Fair concert entertainment goes to all...

Fair concert entertainment goes to all the scalpers

What happened to our local county fair? The concert stage has

turned into an L.A.-style concert venue complete with scalpers

charging outrageous prices and where does the profit go? Not to the

city of Costa Mesa but to some greedy scalper (“A million reasons to

go to the fair,” July 9).

It used to be a pleasure to get your dinner and walk over to the

Arlington Stage, grab a folding chair seat, watch the sun set and

munch on your dinner while watching the mime and waiting for the

concert to start. Then the concert morphed into the Amphitheater that

still wasn’t too bad because the scalpers hadn’t caught on, but

Friday night was a bust. If you arrived at 6:30 p.m., the only seats

available were at the top of the grandstand. If you went out for

food, you couldn’t return because the Fire Marshall determined that

the area was too crowded.

However, I had the best revenge. After waiting at the gate and

hoping that the Fire Marshall would find extra space, I finally gave

up and walked over to the ice cream stand. I bought a dip top cone,

sat under a tree and watched Huey Lewis and the News on the big

screen with a completely unobstructed view. No one stepped on my

toes, spilled beer on me or poked me in the back as they twirled in

time to the music and I walked out to the exhibits without being

crushed by the crowds as they exited.

Hope next year is better. Let’s bring back a kinder, gentler

Orange County Fair.

JANET ROLEK

Costa Mesa

Some are working against Costa Mesa committee

The Human Relations Committee exists to heal wounds in our

community, to help us to understand and get along with one another,

not to change, and certainly not to attack, individuals, cultures or

other groups (“Tackling Costa Mesa’s difficult topics,” Friday).

When individual members speak of Latinos as being dirty and not

like “real Americans,” when they say homeless individuals choose to

be this way and when they say that gays are missing the ‘’moral

link,’’ and are more likely to be child molesters, they are working

counter to the committee’s mandate.

Allan Mansoor and Jan Davidson, in particular, seem to believe

that the committee exists to debate the appropriateness of cultural

and lifestyle issues. Their public statements wound the community

rather than heal it. If they cannot accept and celebrate our

diversity while contributing to our community health, then they must

leave the committee.

Currently, the Human Relations Committee does not have oversight

on its membership. All appointments are made by the City Council.

Membership oversight must be in the hands of this wonderful

committee.

ROSLYN MANLEY

Irvine

A Triangle pie is in order

I would love to see a Polly’s restaurant put over in Triangle

Square (“Changes on tap for Triangle Square,” July 11). We have to

drive all the way to Huntington Beach to eat there at least once or

twice a week. So a Polly’s restaurant in that area would certainly be

appreciated.

VIRGINIA OSHSNER

Newport Beach

City representatives should be booted

The chances of a significant expansion of John Wayne Airport have

never been more likely and the largest share of blame should be

charged to the Newport Beach and Costa Mesa City Council members and

officials: not for what they did, but for what they did not do

(“Supervisors, council extend JWA limits,” June 26).

If those people, who acknowledged that the El Toro airport was a

top priority, would have contributed even half as much effort to

procuring the airport as South County councils did to fight it, we

might have been booking flights out of El Toro within a couple of

years.

They were all talk and little action over the most important issue

ever confronting our cities. When their meager efforts were swallowed

up by the overwhelming and successful campaign produced by their

opponents, they saw defeat in the horizon and looked for a way to

salvage our cities and their reputations.

They plotted a new course of action, one that required far less

thought, action and money. By dropping all of their efforts to fight

for El Toro airport, they got even their oppositions, supervisors Tom

Wilson and Todd Spitzer, to agree to a new John Wayne Airport

Settlement Agreement. Why, the public would probably think they were

heroes. After all, the vast majority of citizens would not know that

the new agreement wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on -- that

the various airlines, FAA and other federal agencies could simply sue

and supersede their feeble effort.

By the time our cities are ruined by double the air traffic

fanning out all over them and ground traffic has become intolerable,

when property values have plummeted and the quality of life gone,

they counted on people not remembering how it all went wrong, what

might have been and who should be blamed.

I hope our memories are at least long enough to replace these

officials with others who have the ability and determination to keep

their campaign promises.

CAROL WRIGHT

Newport Beach