Dornan’s reasons to run don’t make sense...

Dornan’s reasons to run don’t make sense

Bob Dornan says that in the moments following the World Trade

Center attack that he knew that he must run for Congress again

(“Terror, security compel Dornan to run,” Dec. 25.) But his

explanation doesn’t hold up.

Sept. 11, 2001, was well before the candidate filing deadline for

the 2002 election. As a veteran congressman, Dornan was no stranger

to the filing requirements and how to verify the schedule. If he was

so galvanized to run on that day it is not credible that he did not

take action to file in a more timely fashion. As those watching have

come to expect, Dornan’s talk doesn’t match well with reality.

MARK SHELDON

Huntington Beach

Poseidon’s offer was good for the city

We live in a desert and our water supply is drying up. Our Orange

County aquifer is overdrafted by over 100-billion gallons. But to our

west lies an infinite supply of water. We now have the technology to

desalinate it to bottled water quality.

Poseidon proposed a project to desalinate 50-million gallons of

water a day and every reputable scientist that studied the project

found there were no significant environmental impacts. Despite that,

four of our seven council members were swayed by the rantings of the

Green Party leaders who offered idle speculation of gloom and doom to

combat the city staff’s scientific consultant’s studies.

Now the Orange County Water District says they may put a

desalination plant in that same spot. And the water district doesn’t

need the approval of the City Council or Planning Commission. Of

course, water district won’t provide a dime of tax revenue to the

city either. So in the end we’ll get a desalination plant, but thanks

to the anti-business atmosphere that permeates our City Council,

it’ll be a public agency that builds it and Huntington Beach will get

none of the benefits that Poseidon had offered.

ALLISON STANLEY

Huntington Beach

Water district should look elsewhere

A desalination plant owned by a government entity like the Orange

County Water District is an improvement over a private entity like

Poseidon owning a commodity like water for profit. But unfortunately,

the Orange County Water District is planning on using the same

polluted water from the AES plant just as Poseidon planned to do. A

requirement for desalination is to start with the cleanest water

possible. The ocean water the AES plant uses is from Huntington

Beach’s most contaminated water in the whole city area, the Magnolia

site. That beach is closed most of the year and no one knows for sure

what is causing the pollution.

Until we find the cause for the pollution the water district

should find another source of ocean water or wait until the cause of

the contamination is discovered.

They also should try to pencil out if it is affordable before they

go any further.

EILEEN MURPHY

Huntington Beach

We’ve heard this request before

I received a two-color flier in the mail promoting the Marina High

School improvement bonds, which will appear for voter consideration

on the March 2 ballot. It seems to me that we were asked to approve a

similar measure less than two years ago. At the time, we were led to

believe that it would take care of the exact same problems that this

bond. It is obvious from the mailer, that the district has retained a

political marketing firm to put together a campaign to convince the

voter to support this initiative. How much is this costing and where

is this money coming from?

Does the school district think the voters have such short memories

that they won’t remember. I would like to know what happened to the

money that was allocated from the last go-around. There are other

ways to raise revenue and budget for the repairs. The state

government has increased fees to users, and that approach should be

considered here. Are there parking fees for students and facility?

The students seem to drive better cars than I do. Does the school

practice recycling? Why should others reap the rewards from salvaging

cans and bottles from school trashcans? How about raising fees for

outside use of school facilities? Let’s get creative instead of gong

to the taxpayer every time.

I would hope this letter will bring forth other comments and

suggestions, as well as a response from school officials.

PETER M. CLARK

Huntington Beach

Baugh isn’t a tireless worker for voters

Your “newsmaker” piece about Scott Baugh undoubtedly left many

readers with the impression that he was a tireless worker for the

public. Unfortunately, Baugh has also been tireless in representing

the likes of AES and others as a paid lobbyist; a fact your article

overlooked. Moreover, it ignored the $47,900 in fines he paid the

Fair Political Practices Commission for campaign “irregularities,”

related to his political activities, when the reporter took on face

value his statement that he was cleared of everything; a convenient

spin.

Baugh is anything but altruistic in his desire to get

representation by districts for the citizens of Huntington Beach.

Unfortunately we can only speculate about his real motives. Long

before Baugh appeared on the scene, a real servant to this community,

Jack Green, led a selfless campaign for a seven-member council

(elected by districts) to better serve the citizens. While he was not

successful, his efforts drove the then five-member council to form a

charter revision committee which proposed a seven-member at-large

council among other things. That measure passed in 1965 and resulted

in the citizens of Huntington Beach having increased representation

(in 1966, not 1968 as reported). Now Baugh wants us to turn back the

clock. According to him, we’ll be better represented by five council

members instead of seven. Yeah, right. Who is he kidding?

They will go for anything that removes a council that they so

intensely dislike as they disregard the downside. My impression is

they are mathematically challenged. They’ll give up seven votes every

four years for one. How desperate can that be?

MARK PORTER

Huntington Beach