Westside does not need redevelopment I...

Westside does not need redevelopment

I am very much against Costa Mesa adding to the Westside

redevelopment area. I agree with Carol Ann Burr that all the city

needs to do to improve the looks of that area is to enforce the codes

now on the books. A little curb and sidewalk work by the city

wouldn’t hurt, either.

There are many viable small businesses in that area doing many

interesting things that are an asset to the city’s reputation, not to

mention the people they employ. I can’t count the number of times

that I’ve been reading a national or international magazine article

about some machine or vehicle development, or an interesting project,

and see that it was/is done in Costa Mesa. Often times, it will be

located in that Westside business area of the city. Many of those

businesses have been in the same location for many years and would

close if they had to move.

FRANK COLVER

Newport Beach

Sometimes Costa Mesa can’t stands no more

Geoff West did certainly open up a can of spinach when he decried

Costa Mesa City Council meeting niceties (“A bumbling way to run a

City Council meeting,” Tuesday).

I know that a lot of people have an opinion that looks count, and

being well-dressed, having charming speech and a PhD is quite

impressive for leadership capability. I remember former school

district employee Stephen Wagner and former county Treasurer-Tax

Collector Robert Citron had popular appeal and stellar nuance. These

leaders were “in control-type people,” and perhaps the voters got

enough of that kind of representative and decided to let a “Popeye”

type give it his best shot. Popeye would try to be courteous, but

when the situation arose, he opened up a can of spinach and got

things done.

Of course, I know that flat, platitude-filled, insipid and mundane

meetings are what is expected, but isn’t that how we got here, the

condition of the same old, same old, nothing done?

I am one person who wants results, and I am not an articulate snob

who won’t turn down help from someone who just said, “I yam what I

yam, and I can’t stands no more.”

L. SCHWANDT

Costa Mesa