Mailbag: Coverage of vote was ‘superficial’

Your account of Tuesday night’s Costa Mesa City Meeting, (“Council set to OK layoff notices) in Wednesday morning’s Daily Pilot, from my perspective as an attendee, seemed rather superficial and certainly did not reflect the contentious tone of the meeting. In fact, much of your reporting seemed to focus on the council members’ viewpionts only and did not present the breadth of opposition that council members encountered, especially as it moved into the area of contracting city services. While I realize the hour was late when this report was filed, I felt that your characterization of events lacked in detail and did not hone in on the important issues.These are important issues with consequences, thus, I sincerely hope that you will have the opportunity to write a more comprehensive, balanced account of these issues because you do a disservice to readers by such a superficial, not-altogether-accurate account of these proceedings.

Marcia Reed

Costa Mesa

Pensions are root of problem

Outsourcing works very well. Check on the current condition of this country and explain how it works for the unemployed. The pensions that are in this problem were passed by someone. Where is the outrage against these people?

Jack Perkins

Costa Mesa

Costa Mesa’s problem is revenue

I am writing in response to Steve Mensinger’s — the city’s most recently appointed, not elected City Council member — Feb. 23 Community Commentary (“When it comes to spending, ‘enough is enough’”). He states that Costa Mesa has a spending problem. In taking a little time to review the city’s annual financial report, it becomes apparent that the city has a revenue problem, not a spending problem. Costa Mesa was not immune to the global financial crisis and this is reflected in a 21% decrease in revenue between fiscal years 2008 and 2010, which equals about $21.3 million. The main decreases were sales and property taxes, as would be expected in this economic climate. During that same period the city responded and reduced expenses 25% or about $29.7 million. Based on these figures, spending was reduced more than the amount that revenues declined, so how is this a spending problem?

Glynis Litvak

Costa Mesa

Mansoor on collective bargaining

Thanks for your article about Allan Mansoor’s battle against the rights of public workers (“Mansoor introduces bill to stop pension bargaining,” Feb. 22). His experience as a former union public worker, he claims, has helped him understand “how the process works.” Would you please re-print the article that tells how Mansoor has rejected the perks offered to him for all these years he has been on the public payroll? I missed that one, and without that knowledge, one might get the impression that he is just another politician trying to pit worker against worker while using the hot political issue of the day to propel himself into the higher and higher public positions.

Tom Walker

Costa Mesa

Fight Club was a knockout

As the promoter of the sold-out opening night of Fight Club OC Thursday in The Hangar at the OC Fair & Event Center, I would be remiss if I didn’t give the entire staff at the OCFEC special kudos for just a magnificent job in helping to make the evening the tremendous success it was. In what was a real team effort between my company and the fair, I couldn’t have pulled the evening off without them.

Roy Englebrecht

Chief executive, Roy Englebrecht Promotions

Fountain Valley