LAGUNA NIGUEL – “In God We Trust,” the national motto, will be displayed on two walls of the council chambers when the new Laguna Niguel City Hall is completed later this year.

The City Council discussed the issue Tuesday night at the request of Mayor Gary Capata and Councilman Robert Ming. The new building, under construction at Alicia and Crown Valley parkways, is expected to be complete by the end of the summer. The motto will likely be installed at the front and back of the new council chambers.

“When people leave the council chambers, they’ll think,” Capata said. “The more I’m in favor of doing this; I think we’re going to do it for the right reasons.”

Capata added the motto will likely mean different things to different people.

“It’ll be something people see, and they’ll be able to discuss it like our founding fathers,” Capata said.

Resident Zachary Schwartz attended the meeting with his father, the youth proudly wearing his Boy Scout uniform.

“Our founding fathers founded this country on Christianity,” he said.

In contrast, resident Kris Stoddard pointed to the different conceptions of God, and the strife those disagreements caused worldwide.

“That whole thought process that God is Christian is part of the problem,” she said.

In January, the issue came to a head in Lake Forest. After more than an hour of debate, the Lake Forest council decided in favor of displaying the motto in the council chambers, the 16th Orange County city to do so. In Laguna Niguel, though, the council agreed on the historical nature of the motto.

Ming pointed to speeches and letters of the Founding Fathers that discussed religious values.

“It is simply saying and acknowledging that our history reflects, and our founding fathers believed they could not have accomplished what they accomplished without God,” he said.

On a personal level, Ming added the motto reminded him to value humility.

“Keeping that in mind is what’s going to keep us on track,” he said. “There are things that have happened in our history that could never have happened on human strength alone.”

Councilwoman Linda Lindholm quoted the preamble of the California state constitution, which references “Almighty God.”

“For me, this is bringing us back to the roots of California,” she said. “This is where we came from. It’s historical; it’s inspirational.”

Mayor Pro Tem Paul Glaab added not displaying the motto would be succumbing to political correctness.

“We’re not politicizing God,” he said. “We are upholding the founding truths of this state and this nation.”

He described researching other state constitutions and finding references to a higher power across the board.

“It references no specific god,” he said. “It is anybody that you see as a supreme being who looks down upon us.”

Contact the writer: ckoerner@ocregister.com or 949-454-7309