Trick-or-treaters welcome on Lido Isle, next...

Trick-or-treaters welcome on Lido Isle, next Halloween

This is an open invitation to Tyler McGill and his friends

(“Halloween spirit not to be found on Lido Island,” Tuesday). You are

welcome here on Lido Island anytime. The guard who told you this

community doesn’t want outsiders trick-or-treating here was wrong. He

certainly doesn’t speak for me and, hopefully, others who live here.

I’m embarrassed that you were treated that way. Next Halloween,

please visit and be my guest.

YVETTE DOBBIE

Lido Isle

Thoughts on friends end with gems, not fool’s gold

Perusing the Daily Pilot on this election day for tidbits about

the events of the day, I found Michael A. Walek’s contribution in the

“Student Outlook” section on Tuesday’s Forum page.

As I read young Walek’s painful lament about the artificiality of

“friendship” he finds in his life, a wide range of reactions swept

across me. I felt both admiration and apprehension for him as I

speculated to myself how such a young person found the fortitude to

write this piece. Even though he may have changed the names of some

of the characters in his story, those who know him will certainly be

able to decipher it.

I suspect this article will have the unintended consequence of

sorting out many of those phony “friends” in his life and leave

standing those “few gems” he is seeking.

GEOFF WEST

Costa Mesa

Rent control not a problem

This is in response to David Williams’ diatribe against rent

control in the Daily Pilot (“Don’t turn Costa Mesa into a low-rent

city,” Oct. 29).

It seems that Williams harbors a great deal of hostility and many

fears about renters as a class. That is utter nonsense. Renters are

no different from any other Americans except that, for many reasons,

they rent rather than own their shelter. They are treated cavalierly

by most local, state and federal politicians and are utterly at the

mercy of landlords of all stripes.

As for all the cities that have rent control being festering slums

full of sinister plots against property owners and criminal types,

nonsense! I lived in San Francisco and Manhattan, and no one can

describe either city in Williams’ terms. Equally so with Berkeley,

Santa Monica, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles. Naturally, there are areas

in every city that are run down and off-putting, but that has nothing

to do with rent control. Gentrification usually solves those

problems, anyway.

As for all the scare talk about bankrupt owners, collapsing

property values and “negative owner-city-tenant relationships,”

again, nonsense. All rent control does is put reasonable controls on

rent gouging. Valid evictions are no more difficult than anywhere

else, and tenants tend to remain in their rentals far longer than in

uncontrolled cities.

It would be a real feather in our cap if we became one of those

cities that protects and respects all of its residents, regardless of

wealth.

WALLACE WOOD

Costa Mesa