Former Crystal Cove residents have a...

Former Crystal Cove residents have a right to sadness after losing

homes

Well, a year has gone by since the eviction of the Crystal Cove

residents from their homes (“Return to Crystal Cove,” July 14). And

what do we have to show for it?

I’m so glad to see that after evicting a two-decades resident such

as 78-year-old Stella Hiatt, we have lifeguards inhabiting these

family cottages at a cost to you and me of $1.1 million for the year.

It is sickening.

I don’t blame the many evicted residents who are unable to handle

the emotions of going back to Crystal Cove. I can barely stomach it

myself, and I was never a homeowner there.

I was there, however, at Crystal Cove on that Sunday in July last

summer while grandmothers, parents and children carted off

generations’ worth of personal belongings and memories to their cars.

Oh, and I saw the state ranger’s wife measuring for mini-blinds.

CAMILLE HOWARTH

Newport Beach

Let another city create $700,000 in improvements to its

infrastructure

I am not surprised that the Downtown and Eastside Transportation

Ad Hoc Committee recommendations were to downgrade Newport Boulevard

and return grant funding of $700,000 to the Orange County

Transportation Authority (Between the Lines, “Merrily on our way to

nowhere at all,” April 3).

I recall Mayor Linda Dixon insisting that the residents and

business owners of the Eastside and downtown areas be involved in the

transportation decisions in the area.

Do we trust the committee to throw away $700,000 in design and

environmental study funding when OCTA obviously thinks it necessary?

Should we let the transportation planners and experts make

recommendations instead? Isn’t that why the city has a full-time

transportation engineering staff?

As a previous member of the 17th Street Ad Hoc Committee, I

watched as the business owners urged for the downgrading of a portion

of East 17th Street as well.

As we all witnessed, great plans were drawn for 17th Street but

now are dead. This reactive and defensive position only increases and

compounds traffic in the area -- and now it is being done again on

Newport Boulevard.

The committee is right -- return the money to OCTA and let some

other proactive city in Orange County improve its infrastructure.

Apparently, residents and business owners in Costa Mesa don’t mind

increasing traffic and that’s OK.

Maybe we should take to heart the bus bench ads in Huntington

Beach that say “Infrastructure -- sooner or later, it matters.”

DAVID GUDER

Costa Mesa

Minority opinions, too, must be protected in the United States

Regarding Cindy Trane Christeson’s insipid article, “Finding true

freedom in relation to God” (July 6): Far from questioning political

correctness as you would expect of serious journalism, she

confidently assumes nobody could possibly take exception to her

platitudes.

Well, some people will.

Those of all faiths or no faith still love this country for the

values of freedom and tolerance on which it was founded.

Patriotism and religion are things apart, as the Founding Fathers

strove to ensure, and the word “God” is not to be found anywhere in

the Constitution.

“Under God” was only added to the Pledge of Allegiance during the

anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s. Devotion to a deity, Christian

or other, is a precious right, not a duty.

The founders sought to protect minority opinion, which

Christeson’s narrow-minded view offends. A nation is easy to define;

God is not.

Christeson says, “I pray that America would seek to bless God.”

The last words of the Sept. 11 hijackers assuredly were “God is

great.”

TOM MOULSON

Corona del Mar

Fourth of July fireworks display did just the trick for many

onlookers

We would like to give three cheers and extend a very big thank-you

to the individuals or group that provided the outstanding fireworks

display from a yacht at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula the night of

the Fourth.

We thoroughly enjoyed your show and so did countless individuals

on the beach or in their boats.

RICK AND JOAN CONNELLA

Newport Beach