Westside group wants to continue debate

Deirdre Newman

Disgruntled members of a Westside redevelopment committee want to

forge ahead on their own without facilitators after the group

presents its final recommendations.

Tonight, the Community Redevelopment Action Committee expects to

finish creating those suggestions, which the city’s Redevelopment

Agency and City Council will ultimately consider. The committee,

which has shrunk to about 30 members from its original 80, has met

since June to create a blueprint for the Westside.

Although facilitators have focused on consensus throughout the

entire process, members of the splinter group say they are not

satisfied with the expected results.

“They’re not letting us do anything we want,” said Janice

Davidson, who has been involved in other Westside improving

movements. “It’s worse than the Westside Specific Plan because we’re

not allowed to do anything in this one.”

The Redevelopment Agency, the City Council wearing another hat,

created the Community Redevelopment Action Committee in January 2002.

The goal was to engage competing factions of the community to find

common ground for the future of the neighborhood.

Those aching for a chance to do more work say the facilitators

just repeated what had been done before.

“The city wasted over $100,000 of our scarce tax dollars on a

facilitator that didn’t do much but conduct an elementary set of

meetings to redefine the problems that we, on the Westside, already

identified to the city at least a decade ago,” said committee member

Paul Bunney.

“So, where are we? We have just continued the problem we live with

on our side of town, and the City Council just pushes off the hard

decisions needed to fix our problems,” he added.

John Douglas, project manager for the facilitator team, said he’s

not surprised that some members are not satisfied with the results so

far. But he emphasized that the desires of a few are usually

subjugated to the consensus of the larger committee. Early on, the

committee decided that anything that moves forward for more

discussion had to garner 70% approval, he said.

“Our job is to help structure the process so that the committee

members can reach their own conclusions in an efficient and effective

manner,” Douglas said.

A lack of community consensus has thwarted previous attempts, such

as the Westside Specific Plan, at redevelopment in the area.

In February, the committee created a tentative vision statement

for the Westside, with adjectives such as physically attractive,

safe, socially vibrant, economically desirable and accessible. At its

March meeting, the committee began devising action statements to

achieve these attributes.

Tonight’s is expected to be the last committee meeting at which

members will vote on the action statements.

The breakaway group, which includes at least five members, would

like to rezone the bluffs to residential; extend streetlights on 19th

Street to Pomona Avenue; and remove some industrial businesses that

they say have a negative effect on the neighborhood, Davidson said.

Mike Robinson, the city’s redevelopment manager, said he felt the

group’s complaints are premature since the entire committee has yet

to release its final recommendations. Any group that continues

without the facilitators would need the authorization of the

Redevelopment Agency, Robinson said.

Councilwoman Libby Cowan, an advocate of the facilitator-led

process, said she believes any request for a continuation would have

to come from the entire committee. There are now about 30 active

members.

“I’m not sure who the small group is or if there’s a larger

group,” Cowan said. “I have people who have talked to me about

continuing. I think it’s a positive idea. [Davidson] hasn’t talked to

me about it, so I don’t know if it’s the same small group. I think

that anytime we can create an opportunity for community dialogue and

community input into the City Council in the process ... it’s

valuable.”

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or