FRED MARTIN -- The Fred Column

Turmoil in Pilot territory is not just news, it’s the way of life. Cases

in point:

* An upcoming vote on $110 million in school bonds, to be paid for by

people who hardly ever like to pay for anything public.

* A justifiably controversial proposed hotel at the Dunes that will have

more rooms than all of Newport when my wife and I came to town 36 years

ago.

* A gaggle of down-coast residents seemingly ready to tell Newport Beach

to take its annexation and stuff it.

* The resounding success of Measure F (for foul?), thus an even larger

and noisier Orange County International looming on the northern frontier.

* A thing called Greenlight that’s going on the ballot because enough is

finally enough. That’s what happens when citizens get mad as hell and

aren’t going to take it anymore.

What fun! What splendid battles! What column fodder!

But how frustrating to be in an upper-balcony seat a thousand miles away,

instead of reporting from ringside.

So it’s time, I think, to hang up the old quill.

Ten years of tilting at windmills is a long stretch. I’ve had a wonderful

time and I think most readers have, too.

Writing a column for the Daily Pilot gave me the opportunity to flap my

lips, so to speak, on scores of issues. More important, I had the

privilege of coming to know some categorically wonderful people.

There’s the environmental flock, the people who for decades have been

defending the bay, the marshes and the beaches from unspeakable assaults.

I can’t mention them all, but I must make public my admiration and

affection for such crusaders as Frank Robinson, Jack and Nancy Skinner,

Bob and Susan Skinner Caustin, Jean Watt and all the Stop Polluting Our

Newport folk. Without the likes of them, you, dear reader, would be

paddleless on a slow-moving stream.

I love women, and especially the Women in Leadership and the League of

Women Voters. I’ve tangled with many a politician -- still do, but my

dear friend Evelyn Hart is as straight a shooter as there ever was. And

as lovely a human. Likewise the man who will always be Mr. Mayor to me,

Clarence Turner.

I know that a number of Daily Pilot readers have a genuine love-hate

relationship with this newspaper. Forget about it. The fact that gripes

from tree-huggers and the pave-Back Bay crowd run nicely even indicates

this newspaper is doing its job.

When I came to the Pilot 10 years ago, it was a pretty weird place. There

was a mysterious ownership group that included Henry Kissinger; a

publisher fresh from one of the large Chicago papers; a young editor not

long out of UCI, who looked like he didn’t have to shave very much; and a

newsroom swarming with reporters covering beats from Fountain Valley to

Laguna Beach.

A few years later, a starvation-diet crew covered only Newport and Costa

Mesa. A pathetically thin newspaper came out only twice a week, and even

at that, always seemed to be only a few hours from the ultimate “-30-”

(newspeak for “the end”).

But we were given a reprieve by yet another new owner, Times-Mirror, and

a new publisher, Tom Johnson (the third in as many years), who pulled us

back from the brink.

Then, the same editor, same managing editor, same staff, even some of the

same columnists, set out to make the Pilot fly. Ultimately, it became one

of the best, most-honored daily newspapers of its size in the nation.

In an era when television and the Internet are supposed to be killing off

newspapers, the Times is building a tidy little empire of fine community

newspapers, with the Pilot as its keystone.

The masons are former Pilot Editor Bill Lobdell and Managing Editor Steve

Marble. They are wise men, these two. Ten years ago, they added a certain

commentator to the paper’s stable -- and the rest, as the great columnist

in the sky says, is history.

So, g’bye. It’s been grand. And I thank you.

* FRED MARTIN is a former Newport Beach resident who now lives in Fort

Collins, Colo.