Readers respond

AT ISSUE: Readers are divided about the proposed 470-room Newport Dunes

resort hotel in Newport Beach. Some say it will destroy the environment,

while others say it’s good for the economy.

When is the last time you were caught driving anywhere near Dover Drive

and Pacific Coast Highway in the morning or early evening hours? Have you

been as frustrated as I have been trying to negotiate PCH from either

Newport Drive on the west or Jamboree on the east?

It is common knowledge that, over time, traffic throughout Newport Beach

(and elsewhere in the country) has become more congested.

I was informed recently that there are plans afoot to build a

hotel/time-share complex/conference center in the Dunes. If I can believe

the handbill, a traffic study approved by the Planning Commission stated

that the hotel will improve traffic at 36 major intersections in our

city.

They must be talking about cul de sacs--certainly not Dover Drive and

PCH!

It simply doesn’t make sense. A sizable hotel and convention center with

only one narrow entrance and exit would not only cause a pileup at the

crossroads of Bayside Drive and PCH but would further befoul the existing

congestion on a number of major crossroads, as well as the constant flow

of traffic on PCH.

Don’t tell me that a large hotel is not going to complicate an already

existing traffic pollution.

Once again it appears that commerce and political collusion weigh in with

the profit motive over restraint and common cause.

Let’s rethink our priorities: Continue growth and development within a

fast-shrinking natural preserve or be grateful for whatever is left for

us in nature. And preserve what we have.

ELLIS R. WAYNE

Newport Beach

I have been coming to Newport Beach since the mid-’30s, and living here

since that time with the exception of seven years away at college and in

the Korean War. My wife and all our children have attended Newport Beach

schools through high school except our youngest, who attended high school

in Washington, D.C., while we were there.

We have been a part of the community and watched its orderly growth for

all these years. Yes, there has been growth and development and

expansion, but it has been orderly, valuable and acceptable. The benefits

have been obvious in commerce, creating wealth and a magnificent way of

life.

For some time now, we have been without meeting facilities adequate to

service the numerous charitable and business functions attended by our

own citizens. Now we have the prospect of a complex that would provide

adequate space for the functions that our citizens support without having

to go out of town for any large function.

The Planning Commission is a good example of representative government;

it weighed the facts and presentations and voted unanimously to support

the project. Let’s not let a selfish minority “pull up the gangplank” and

shut our community down.

ROBERT E. BADHAM

Newport Beach