MAILBAG - Sept. 21, 1999

Regarding the article, (“City staff reports criticized,” Sept. 15),

over the last six months, I’ve become well acquainted with Costa Mesa’s

planning department. During this time, I have observed personnel and at

various times they are seriously understaffed. Nevertheless, I have seen

several examples in staff reports of what appeared to be clearly biased

opinions.

I was in attendance at the joint study session of the City Council and

planning commissioners last Monday and was impressed that Planning

Commissioner Katrina Foley brought this issue to the floor.

Over these last few months, I had simply assumed that this was the

political process in action and that there was nothing I could do about

it. Staff reports, in my opinion, need to be more objective and give the

planning commissioners the pros and cons of all possible action. Not

simply have staff choose a side and stack the deck.

DIANE GOMEZ

Costa Mesa

Cannery site should remain open to community

Why are we rushing forward to destroy all that makes Newport Beach

different? Now the Cannery, with its historical significance, its essence

of place, will vanish. We will be placeless.

Many of the citizens I’ve talked to are shocked at this loss of a

landmark. Only the developers and real estate salespeople are rubbing

their hands with glee at a new opportunity to profit from their sales.

Times change, sure, but we need a sense of who we were to remind us of

a simpler time that is our heritage.

I ask the City Council of Newport Beach, all who approve of the idea

of more development, to consider the preservation of such historical

monuments -- our history.

My own vision is for a community center there. A place for citizens to

meet. A day-care center for our children. For seniors, a place to get

their flu shots and visit. I see youngsters taking ballet or salsa

classes. In one room a string quartet is practicing, another is having

art lessons or book discussions. Music in the evenings and the walls

filled with local artists such as Lorraine Edrie, who lives up the

street. By the way, local artists are fond of depicting the Cannery in

their work. They have a sense of soul.

There could be bike repair and lessons in boating and collections for

the homeless. All these things would benefit the community. What else can

we do? Declare a moratorium on all development until we do some thinking.

There’s a big project, a hotel, planned for the Dunes, [and] Crystal

Cove’s new development. Enough is enough!

PATRICIA FROSTHOLM

Newport Beach

Free benefits aren’t really free

How would the Daily Pilot feel, if I circulated 20,000 fliers in

Newport-Mesa announcing -- “Free money at the Daily Pilot offices --

merely show up on Sunday morning at 330 W. Bay St. and apply for free

money and free benefits.”

The Daily Pilot wants everyone to be healthy and have money in their

pockets, so it is generously handing out money and benefits to as many as

1,000 families who show up. Outreach workers will be on hand to help you

fill out the forms.

Now, what do you think of that, guys? Will you promise to give out

the free bennies if I can round up 1,000 families to come to your door?

Yet that is exactly what you did to me and every other unwilling

taxpayer, by running this story (“Latino families urged to sign up for

health insurance,” Sept. 18).

There are no freebies in life. Health insurance is not “free.” It is

paid for by somebody, and in this case, it is paid for by private

citizens who are plundered by the government. The health insurance being

provided is at the expense of innocent citizens against their will.

And you continue to support this plunder.

Moreover, St. Joaquim Church itself is participating in the robbery.

Why aren’t you using your knowledge of how the welfare system really

works by challenging the church and asking them why they would help the

government rob its own citizens?

Doesn’t this church have enough sense to know that the state is

interfering with their own charities and God-given mission? Doesn’t this

church know that taxation is theft and that the church itself is in

violation of its own Ten Commandments?

Doesn’t this church understand that it is compromising its freedom by

assisting government plunder and that it is tacitly surrendering a

portion of its independence to the state?

Doesn’t this church understand that it is slowly being nationalized by

the state?

This is the way churches operate in totalitarian states -- they are

actually part of the “ruling class” and thus help government “rule.” This

is not appropriate behavior for churches in a “free” state.

All churches should refuse “help” by the welfarecrats and tell the

government to mind its own business.

Where are the tough, independent-minded church leaders who have the

guts to “be a Daniel” and refuse to bow down to the king, even at the

risk of being eaten by the lions?

DON HULL

Costa Mesa

Lobster pain is not a gain

Please allow me to respond to Peter Buffa’s column about the police

officers in Irvine who temporarily pulled the plug on Sumo Sushi

restaurant’s Lobster Zone crane game (“A lobster tale the size of

Irvine,” Aug. 6). As Officer Dennis Ruvolo points out, this game subjects

lobsters “to unnecessary, inhumane treatment.”

Well guess what: so does cooking these crustaceans in your own

kitchen.

There is little doubt anymore that lobsters, like all animals, can

feel pain. Most scientists agree that the nervous systems of lobsters are

quite sophisticated. For example, according to neurobiologist Tom Abrams,

lobsters have “a full array of senses.” Jelle Atema, a marine biologist

at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. -- and,

according to The New York Times, “one of the nation’s leading experts on

lobsters” -- says, “I personally believe they do feel pain.”

Indeed, anyone who has ever boiled a lobster alive can attest that,

when dropped into scalding water, lobsters whip their bodies wildly and

scrape the sides of the pot in a desperate attempt to escape. In the

journal Science, researcher Gordon Gunter described this method of

killing lobsters as “unnecessary torture.”

As they begin to understand these fascinating animals, more and more

people are deciding lobsters should be left in open waters, not placed in

a cooking pot. At the very least, surely we can all agree that turning a

sentient being’s death into a game has no place in a compassionate

society.

PAULA MOORE

Staff Writer, PETA

Norfolk, Va.