Vote for Mansoor can be amended...

Vote for Mansoor can be amended through service

This letter is one of great concern for the recent election of

Allan Mansoor as a City Councilman for the city of Costa Mesa.

Although I voted for Mansoor, I had not read about his plans to rid

the city of Costa Mesa of the Job Center and charitable organizations

that serve so many needy people.

I would not have cast my vote for Mansoor had I been knowledgeable

of the aforementioned.

Now that I am guilty of assisting to place Mansoor into office by

casting my vote for him, I would like to have the privilege of

expressing my sorrow and concern for my own lack of knowledge

regarding Mansoor’s goal toward the job center and charitable

organizations.

It appears to be a self-righteous and self-centered attitude for

anyone to be so insensitive to the needs of people because the city

is affluent and they want to keep it clean and affluent by driving

people out who are in need. This type of attitude appears to be a

paradox of affluency.

This type of paradox reminds me of the “Trail of Tears,” when the

Native American people were driven out of their homesteads and many

died along the trail on their way to find roots elsewhere. Many died

by the actions of their own people. This appears to run parallel to

the attitude that Mansoor expresses toward needy people.

What is expressed as a desire to clean up the city appears to be

no less than premeditated character assassinations of the

potentiality to build integrity and humanity; to bring hope to people

who have no hope other than, at the moment, a Job Center or

charitable organization.

The challenge, it appears, is to be the hand that reaches out and

helps to build rather than to destroy, people who are in dire need of

acceptance and opportunity.

The hand that reaches out is usually the hand that receives the

fruits of the good seeds that are planted in potential good citizens.

There can be security in a city that will reach out and assist those

in need; a city that is willing to learn to be of maximum, rather

than minimum, service to God and the people about them.

Rather than rid the city of the needed assistance, would it not be

better for the city to assist people to get off the streets and reach

their highest potential, helping them to establish roots so that they

may become all that they have been created to be?

I have asked myself if Mansoor knows what it is like to be in

poverty. I also am curious to know if Mansoor knows what it is like,

and how degrading it feels, to have children who need to be fed, and

be in fear that the only place that you know to go to obtain work to

feed them is contemplating closing because the city wants to clean

up.

Does Mansoor know what it is like to live on the streets because

he was a victim of poverty or other afflictions; because the only

place that he knew to go to be fed had closed its doors because of

your need to be fed?

It appears that Mansoor does not comprehend the reality that there

is poverty and need in this city which affluency could well assist in

making changes beneficial for the good of mankind and our city

without pushing away the dire needs of the people of this beautiful

and affluent city, the city of Costa Mesa.

In no way do I discount the difficulties with which our city is

challenged with the homeless. In looking at the issue with a

realistic view, it appears that the difficulties may have the

opportunity to be turned around into something good, something

profitable for our city, if there were places for the homeless to and

other needy people to go; places where they could be rehabilitated;

not just to dry out or be fed, but to house them; to offer them the

opportunity to be rehabilitated, so that they might reach their

highest potential.

I welcome other readers, who are opposed to Mansoor’s plans to rid

the city of Costa Mesa of the Job Center and charitable

organizations, to contact me. Together, we can pray for a change of

heart and a clean up of a different perspective other than by ridding

the city of Costa Mesa of some of its most promising revenues through

people who utilize the Job Center and charitable organizations.

United, we can assist our city in rising above the demoralization

and degradation that our needy people are challenged with -- the

opposition of the affluent to rid the city of the Job Center and

charitable organizations. We will see changes that are far above and

beyond anything that we, or any of our elected officials, could have

ever imagined.

EFFIE M. RIVERA

Costa Mesa