LETTER OF THE WEEK

I’m a resident of Huntington Beach and have been since 1992. I love

this city. I’ve lived Downtown since 1994, and that’s when I started

taking more notice of the city changes and started getting involved here

and there on projects or concerns, such as the Bolsa Chica wetlands and

trying to save them, as well as Dog Beach. The latest big issue Downtown

was the redevelopment of the city. It was going to affect my home. I was

very diligent about attending meetings, getting signatures to stop the

“eminent domain” from proceeding. It was a great victory -- a little

hollow, but a victory all the same.

I think there seemed to be a division of the City Council. Dave

Sullivan and Tom Harman were the “good” guys, and Dave Garofalo and

company were the “bad.” Whether true or not, that’s how it’s seemed.

I know Pam Julien personally and like her, but I don’t care for her

politics. Debbie Cook seems to have a good sense of Huntington Beach and

a good head on her shoulders. Connie Boardman is a very nice, concerned

and informed lady. They will be a blessing and fill Harman and Sullivan’s

shoes very nicely. I’m very happy about that.

But I’m saddened that Julien is on the City Council again. I had hoped

that John Thomas would make it on. I still believe that the City Council

will be divided, and I’m concerned about that. My hope is that we can

continue to come together as a city and be the deciding factors -- not

just wrap it up and hand it over to the City Council.

One of the reasons I continue to live in Huntington Beach is, as a

city, we get involved. I think that we need to continue to do that and

maybe even more so now -- to back up the new council members and continue

to balance the outcome. I don’t want Huntington Beach to roll over and

play dead. If we do that, we might as well live in an Irvine planned

community. There are enough of those.

Huntington Beach has long been its own surf city by the beach, and I

hope with all the new developments that we can continue to preserve that.

As city residents, we owe it to our city to try.

SHARON McGINN

Huntington Beach