Wanting to clean up slums is not racist

I would like to thank the Daily Pilot and Jennifer Kho for including

my comments in her article that appeared on Jan. 22, “Costa Mesa faces

the challenges of diversity.”

However, as I scanned the entire article, I saw that there are

apparently some in this city with a topsy-turvy view of reality and what

can only be viewed as some sort of persecution complex.

How else can we explain what appear to be whispered comments alluding

to seeming dark undercurrents of racism and the like? What nonsense.

The improvement movement of which I was one of the founders is all

about making Costa Mesa the best city it can be. It’s about removing

slums. It’s about reducing crime. It’s about making this city more like

its two quality neighbors -- Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.

It’s my belief that those who want to keep the city mired in slums and

social problems want to do so because of psychological problems or

because they profit from slum conditions.

Fortunately, this perverse little clique of city destroyers is far out

on the extremist fringe and most good, decent people ignore them and

their racist fantasies.

It seems to me that every time “racism” rises, so does Bill Turpit

accusing us of xenophobia, Maria Elena Avila noting cliques of activists

who are racists, and Mayor Libby Cowan agreeing.

None of them, of course, live on the Westside, and Avila does not live

in Costa Mesa. The mayor has even invited those who disagree with the

“changing face of Costa Mesa” to move.

Well, I was here before the slums, and I am not moving.

JANICE DAVIDSON

Costa Mesa