Mailbag - May 30, 2002

So now Ralph Bauer is going to propose his own plan for districts? He

has described the initiative to create five districts and have each

council member voted on from his or her own district, as nothing short of

Armageddon, and now he is forming the “better government” committee to

propose a district initiative of his own?

Sounds like King Ralph is up to his old tricks, but this time the

community has had a much longer period of time to catch on to his

deceptions and we will not be fooled again. I look forward to the

Independent attending this farce of a meeting and asking the tough

questions for the sudden flip-flop in Bauer’s position.

If the council majority wants to understand why the petitions are

being signed so readily, I suggest they look no further than the scams

like this they’ve been running on us for several years.

LEONARD HEARIN

Huntington Beach

Looks like King Ralph is up to his old tricks to manipulate another

election. How can he, with a straight face, go on record as opposing the

very concept of districts and then expect us to believe his motives are

pure when he comes up with this “Good Government” committee?

There is only one true “Good Government,” and that is the one of the

people, by the people and for the people. The people are expressing their

desires by eagerly signing the petition to create a more fair,

accountable city government through district representation.

Councilman Bauer hopes to dilute the will of the people by concocting

some phony baloney initiative that would create seven districts and have

all members still voted on by the general population.

This would be the worst possible scenario, as it holds no district

representative accountable to their own district. They could completely

ignore their own neighbors as long as they could amass enough votes

outside their district to win an election.

Worse yet, a candidate could use his or her district as a sacrificial

lamb to achieve a hidden agenda that benefits another district more.

The “Good Government” committee is a sham and Bauer knows it.

Hopefully, the Independent will not practice their usual subjective

journalism when the battle for “Best Government” really heats up.

KEN NEIN

Huntington Beach

Baugh’s proposal attempts to take over city government

While I completely agree with the thrust of Tom Livengood’smessage in

his “Sounding Off” article (‘Downsizing council is a huge mistake’,

5/16/02), it did not go far enough in exposing the massive fraud being

perpetrated on the Huntington Beach voters by Scott Baugh and his

cronies.

It’s not just dividing the city into districts or reducing the number

of council members from seven to five. It’s the Machiavellian motives of

the “initiators” that should have us worried.

The “Baugh Brigade” is advocating nothing less than a “hostile

takeover” of our local government achieved through a classic divide and

conquer strategy that would not only weaken our local government but have

our citizens at each others’ throats.

Livengood got it right, but not all right. Baugh’s districting scheme

is the “Trojan Horse” of political initiatives this year, and local

voters would be wise to reject it.

TIM GEDDES

Huntington Beach

Current system is democracy in action

Tarnished former Assemblyman Scott Baugh is doing the bidding of the

ethically challenged power industry to fix something that isn’t broken.

The last Huntington Beach City Council election had no shortage of

candidates (20 of them in fact), including candidates aligned with

environmentalists and candidates aligned with developers. As it turned

out, the pro-environmental

candidates received more votes than the developer candidates, and so

Huntington Beach now has a pro-environmental city council.

Sounds like democracy in action to me.

Rather than implementing a district-based council scheme, people

unhappy with the current council should actually bother to register to

vote, educate themselves on the issues, and then show up at the polls on

election day.

MARK BIXBY

Huntington Beach

Districts are a good idea Baugh’s way -- not Bauer’s

Did I read correctly? Ralph Bauer, staunch opponent of all things

regarding districts, is now jumping on the bandwagon?

If he thinks the majority of voters will be fooled by this latest ploy

to distract us from the real issue of taking back our government from a

few, then he must share Mayor Debbie Cook’s opinion that we’re all “slow

learners” out here.

These kinds of deceptive games are exactly the reason our city is

embracing the idea of districts and why we don’t trust this City Council.

Bauer should be ashamed of himself for even trying to pull this.

Districts are a good idea for our city. Bauer’s proposal would put the

facade of creating districts on an initiative that would leave things

pretty much as they are now.

Since he’s leaving office in November, it makes you wonder who he’s

got in mind to fill the vacancies and why districts would mess up his

plan. Sounds very fishy to me.

JIM MAYFIELD

Huntington Beach

I have been a Huntington Beach resident for over 34 years.

I understand that Scott Baugh, the mouth for the power company, in

trying to district our city has been quoted as saying, “I would look with

suspicion at any council proposal.”

This is incredulous and incongruous that Baugh would use the word

“suspicion.”

This is the same guy that a few years ago in running for election

tried to manipulate the system and outright lied about not knowing Laurie

Campbell. Does the leopard, a stealthy animal, change his spots?

ANDREW L. WENIGER

Huntington Beach

Cleaning the dump will mean more trouble for residents

I don’t know why I can’t work up the same zeal you exhibit regarding

cleanup of the Ascon Dump.

Could it be:

1. The idea of one truck every three to five minutes, 10 hours a day,

six days a week for two years.

2. Those same trucks entering and leaving the area on Magnolia that is

in the proximity of one large high school with errant teen drivers

already, two elementary schools and a middle school with walkers, bikers,

and parents transporting children in and out of the areas.

3. That the $31 million is only a guesstimate. The actual cost,

depending on what is actually found, could go much higher.

4. Uncapping the waste, chemicals, styrene, sulfuric acid, etc. could

literally be like opening a Pandora’s Box of noxious fumes and particles

on residents in the area.

