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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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Fitness Pioneer Faces Another Test of His Strength; Laguna Woes

Augie Nieto is strong. And not just because he’s a muscled hunk and founder of exercise bike-maker Life Fitness who has helped to revolutionize the way Americans work out. Nieto, only 47, found out in March that he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the nerve disorder better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease for which there is no cure. ” I can go in a corner and cry or go out and try to help,” Nieto says. His choice is obvious. Last week he got the health club industry’s lifetime achievement award at a 700-person dinner at the Rio in Las Vegas. He turned the event into a fund-raiser for ALS research, taking in more than $1 million. Nieto says he’s still working and working out every day and now he’s planning a charity golf tournament; but he also says his hands are getting weak. How strong is this guy? He can joke about his predicament: “I’m just thankful that Liberace wasn’t the guy who got the disease first” …

It’s come to this for fiscally conservative Republican Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider as she struggles to find $15 million to restore the hillside so that 20 families can rebuild homes in Bluebird Canyon: The Laguna Beach mayor is blinking at a tax increase and asking Democrat U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer for help. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently rejected the state and city’s plea for aid, and Pearson-Schneider admits chances of overturning the decision haven’t been helped by the Gulf Coast hurricane, which has focused attention on a disaster of immensely greater magnitude. Pearson-Schneider says Laguna also “lost our cheerleader” in Washington, D.C., when Chris Cox moved from Congress to the chairmanship of the SEC. Hence the calls to the senators. And Pearson-Schneider is supporting a local election on a half-cent sales tax to create a disaster fund, while declining to state how she’ll vote. Pearson-Schneider expresses sympathy for the Gulf Coast victims and says hubbie Ernie Schneider cut a check for the Red Cross relief effort. But she attached a message,”Don’t forget us (in Laguna)” …

The Insider hears that Kevin Hayes is about to be named national CEO of tenant rep Cresa Partners. The founder of Cresa’s OC operation, he’ll operate out of Newport Beach for a network that has a chairman in Boston, a vice chairman in Los Angeles and a president in New York. What of Hayes’ interest in running for the state Senate seat held by his Shady Canyon neighbor John Campbell, should Campbell win the election to fill Chris Cox’s congressional seat? The Insider is told that if Hayes won, he’d give up the new CEO gig. But first the political novice has to decide whether to enter a race that Assembly members Tom Harman, Mimi Walters and Chuck DeVore also are said to be considering; OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh has opted out.

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