Web site comes under scrutiny

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- Two members of a countywide commission designed to

promote education and communication among cultures joined a popular local

Web site this week to learn more about it and research allegedly racist

and homophobic contributions by a few members of the city’s Human

Relations Committee.

Barbara Hunt and Bob Cerince, both staff members of the Orange County

Human Relations Commission, were assigned to watch and contribute to the

Web site after a volatile meeting of the city committee last week.

Hunt said she joined the Web site, at

groups.yahoo.com/group/ConcernedCostaMesaCitizens, to read some of the

allegedly intolerant posts made public by a handful of residents at the

meeting.

Mira Ingram, who led those angered by the posts, said committee

members Joel Faris and Jan Davidson wrote racist remarks about Latinos on

the site. She also took offense to committee member and City Council

candidate Allan Mansoor’s posting of articles by conservative

organizations that condemn the homosexual lifestyle.

Davidson, Mansoor and Faris vigorously denied the scathing accusations

and said their comments were taken out of context.

The comments by Ingram touched off a heated exchange among committee

members, with some questioning the reasons for the postings and others

defending Faris, in particular.

Hunt said she was online to determine whether Mansoor’s, Faris’ and

Davidson’s comments were, in fact, taken out of context.

“I’m on the Web site to try to figure out what is what,” Hunt said in

a phone interview Friday.

Self-appointed “Web advisor” Jerry Vanus welcomed Hunt and Cerince to

the Web site in a posting there and said subscribers should embrace their

expertise.

“Although a large part of this Web site deals with city issues,

sometimes the subject of ‘people issues’ arise,” Vanus wrote in his post.

“Their goal is to assist people in solving some of these ‘people issues’

and to help make things better between all people in Costa Mesa.”

Mansoor, a regular contributor to the Web site, also welcomed Hunt and

Cerince, saying he was “looking forward to [their] participation.”

Hunt responded with a post saying she was there as a resource to the

Costa Mesa Human Relations Committee in an effort to “help the group

overcome some of the hurdles it is currently facing.”

“We don’t have a magic wand, but we do have a lot of experience in the

field of human relations and we are happy to lend a hand if the committee

feels it would be helpful,” Hunt wrote.

* Lolita Harper covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at o7 lolita.harper@latimes.comf7 .