5. The styrene and acid pits will require special removal procedures

apart from the removal of drilling mud and solids.

6. Some of us just don’t cotton to the idea of paying for developers

to develop. They want to clean it up and make millions, so let them pay

for it and still make millions.

Personally, I’ll stick with the dump for many years to come in light

of the aforementioned. And I like the sound of the coyotes at night

too. It beats a thundering dump truck any day. Find something else to

get excited about like AES trying to “district” our City Council out of

business. I’ll leave that for another day.

MERLE MOSHIRI

Huntington Beach

Sewage has come back so lose the waiver

We didn’t have to be rocket scientists to know that there is more than

one source accountable for the ocean contamination -- but, the studies

showed (even though they are not complete until October) that the Orange

County Sanitation District’s plume of contaminated sewage could possibly

come to shore.

The fact that it has, should not be overlooked. The district’s waiver

is not good for the public’s health or the ocean’s health. The Orange

County Sanitation District sends 240 million gallons a day of half

advanced primary treated sewage into the ocean and have since 1985. This

June the sanitation district has to either ask for an extension of the

waiver for another five years or comply with the Clean Water Act and go

to full secondary. There are 16,000 sanitation district’s in the US that

have full secondary treatment. And 34 districts have the waiver, of which

Orange County is the largest. Orange County Sanitation District -- do us

a favor, get rid of the waiver.

EILEEN MURPHY

Huntington Beach

Plume movement is no secret, its Santa Ana winds

In response to your article of May 23, please let me propose a

scenario I have not heard brought to the table for discussion. As a

lifelong resident of Southern California beach communities, 30 years in

Malibu and 25 years in Orange County, I have had a chance to observe the

beach from both the surface and beneath it.

Longtime surfers and skin divers are familiar with the thermocline

phenomena. One of the more interesting factors is the Santa Ana wind. The

normal onshore wind conditions on our coast cause the upper and warmer

waters to move toward the beaches where the less dense, warmer water is

held above the colder water.

During the offshore Santa Ana winds, the warm surface waters are blown

out to sea causing the up welling of cold subsurface waters. This

condition is well known to coastal dwellers, and it has amazed me that

the sewage district is trying to hide their untreated water under an

unstable thermocline. I would suggest using the wind direction and water

temperature information published daily in the Los Angeles Times to

attempt to correlate this effect with pollution reports, and further to

start testing water quality conditions during and after the offshore

winds.

As a longtime diver in the coastal waters, I have enjoyed the water

clarity (but not the cold) following the Santa Ana wind. This is brought

about when the water from offshore replaces the dirty water near land.

Now it appears that to reduce costs and avoid upgrading the treatment

of Orange County’s waste water we will lose any chance of enjoying clean

healthy water at our beaches.

NICK OVERFIELD

Huntington Beach

Hearthside should build, Land Trust should go away

It has been years since the Bolsa Chica saga began and no one has come

forth with any rational offer to purchase the mesa. The Bolsa Chica Land

Trust whines that the landowner should have to give them a “fair” price.

Who says?

If someone just decides they’d like to buy my house, without a “for

sale” sign out front, then they had better come to the door with an offer

I can’t refuse. It’s not up to me to accommodate the busybody, any more

than it is up to Hearthside to accommodate the Land Trust.

On the other hand, the guy wanting to buy my house probably wouldn’t

have a couple of goons behind him to rough me up -- like the City Council

and California Coastal Commission.

Hearthside should be allowed to build and the Land Trust should be

“allowed” to disappear.

TIFFANY ROBINSON

Huntington Beach

Hearthside’s land is private property, build away

Should Hearthside Homes be allowed to build? That this question is

even posed regarding private property is a sad statement on the state of

affairs in our city.

It seems that anyone these days can stick their nose into something

and make it an issue. The Independent does not help matters by presenting

a knee-jerk response to every “environmental” issue that comes along.

Your editorials are tiresome and predictable where Bolsa Chica is

concerned.

Absolutely Hearthside should be allowed to build on their property.

KASEY MAURIS

Huntington Beach

Regarding the question of whether Hearthside homes should be allowed

to build 388 homes on the property they own -- the answer is emphatically

yes.

I can’t wait until we have the new district policy in place and our

city will have to concentrate on issues of importance to the citizens

instead of these pet projects that have wasted millions of our taxpayer

dollars on over the years. How much have they spent on lobbyists, special

meetings, consultants, etc?

Let’s see the Independent do some digging and find out the answer to

that question.

ED LAIRD

Huntington Beach

Hearthside Homes should be allowed to build their development on the

mesa. I think it is curious that the groups like the Amigos and Land

Trust spend so much of their time and energies on fighting everything,

instead of producing anything of value themselves.

For instance, if they wasted less money on court cases and propaganda

campaigns -- not to mention self-congratulatory parties -- perhaps they

could channel their funds toward restoration of the degraded wetlands,

which is already in a budget shortfall.

The City Council, too, might find better ways to indulge their

obsession with Bolsa Chica, like protecting the homes that abut the

wetlands from the rise in the water table that will occur with

restoration.

It’s time to hold these elitists accountable for something other than

just saying “no.”

DEBRA RUNGO

Huntington Beach