve their community and does not necessarily care about whether they get reelected or not.

JS: When I meet with other elected officials, they often say their favorite role was when they were the mayor. That’s really when you're closest to the people. I think, as the mayor, you’ve got to show up and communicate. I know Alex is out communicating. My publicist Alexandra Taylor and I communicate with residents through other channels other than just print media. We use a lot of social media. So often, people will go to our page on Instagram or Facebook to see what's going on in the city.

6. Sometimes politicians do corrupt things to get elected, but as soon as they do get elected, they do what’s best for the community. Do you think that behavior is justified?

AR: You absolutely have to build coalitions around different ideas that you want to bring forward. But I mean, look at Congress, like the government's fully shut down. And I think that if you had people who were just there to solve problems, they would get into a room together and figure out a viable solution to make the country better off. But politics incentivizes to attack the other side as opposed to come up with a solution, because it’s easier to get reelected if you just throw a bomb on the other side as opposed to solving the problem. I'm not saying that all politicians are corrupt. I think I'm just saying that this usually happens with people whose full time job is being a politician, as opposed to those who have a separate career and are okay even if they don’t get reelected.

JS: Yeah, being a mayor isn’t my day job. I’m in this office maybe once a week. I also think that those closest to the people should be the ones governing the people. I get frustrated when we lose local control to outside forces, whether it's the federal government or the state government coming to us telling us how we need to manage our city. We are the ones closest to the people, so I think we should be able to make those decisions. I think local control is something we all need to strive for, whether it's local, state, or federal politics.

AR: Well, going back to what I said, if you think about the founding fathers, they all had separate careers. They were just, you know, businesspeople, lawyers, and they came together and put the country first. That’s what allowed them to come up with the Constitution, and for almost 250 years, their vision has endured. The fact that they weren't career politicians made a huge impact on their effectiveness in creating such a great document.

7. What are your thoughts on how politically polarized America is today?

JS: I try to stay in my lane, and as the mayor of Newport Beach, I don't generally get that involved in what's going on the national platform. But our country was founded on a difference of opinion. And these people came together and figured out how to work together for a common solution. What's happening in our country now is that we're retreating to our own sides and blaming others for the problems. I think the fact that you can't go to Thanksgiving dinner anymore and have a difference of opinions without getting shouted down and canceled by some part of your family is, to me, a massive issue. Democracy is all about working together and coming to a solution. Alex and I might be on opposite sides of politics, but that doesn’t matter in local politics. He’s representing Laguna, and I'm representing Newport. We’ll work together to get water reliability. So often people don’t want to work with someone who isn’t part of their political party, and I think to myself—you were elected to serve your people, not your party! I get really frustrated by that. I think if this country was more like Alex and I, we’d get a lot done.

AR: When you watch cable news, you basically see that a lot of the politicians are incentivized to create divisions among us and point out why the other side is bad. We have to move away from political tribalism and find common ground.

JS: Like, Nextdoor was a tool that was created for community groups to come together, like a neighborhood watch. And what Nextdoor has become is a cesspool for people who want to create hate speech. They want to attack local elected officials and spread misinformation about things that are going on in the city. Alex and I both have careers, but we've chosen to step up and serve, and I'm not complaining. I love my haters. There's plenty of them to go around. If you're doing something right, you’re going to have haters. People won’t like change. And I think that platforms where people can hide behind their computers make it very easy for them to throw out misinformation and create an environment filled with what we call clickbait. People want to get attention by spreading negative thoughts and hate.

8. What do you think caused this divisiveness?

JS: Well, I think technology plays a huge role in this. Fifty years ago, people would come home at six o'clock at night, have dinner, and watch the news. There were only a couple of news channels. But now you can literally Google whatever you want and find people who agree with you. “I hate this.” You can find it. “I love this.” You can find it. And if that’s all you hear, that’s the only story you’ll believe. You have so many more outlets for technology, which is a blessing and a curse. Social media is wonderful. It's a way for me to communicate with my clients, with the residents, but it's also an opportunity for people to spread hate and spew misinformation. And there’s no accountability a lot of the time. People can go out and say whatever they want about development or public safety or infrastructure, whatever it is about a community, and there's no one checking the facts.

AR: Also, technology gives people a chance to say what they might not say if they were in a room with you in person. In the past, you had to confront someone in person or even write out a letter and send it to them. Now, it's just so easy to quickly send some mean thoughts that you wouldn't say if you were face to face with that person.

JS: So instead of interacting with that elected official in person, people just take whatever information they want. Then they skew it however they want to get clickbait, and they get on a social media platform and blast that speech. But the reality is, if they came and sat down with us for 10 minutes, they'd understand our real objectives.

AR: Yeah, there might be other reasons as to why we’re doing something. There might be a state law that we're having to follow. Things are more typically more complicated than social media gives you the nuance to explain.

JS: Yeah, no one on social media is going to sit down and listen to a long thought process. It's just quick thoughts and clickbait.

9. How do you deal with disagreements on political views?

AR: For me, it comes down to empathy. I always try to understand why the other person has the position that they have. And this could be a local issue; this could be a national issue. You have to understand what is underpinning their belief system and then work backwards and understand where they're coming from. And in the process of doing that, by asking questions and engaging with them, I might change my own position or at least know where they're coming from. And if we don't agree on one part of some issue, maybe there's a way we can agree on the other 30 or 40% of that one issue and then focus on the common ground that we can hopefully have to find a solution.

