Council concedes defeat on condos

Geoff West

News flash! The Costa Mesa City Council was mugged!

At least, that’s how it felt as I watched the City Council do the

dying cockroach again when faced with the threat of yet another

lawsuit.

After a very long public hearing when the council --

cross-dressing in a joint session with the Redevelopment Agency --

reexamined the much maligned 1901 Newport Plaza residential project.

It finally agreed to capitulate -- on a thin 3-2 vote -- to the

developer’s demands rather than further expose the city and a group

of community activists to a lawsuit. Councilmen Allan Mansoor and

Chris Steel, in an act of futility, held their ground.

This was a sad event for all of us. First, it proves that bullying

does, indeed, pay off. It has shown us, once again, that in this

city, with this council, it is possible to get your way by filing a

lawsuit and daring them to fight. This all could have been avoided if

they had not been asleep at the wheel as this project made its way

through the original approval process.

Second, the entire downtown area of our city loses because this

project will dump so much traffic into an area which is already

suffering from almost perpetual gridlock that it will be virtually

impossible to navigate around Triangle Square. So much for the

“revitalization” of the Westside. It’s hard to revitalize something

when you can’t get to it.

The council meeting at which the project was approved had some

amusing moments, though, as our erstwhile City Council was referred

to by one speaker at the podium as “communist pinkos” and another

compared them to Hitler. So bizarre was the evening that several

council members actually found themselves acknowledging agreement

with longtime highly vocal critic, activist and gadfly Martin

Millard.

We had yet another chance to watch our city “leaders” show their

true colors. After presenting the most logical, well-reasoned

dialogue from the dais earlier, Councilwoman Libby Cowan showed us

who she really is. At the very end of the hearing, she held Mayor

Gary Monahan at virtual gunpoint by requiring 40 extra parking spaces

or she would cast a “no” vote on the project -- thereby forcing the

developer’s lawsuit to move forward.

I believe her quote to the beleaguered mayor was something like,

“Without those parking spaces, you’ve got no project.” Once again,

bullying wins.

Even though the City Council election is still many months away, I

hope the citizens of this city will not forget this incident.

* GEOFF WEST is a Costa Mesa resident.