Letter to the Editor -- Tom Egan

“Dogpatch West” is what we can call Westside Costa Mesa if the City

Council allows the 10 nonconforming businesses to stay in their

single-family houses on West 19th Street.

It was a misbegotten decision by a council 37 years ago to proactively

create a “transition zone,” anticipating a bridge across the Santa Ana

River. It was political thinking worthy of Sen. Jack S. Phogbound to give

a dispensation to businesses that allowed them to infiltrate a

residential neighborhood before a bridge was even built.

Then there was Sid Soffer’s infamous “Front yard of cars” that

perversely complemented our “Harbor Blvd. of Cars.” Soffer’s junk yard

was just one block away from the West 19th transition zone. Like attracts

like?

In an illustration of Dogpatch mentality, it took this community years

before it could get up the gumption to take him to court and make Arbor

Street stop looking like Pappy Yokum’s path through Dogpatch.

People ask me, “How can you be so cruel as to throw out those 10

businessmen who’ve been there so long?”

I ask them, “How can you be so cruel to the hundreds of business

owners who have been at a competitive disadvantage to the 10 who don’t

have to pay rent?”

I further ask them, “How can you be so cruel to the thousands of

residential neighbors who have lived there just as long and have

subsidized these 10 businesses by being forced to sacrifice their quality

of life and property values?”

It’s time for the Dogpatch 10 to go. Now.

TOM EGAN

Costa Mesa