Letters: That big open space in Irvine
Re “Not-so-great park,” Oct. 27
It doesn’t matter if the park is called the Great Park or the Not-So-Great Park, as long as it is not called the Orange County International Airport. Few people in Irvine and cities south of us wanted an airport as planned by our county supervisors.
Everyone is aware of the economic meltdown that started in 2007 from which we still haven’t recovered. Here in Irvine, we still have a major housing problem caused by loans made to people who couldn’t afford them. This would never have happened if the banks had behaved ethically.
Therefore, as far as I am concerned, the park can be called the Open Space Park until our economy recovers.
B. J. Soderstrom
Irvine
Readers of an Orange County grand jury’s 2010 report on how the Great Park was being financed will not be surprised that little has been built on the site and that the money has “just about run out.”
The grand jury (of which I was a member) detailed the flaws in Irvine’s scheme to finance the Great Park with $1.4 billion in new-home property tax increments through its redevelopment agency. Irvine did not take into account the periodic recessionary effects of the business cycle.
When the state eliminated redevelopment agencies, Irvine lost the $1.4 billion it had counted on to build the Great Park. It’s no wonder that little has been built and the future of the park is uncertain.
Gerald J. Brown
Fullerton
The Great Park was never meant to be. It was simply a ploy to overturn two previous votes supporting an airport at the former El Toro Marine Corps air base.
The anti-airport activists can blame the Great Park’s lack of progress on anything, and they will, but the Great Park was always just fiction.
Joe Nedza
Newport Beach
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