MAILBAG - March 16, 2000

As the parents of a Costa Mesa High School athlete, Autumn Smith, we have

enjoyed and appreciated The Pilot’s outstanding coverage of the local

sports scene.

Hats off to Barry Faulkner, Richard Dunn and the entire Pilot team for

their professional coverage of the triumphs and tribulations of our youth

teams. Speaking for many local fans and boosters, it’s a big thrill after

a big game to wake up in the morning and read all about it in the Pilot.

Keep up the fine work.

CONLEY and NANCY SMITH

Newport Beach

Why can’t Irvine Co. help Newport Coast?

Instead of squeezing the city, Newport Coast residents should look to the

Irvine Co. and the developers of their housing tract for remedy (“Water

negotiations stagnating,” March 13).

If the Irvine Co. has enough profit in the last few years to take the

company totally private, it should plow back part of the profit toward

maintaining and improving Newport Coast’s infrastructure. In other words,

it should act more like the Irvine Co. of yore.

Until we are certain as to how much and who will bear the cost for the

basic maintenance of this new community’s already ailing infrastructure,

any annexation proposal is premature. The residents of Newport Coast may

well be deserving of the entire $25 million.

The question is: from where will the future millions come?

JOHN T. CHIU

Newport Beach

We don’t need results of bogus survey

As a reader of the Daily Pilot I really have to wonder, just what is your

agenda? In today’s edition you devote Page 3 to publishing selective

results (“Newport survey reveals few surprises,” Feb. 23) of a citywide

poll from 60 residents -- 60 residents in a city of more than 70,000.

Does this truly represent your concept of responsible reporting?

Of course the 800-pound gorilla on the horizon is resolution of the El

Toro airport; but come on, give me a break.

Ten thousand citizens signed the Greenlight petition. That is about half

the number of citizens who vote in typical elections. And you’re devoting

Page 3 of today’s edition to answers from 60 residents, selected by

Deputy City Manager Dave Kiff (“People said they really appreciated being

asked”) on seven questions, out of an undisclosed number of questions,

many of which appear to have a built-in bias.

Please give us some responsible reporting.

STEPHEN TITUS

Newport Beach

OCC students didn’t deserve tongue lashing

While it is good to see that Holocaust revisionism is front-page news,

(“Students criticized for running anti-Semitic ad,” March 9), the Daily

Pilot’s characterization of the advertisement that appeared Feb. 2 in the

Orange Coast College Coast Report is incorrect.

The ad, “Holocaust Studies: Appointment with Hate,” placed by Bradley

Smith’s Committee on Open Debate of the Holocaust, nowhere claims or

implies that “the Holocaust never happened”; nor, in its critique of

one-sided “Holocaust studies,” does the ad contain any language that may

reasonably be regarded as anti-Semitic.

While the Pilot’s story says next to nothing about the content of Smith’s

ad, it does make clear that the ad caused no anti-Semitic manifestations

at OCC.

Instead, students were exercising their right to inquire or not to

inquire into the revisionist position on the Holocaust.

All the more reason for freedom-minded persons to deplore the

intervention of Joyce Greenspan, of the Anti-Defamation League; and Stan

Brin, editor of Jewish Heritage, who scolded and chastised student

editors and university officials weeks after the unoffending ad appeared.

And all the more reason to condemn OCC President Margaret Gratton’s

acquiescence to the bullying.

If the standard version of the Holocaust is as unshakable as its

proponents say it is, why does it require such intimidating bodyguards --

on campus, of all places?

TED O’KEEFE

Newport Beach

I’m sure that general sympathy on our school’s conditions lies with

the students and teachers and, not much, with the governing board of the

Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Steve Smith’s article (“Board:

accept responsibility before we accept bond,” March 4) that appeared

almost editorial-like, brought up the question of the board’s

accountability during these past years when conditions were allowed to

deteriorate, requiring so huge a monetary transfusion.

I join Steve in posing the proper question to the board and other

responsible officials in saying, “Accounting for the state of the schools

is not too much to ask.” I, too, “have a problem with politicians who

neglect their duties, allow public facilities to fall into a state of

extreme disrepair, then ask taxpayers for a loan to bail them out without

one word of accountability.”

I trust that the board will, instead of going on the defensive, make

an honest effort to inform the people as how things really happened and

why. I’m not encouraged, however, that the board will respond; I well

recall how little attention the board paid, some years back, when a

“whistle-blower” in the district chose to bypass district officials and

board members to report a $4.2 million embezzlement to the Orange County

Grand Jury.

Hardly a vote of confidence for the board.

LEFTERIS LAVRAKAS

Costa Mesa

Home development, park mean more than airport

While I am a homeowner and resident of Mesa Verde who enjoys the

environment of Costa Mesa, I am not convinced that the city governments

of either Costa Mesa or Newport Beach are committed to maintaining that

quality of life.

Recent actions by the Costa Mesa City Council and Newport-Mesa Unified

School District Board of Education have convinced me they do not care

that Costa Mesa will soon look like urban L.A. County.

I am becoming more and more convinced that if I wish to maintain my

quality of life, then I should move to South County. As such, if I should

wish to move to South County, then I would want the John Wayne Airport

expanded and the El Toro Airport project killed.

The building of Standard Pacific Homes’ Mesa Verde Collection, at the

corner of Adams Avenue and East Mesa Verde Drive, and the school board’s

proposed sale of Balearic Park negatively affect the quality of life in

Costa Mesa.

In proposing the sale of Balearic Park, the Newport-Mesa school board has

reneged on its 1977 promise to never sell the property and actively

demonstrates that Costa Mesa and Newport Beach governments cannot be

trusted. That the city council members of Costa Mesa and Newport Beach

sit idly by and permit this destruction of Costa Mesa to take place,

demonstrates their complicity and lack of caring in these matters.

If they want the support of myself and my neighbors in the airport

matter, then they must first demonstrate a willingness to preserve the

quality of life in Costa Mesa by killing the Mesa Verde Collection

development and killing the sale of Balearic Park.

RICHARD T. MANN

Costa Mesa