Community Commentary -- GIL FERGUSON

Poor Councilman Chris Steel; he was just elected to the Costa Mesa

City Council and he has not yet learned to speak like a politician. This

has caused him to end up in a heap of trouble.

The City Council was discussing the subject of housing for the poor

and homeless when Steel spoke up and said he didn’t think it was the

responsibility of the city to provide housing for the homeless or try to

subsidize high-cost housing so poor people could live in Costa Mesa. He

expressed concern about upgrading housing rather than seeking ways to

attract more poor people. Well, you would have thought he was advocating

a holocaust.

The Daily Pilot took up the story and folks wrote in and called in

showing their displeasure over his insensitivity to the plight of the

poor. Their letters to the editor expressed disdain for his attempt to

keep poor folks out of their city.

Had Steel watched the Newport Beach City Council and the city’s

self-styled leaders and much of its voters, he would have learned how to

keep unwanted folks out of his city. When he learns how to do it, the

local paper will laud him, and the good folks of Costa Mesa will probably

name a street after him.

Some advice for Steel: You’ve got to encourage some anti-growth wackos

in your town to join you in worrying about traffic and the harm being

done to the city’s charm. The council needs to talk about the

environment. Yeah, that’s a word you’ve got to say a whole lot. You’ll

soon learn you can keep out “those” kind of people and deny landowners

their property rights but you must use the right, politically correct

language; you’ve got to talk about the environment, traffic and

maintaining the city’s charm.

I was going to suggest you call your group Greenlight or Redlight and

and put your anti-growth -- sorry, I meant your environmental, traffic,

save the ambience -- initiative, on the ballot. When you do, the good

folks of Costa Mesa can feel good about voting for it, just like our good

people did.

Steel’s a politician now. That means you’ve got to learn to talk like

one. If you get caught once more talking the straight talk, you’ll soon

be a former politician.

* GIL FERGUSON is a former state assemblyman who lives in Newport

Beach.