It’s to be revitalization on 19th Street

Deirdre Newman

After an hour of contentious discussion on Thursday, the Westside

Revitalization Oversight Committee finally chose its priority --

creating specific recommendations for making the 19th Street

commercial corridor vibrant.

The committee, which is run by its members rather than

consultants, is the successor to the Community Redevelopment Action

Committee. The action committee laid out eight things it wanted to

see accomplished on the Westside. This new oversight group is charged

with choosing one of those recommendations and fleshing it out.

With the priority set, the committee can get down to figuring out

how to make it happen. Their effort may dovetail with the

Redevelopment Agency’s plans for 19th Street. When it nixed

redeveloping a large area of the Westside earlier this month, the

agency agreed to revisit in January the idea of redevelopment for the

19th Street commercial corridor .”I’m glad were finally making some

progress,” said Dan Gribble, owner of Boatswain’s Locker on the

Westside. “I hope this group will be able to work cooperatively to

accomplish something instead of being mired in process versus

substance.”

Some members of the action committee stayed on as members of the

oversight committee, which was approved by the Redevelopment Agency

in August for a tenure of one year. The committee has about 30

members.

Previous community-based efforts to create a vision for the

Westside, such as the Westside Specific Plan, have been shelved

without an oversight committee to see them through.

At its third meeting on Monday, the oversight committee selected

its priority -- revitalizing 19th Street. Many favored improving the

19th Street commercial corridor, while the next most popular was

regulating the Westside. Since a consensus was required, no priority

was chosen on the first round of voting.

Irritation among some committee members was evident. At one point

during the discussion, vice-chair Fred Bockmiller hunched over the

podium and rubbed his forehead.

“I’m visibly frustrated because it’s a repeat of what the [action

committee] did,” Bockmiller said. “[We] spent the whole year figuring

out how to talk to each other. ... I expected committee members to

come ready to vote. What happened is, committee members came ready to

rehash the same old items.”

After a consensus was finally achieved on the 19th Street

commercial corridor, the group set up a method to choose

subcommittees that will research the more specific recommendations

the committee will make. Members will volunteer for those committees

at the next meeting.

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

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.