Mailbag - Jan. 27, 2001

I’m a former Newport Beach City Council candidate. The citizens, they

say, get the candidate they deserve when they vote. Well, I think that

this idea of having police presence at the council meetings is a red

herring.

I really don’t think there’s any necessity for this whatsoever. I

think it’s just a distraction to keep the people from thinking or talking

too much about the upcoming Greenlightimplementation.

The other day there was another story in the paper regarding the fact

that the City Council members couldn’t fill all the posts on the various

committees here in the county and around the Southland.

This, along with the proposal to have paid help for the council

people, shows if these people don’t want to be on the council, they

shouldn’t have run in the first place.

There are people out here who, if they had gotten into office, a lot

would have been done by this time, and it wouldn’t be spending our time

worrying about police presence or the fact that I was too busy to fill a

committee post.

I’d be doing the job if I had been elected. I’d like the people in the

city of Newport Beach to know that. I wouldn’t be wasting my time on

these kind of peripheral issues that they’re talking about.

They have more important things to do and that is addressing the

Greenlight implementation plan. I’m very disappointed in John Heffernan,

who was supposedly a Greenlight candidate, that he doesn’t spend more

time worrying about that and less time worrying about things like police

presence or having to spend some time working on a committee.

ROBERT SCHOONMAKER

Newport Beach

Principal doesn’t deserve all the credit

In response to your editorial regarding Don Martin, principal of

Corona del Mar High School/Middle School: I would like to say that during

my employment at the high school, I have found that it is the teachers,

counselors, classified staff, coaches, students, parents and

administrators who contribute as a team to all the successes of our

school.

JULIE HUTCHINSON

School support secretary

Corona del Mar High School