The Pilot should vamoose, just like...

The Pilot should vamoose, just like the Balboa ducks

Your Friday article “Duck -- duck -- vamoose” does not belong on

the front page of your -- or anyone’s -- newspaper.

Your writer thought it would be cute to write a tongue-in-cheek

story about the removal of ducks on the Grand Canal. Of course, to

the residents of the Grand Canal and Balboa Island, this has been a

serious problem of long standing. If your paper wishes to make fun of

local issues, I suggest you go out of the local paper business, or

feature opinions on the editorial page.

This is what grown-up newspapers do.

DON ABRAMS

Grand Canal

Seven cents can add up

to Gardner-like trouble

Judge Robert Gardner’s dilemma with the independent auditor of his

handling of public funds in Newport Beach over an apparent shortfall

of 11 cents reminds me of my personal encounter with the bureaucratic

bean counters of a major corporation (The Verdict, “One man’s 11

cents on corporate wrongdoings,” Tuesday).

While serving at the U.S. Naval Station in Rota, Spain, in 1964, I

needed a new softball glove. The Post Exchange didn’t sell ball

gloves, so I got the Sears Overseas catalog, picked a glove,

calculated a total of the price and shipping charges and sent the

order off with a personal check. The postage was 7 cents.

I was much gratified when the ball glove arrived in about 10 days.

It was perfect.

Then I got a letter from Sears, which cost them 7 cents to mail.

Their bean counter had determined that my check was 7 cents short.

So, not wishing to have Sears writing to my commanding officer about

my outstanding debt, I spent 7 cents for postage to mail a check for

7 cents to Sears.

Surely there are other true stories of bureaucratic excess out

there. I hope to read about it in the Pilot, especially if it’s for

less than 7 cents.

DAVID J. STILLER

Costa Mesa

Westside won’t improve with more nonprofit organizations

Whoa. Whoa. Take off your blinders, do-gooders (For a Good Cause,

“Breaking bread for those who need it,” Aug. 21).

When I read the remark that the highlighted do-gooders, Gail and

David Young, are quoted as making, “When you live in Newport and you

go into Costa Mesa, into some of these areas....” my mind was made

up.

No, we don’t need another charity on the Westside. Enough of this

Costa Mesa as a Third World country business.

I wonder if the Youngs have ever traveled outside of Newport to

see what the rest of the nation lives like? You’d think that Costa

Mesa was a slum from their remarks.

I hope that the Costa Mesa City Council members read that comment

too. I hope they see that we really need to encourage other areas of

Newport-Mesa to accept the Children’s Hospital of Orange County

clinic.

We need to stop encouraging situations that result in multiple

families living in illegal numbers in units that they can’t afford so

that they can access the freebies. Rents have gone up in every town

near the beach and will continue to do so. Positioning these freebie

clinics on the Westside just because it already has a population base

that utilizes them isn’t improving the neighborhoods.

The natural order of things is that when rents increase (and

property values too), we end up with an attrition of poorer residents

who can’t afford to live there.

Take off those blinders.

(And my apologies for lampooning the Youngs. I’m sure they are

very nice people who, unfortunately, came out and said in print what

everyone really thinks.)

MERIDEE THOMPSON

Costa Mesa