JS: I'm going to keep this on theme—I celebrate these differences. So, people can have a difference of opinion, and I want to celebrate that. I want people to come together and understand that they don't have to agree with me. And I tell people all the time in the community, that we should celebrate our differences, and I will always have an open ear. We will always be able to communicate. We might not always agree, but we can agree to disagree. And that's okay. And when you look at the local level, one thing Mayor Rounaghi and I are both conscious of is getting to the public and sitting down with people face to face to understand what the disagreement is. Oftentimes, we’ll do projects, and people won’t like the change that those projects bring. It frustrates me when people come in to those conversations not willing to listen and talk logically about the issue. Some people assume that I have ill intentions, that I’m trying to destroy the city, but I’m not. We’re all on the same team—Team Laguna, Team Newport, we’re all working together. I think it’s a win-win for everybody, and I’m definitely not trying to taking advantage of anything.

Being a mayor is not my full-time job, and it’s not Alex’s full-time job either. We’re doing it because we love our city. And I think if people came to each conversation, whether it's on social media or a Zoom meeting, and they understood that, we could reframe a lot of that conversation. We’d have differences, but we could agree to disagree. And I think a lot of that could happen throughout the country. If we all agree that we love America, we love California, let's start there. And then let's have a conversation. I don't think anybody is here to hate their city. We're all here to make our communities better.

AR: Yes, I also just like assuming that people have good intentions. I wouldn't want anyone to assume that I have bad intentions when I stand in a position that's in disagreement with theirs. So, I try to assume everyone's coming out of a place of good intention, and then I focus on the issues at hand as opposed to the character of the other person.

JS: And I think to that point, it's up to each elected official to build a reputation with the residents. For Alex and I, we didn't come out of nowhere. Alex has had a lifetime of service in his community. I've had 20 years of service in my community. We both have a reputation that we will stand on—showing service in the community. So just because I wasn't raised here doesn't mean I haven't been intimately involved for the last two decades to help improve quality life in Newport Beach. So, I think there's a lot of ownership on elected officials as well. They've got to prove to the residents that they're here for the right reasons. It's not ego or because they're upset at something. It's because they want the best for their community.

10. What is a message you want to give to young people today?

JS: Get involved! Get engaged and become passionate about local politics. There are too many people that are passionate about federal politics. And quite frankly, they don't have enough money or time or influence to really affect anything that’s happening on the federal scale. Get involved in the local level, because that's where we can see the most meaningful change daily. Stop complaining and do something. I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. You just got to be engaged. And whether it's philanthropy or business or something else, just understand that there are other ways to get involved outside of politics. I helped launch the Newport Beach Foundation, which is an organization serving the next generation. We've had almost 400 people go through that program, all next-gen, and we have 70 people now who have graduated and are serving on a board commissioner committee. When I got involved in the city in 2008, there were two of us under 40 years old. You look at our city council right now, six out of seven are under the age of 46. There’s this youth movement that is alive and well in the city of Newport Beach. That’s one of my biggest passions and achievements in life, getting the next generation involved.

AR: Going off of Mayor Stapleton's point, you just have to try things. A lot of people are just analysis paralysis. They don't ever do anything. And then I think my specific piece of advice is to send handwritten notes to people. And don’t be afraid to walk your resume in when you're going for a job. Everything's online now, so when you send a handwritten note or drop off a paper copy of your resume, that goes a long way to get a job.

JS: And I think you also have to outwork the person next to you. I just hired a kid from Buffalo, New York. He literally sent me an email and said, “I want to move to Newport. I want to be in wealth management. I'd love to sit down with you.” So, I flew him out on the company's dime to meet with us all afternoon, and then I hired him after that meeting. Now he’s living in Newport, and he’s a productive member of our society. There are plenty of ways to get engaged. There's no sitting on your hands, no complaining about things. If you're not active in your community doing something, it's a shame. It's great for building your social capital; it's great for everything. And that's why I think with Alex and myself, mentorship becomes a big part of what we do in life. We love mentoring the next generation.

11. What do you think the world needs more of?

AR: I think we need more problem solvers and less people who complain about problems. It’s really easy to complain about something, and it's very hard to figure out how you can be a part of the solution to it, because most issues rarely have simple solutions. They're usually pretty complex, time consuming, and complicated. And so we need more people who are willing to roll up their sleeves, look at the issue in front of them, and try to figure out a solution. There’s that one quote by Tedy Roosevelt about the man in the arena—it’s really easy to criticize someone, but it's harder to be the man in the arena who's actually trying to solve a problem or taking action. You’re going get criticized when you try to solve a problem. Whereas if you just complain about a problem, no one will over criticize you, but you're not actually going to make life better for people. So, I think we just need more problem solvers in the world.

JS: I think those are wonderful comments, and I totally agree. I would also say the world needs more face-to-face communication.

One of my favorite fortune cookies I've ever received said, “Not all the water in the world can drown a ship unless it gets inside.” A boat can sail on the largest body of water in the world with no problem. But the second there's a small leak and the water gets inside, it sinks. And I feel like when you talk about a country, things that can sink our ship are misinformation and negative energy. It becomes toxic if we let it get inside. And I think the more we can have face-to-face communication, the less misinformation and hate there is, and the better for the country and for our local community. I don’t know who did that fortune cookie, but I really, really like that. I’ve actually framed two fortune cookies in my life. That was the first one. The second one I got was right before the decision I made when I was about to run for office the first time in 2014. It said, “Take no risks with your reputation.” And so, I backed out of the election. Then I spent the next 8 years building relationships, and then I ran for office, and I won. Those two fortune cookies meant a lot to me.

So, if you’re going to take anything from this conversation, remember—anytime you have to make a big decision your life, go to a restaurant with fortune cookies. Go to Panda Express. And get a fortune cookie and then literally open it and that'll give your decision. Two huge decisions in my life, and I did them with fortune cookies!

Thank you to Mayor Stapleton and Mayor Rounaghi for this wonderful conversation! Aside from being exceptional mayors, you both are also very thoughtful and funny people. I really appreciate all your insights!

(This conversation has been edited for clarity.)