Southeast committee doesn’t represent area residents

John Scott

The Cityscape Roundup headline in the Independent on April 3 read,

“Southeast area sets its priorities.” That headline leaves the

impression that Southeast Huntington Beach is united behind the

committee’s priorities. The reality is that the vision the committee

has for this area and the vision that residents of the area have are

very different.

The committee’s initial meetings here always began with a

redevelopment presentation after which residents were invited to

share their views. Residents were virtually unanimous in their view

that Southeast Huntington Beach with AES, Orange County Sanitation

District and Ascon/NESI already had more than its share of industrial

uses. They wanted any future development here to relate to tourism.

They also wanted assurance that redevelopment revenues raised here

would be spent here. In all of those meetings, I never once heard a

speaker say that they wanted redevelopment so that it could bring

more industrial uses to the area and thus more revenue into the

coffers of the redevelopment agency.

In subsequent meetings, the Southeast Huntington Beach

Neighborhood Assn. tried unsuccessfully to ensure that the revenues

collected here would not be used to pay off the $212 million

redevelopment debt incurred elsewhere in the city, to get the

industrial zoning changed to a zoning compatible with tourism, and to

get the redevelopment agency to specify their development plans for

the area. It soon became evident that the committee was here to drum

up support for their industrial vision of the area, although they are

very careful never to mention industrial development. An effort to

gain the neighborhood association board’s official support failed.

Resident’s vision of the committee as an instrument for them and

the city to work together for the good of Southeast Huntington Beach

was just a moonbeam. Despite committee members and city staff’s

statement that redevelopment would not happen unless residents wanted

it, the city established a redevelopment area here. The last

committee meeting I attended attracted about a six residents.

In contrast, the recent general meeting of the Southeast

Huntington Beach Neighborhood Association had 150 residents concerned

about their neighborhood in attendance. The priorities of the

neighborhood association are:

* Add sidewalks along Magnolia Street from the flood control to

the ocean.

* Bury the utility lines.

* Purchase the park site at Magnolia Street and Banning Road,

which Edison is in the process of selling.

* Improve Edison Park.

* Enlarge or rebuild Banning Library.

* Landscape the median on Banning Road.

* Maintain the Banning pump station.

* Improve the green areas on the east side of Magnolia at

Banning.

Many of the very same people returned the following night to

participate in the Department of Toxic Substance Control’s meeting on

the Ascon/NESI site. It is a testimony to the pride that people here

have in their neighborhood that they would attend meetings about the

neighborhood on two successive nights in such numbers.

Perhaps some day there will be a way for people interested in

improving their neighborhood to work with the city to create a common

vision, but for now it is only a dream.

* JOHN SCOTT is a Huntington Beach resident. To contribute to

“Sounding Off” e-mail us at hbindy@latimes.com or fax us at (714)

965-7174.