Living is all about quality of life

In a discussion with a friend, I was asked what form of discipline I

use and when it is applied.

“Most parents would restrict TV watching,” said my friend, “but

that’s not an option for you.”

No, it is not an option. Sadly and curiously, one of the most

available options is to restrict reading. Both our kids love to read,

and while I know that cutting off their reading privileges would

surely send a message, my wife and I have never played the reading

card because reading is just so good for them.

As to when discipline is applied, the difference is patterns. I

look for patterns in their behavior, as opposed to single events, to

determine my reaction.

I’ve been noticing patterns in local behavior, too, and it seems

to me that more and more people in Newport-Mesa are sending the

message that the quality of their lives is more important than ever

before.

The terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center had

something to do with the heightened concern over the quality of our

lives, but I noticed it even before Sept. 11, 2001.

The pattern theory got a big boost when the county’s voters

decided once and for all that we would never see an airport down in

El Toro. In my opinion, the airport supporters lost the vote because

they failed to understand exactly why people live around here. They

were so focused on jobs and the economy and rational matters that

their only strategy was to try to bully people into believing that

the sky was going to fall if we did not have another airport.

The anti-airport forces, on the other hand, made the airport a

quality-of-life issue, an emotional one, offering the “Great Park” as

a way to expand upon the very reason why folks love Orange County. It

matters little whether one believes that the Great Park was the

“Great Trick.” The point is that their public relations people had

their finger on the pulse of the people.

Features and benefits, folks, features and benefits. People make

decisions emotionally and only justify them rationally.

Some airport supporters just won’t admit defeat and move on. In a

recent letter to the Pilot, one writer was busting a gut trying to

tell us all that if there are new flight patterns from John Wayne

Airport over Corona del Mar and Costa Mesa, it is strictly a result

of the lack of an airport at El Toro.

This pathetic attempt to say “I told you so” underscores the point

I want to make. The defeat of an airport at El Toro is not about the

flight patterns over Corona del Mar and Costa Mesa. It was an entire

county saying, “We don’t want this big, noisy, smelly airport

anywhere near us, thank you very much.”

If you live under or near the John Wayne flight paths, you should

understand this better than anyone.

We do not need an airport at El Toro, and if I had my way, I’d get

rid of John Wayne Airport, too. I flew out of Ontario International

Airport a couple of weeks ago on a trip to New York and found it to

be accessible, clean and well organized. They want our travel

business, and I’d like to see us give it to them -- all of it.

Another piece of the quality-of-life pattern was seen in the vote

by the Costa Mesa City Council to deny the construction of a Kohl’s

department store at the Mesa Verde Center at the corner of Harbor

Boulevard and Adams Avenue.

I was told about 12 years ago that the intersection was the city’s

busiest. I took that as gospel, as it was delivered by a Costa Mesa

Police officer who was writing me a ticket at the time for just

missing a green light.

The intersection is still busy, and I shudder to think what it

would have been like with a department store there.

Some people tried to make this an up or down referendum on the

Segerstrom family, as though all of their incredible contributions to

Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and the rest of the county were validated

or diminished by this one vote.

That’s nonsense. The Segerstrom legacy has already been

established and we are better for their involvement and interest in

our community.

In the end, the Kohl’s vote was strictly about the quality of life

of the people of Costa Mesa. The cost in quality of life of a Kohl’s

store exceeded the value of the tax revenue it would have generated.

I’m glad that the Costa Mesa City Council continued the

quality-of-life pattern with its vote. I was afraid I was going to

have to take away their TV privileges for a week.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer.

Readers may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at

(949) 642-6086.