JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

Several weeks ago, I wrote a column questioning the ethical propriety

of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons offering a substantial gift to Costa Mesa

public schools contingent on approval of its Home Ranch project. A few

days later, the Pilot printed a strong rebuttal from Paul Freeman,

Segerstrom’s director of community and government relations.

As a result of this exchange -- and my admission that I wasn’t

knowledgeable enough to judge the project, itself -- I was invited to

meet with a half-dozen representatives of an organization called Costa

Mesa Citizens for Responsible Growth, which is strongly opposing Home

Ranch. They were earnest and rational and supplied me with a cornucopia

of data supporting their position. As a result of this session, I felt a

need to hear the other side. So I attended the hearing on Monday night --

or, more accurately, Tuesday morning -- at which the Planning Commission,

by a 4-1 vote at 1:30 in the morning, decided to recommend that the City

Council approve Home Ranch.

Listening to some four hours of both sides with only the framework of

my existing biases and minimal background left me with only extremities

to contemplate. The Segerstrom people would have me believe that Home

Ranch will offer a kind of financial Eden to local residents while

surrounding us with the best of all possible worlds at no sacrifice of

quality in the air we breathe or movement of the traffic we fight. And

the opponents see this project as a full-scale, all-out blight on Costa

Mesa, whose residents will be awash in traffic and pollution as a result.

So while I couldn’t have reached a conclusion on the project, itself,

from what I heard Monday night, one thing did become clear to me: that

residents go into such a fight at a considerable disadvantage.

I couldn’t help creating matchups in my head as I watched the hearings

unfold. The New York Yankees against the Toledo Mud Hens. The suits

against the T-shirts. The slick graphics against passion. Pros against

amateurs. Bullet points that had to be taken at face value and often

didn’t get much below surfaces against arguments carefully written out

and sometimes haltingly read.

One example was the repeated Segerstrom use of the word “mitigate,”

especially with reference to traffic. If I understand their argument

correctly, they contend that a vast department store, multiple office and

industrial spaces, 192 new homes and acres of parking will not add to

traffic problems in the area but will rather “mitigate” them because of

creative new traffic controls. One commissioner said he found this a

little incredible, too, but after many hours of poring over studies and

talking with Segerstrom traffic consultants he became a believer. As most

of us are both unable and unwilling to go that route, I suppose we are

stuck with his assessment until another growing out of similar research

is offered.

But before this heavy stuff took place inside, a different kind of

contest was going on outside during the two hours the commission dealt

with other matters before taking up the Home Ranch. The front porch of

the City Council chambers looked like a USC tailgate party -- with the

frat and sorority members on one side and the independents on the other.

Segerstrom had set up a table staffed by a half-dozen attractive and

cheerful women who were dispensing cookies, bottled water and pledges.

Since my dinner had consisted of a martini and cheese and crackers

because this meeting was scheduled so unconscionably early, I was hungry.

But I thought I should identify myself and tell them I didn’t plan to

sign a pledge to support Home Ranch before I took one of their cookies.

They were so pleasant about all this that I ate two, which may or may not

influence the place I finally come down.

Across the way, a card table set up by the opposition offered only

fellowship and a flier that said: “Stick to the general plan” -- which

might sound cryptic but was the genesis of their argument.

While I was enjoying their fellowship, a young man dressed impeccably

in a Boy Scout uniform approached and offered a lengthy and quite

articulate argument in favor of Home Ranch. He said he was in the sixth

grade at TeWinkle Middle School, which is to be one of the benefactors of

the Segerstrom largess. To my considerable journalistic embarrassment, I

was so taken by his poise that I forgot to ask his name. I do know this

for sure: If the Segerstrom folks had used him in the meeting to speak on

their behalf, it would have been a slam dunk.

Now all this goes to the City Council, where the whole exercise will

be repeated in a few weeks in a somewhat truncated form, but with the

school contribution bait still on the table. The major hope I take from

the Planning Commission hearing to the City Council is that the ideas and

convictions of residents who lack the resources of a large and wealthy

organization will be given equal weight and attention.

Meanwhile, I think the Home Ranch opposition should consider offering

some sort of libation outside the City Council hearings. It just might

bring some fence straddlers over to their side. But not that TeWinkle Boy

Scout.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.