Secure any loose items before the ride

Geoff West

As our roller coaster clank, clank, clanks to the top of the first

incline, ready to drop over the brink into the campaign season this

summer, there are many important issues facing our leaders. I’ve

discussed a couple of them -- Westside revitalization and consistency

in development -- in a previous commentary. There are others,

however, that await them down the track.

One major issue our new leaders must help us, as a community, to

come to grips with is the apparent municipal inferiority complex we

have when comparing ourselves to our good neighbor, Newport Beach.

Let’s face it -- we are not Newport Beach. Although we have a larger

population, we have a budget that is only two-thirds that of our

neighbor.

They have the dollars to spend because they have huge property tax

revenues. The median home price in Newport Beach is four times that

of the median Costa Mesa home. The math is simple. Sales taxes drive

our economic engine, so we need to do more to nurture that source.

For example, we need to help make the Harbor Boulevard of Cars a more

viable option for car shoppers, and to provide incentives for local

dealerships to keep their facilities looking good. We are not “the

city where you can toast in the sand,” but we certainly could become

“the city where you can shop till you drop.”

As I said, we are not Newport Beach -- a city of millionaires,

megastars and moguls. We are Costa Mesa -- a city of merchants and

managers, tradesmen and financiers, engineers and entrepreneurs,

landlords and tenants, clerks and contractors, entertainers and

educators -- and immigrants.

We are a city filled with folks who know what it’s like to work

hard for their money. There are not many trust funds evident nor

silver spoons dangling from mouths in our city. We are a center of

commerce and entertainment un-matched in our region, so we should

quit moaning about what we are not and maximize who and what we are.

I’ve heard one local activist recently espouse making a deal with

Newport Beach to swap the annexation rights of the Santa Ana Country

Club for some of their beachfront land down by the Santa Ana River,

so our city could honestly claim to be a “beach” community. Yeah,

like that’s going to happen any time soon.

Instead of spending energy and scarce financial resources on

pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams, we should be focusing on the real-world

issues staring us squarely in the face. One of those issues is John

Wayne Airport. In large part because our city leaders in the past

have taken a head-in-the-sand approach to the El Toro Airport issue,

our region is now left with only one option -- the expansion of John

Wayne. Whether Newport Beach manages to wrest control of the airport

from the county or not, it does not take a rocket scientist, or a

Mensa member, to figure out that there are only a couple ways future

airport expansion can go, and one of them is right into Costa Mesa.

Our present and future leaders should demand a seat at the table and

a voting voice in the considerations of the future of John Wayne

Airport.

An issue that is almost hand-in-glove with the airport situation

is the aforementioned land-grab by Newport Beach planned for the

Santa Ana Country Club and surrounding islands of county land

presently falling within the sphere of influence of Costa Mesa. Our

present and future city leaders must take a firm stand on this issue,

as well. It makes little sense for the land in question to become

part of Newport Beach, as has been so clearly stated by others

recently.

Over the past several months I’ve heard the invented word

“mansionization” thrown around by elected officials and some

residents of this city, as though they were talking about the Black

Plague. They use the example of the “mansionization” of Newport

Heights as some terrible blight that might sneak across the border

into Eastside Costa Mesa. Well, I’ve lived on the Eastside for more

than 30 years and I’ve watched Newport Heights evolve from a

neighborhood of tiny, tidy, modest homes into one thriving with many

new, beautiful, large homes -- including some mansions.

I’m sure the city of Newport Beach enjoys the new tax revenue from

each and every one. The post-World War II generation that was

attracted to those little homes -- and others like them throughout

Costa Mesa, too -- was my parents’ generation. They were raised to do

more with less and to be happy with simply having a roof over their

heads. Those were days before television and computers, when family

recreation was typically done outside those little homes in their

spacious yards.

The current generation -- the generation of their grandchildren --

no longer want little homes with a large frontyard. They want large

homes with room for growing families, hard-wired for DSL or cable

modems and enough room for the 60-inch TV with “surround sound.” We

should do much more to encourage the evolution of the Eastside of our

city into a place where young, successful families can build homes in

which they can thrive.

The future of this city does not rest in the hands of those of us

who moved into those little homes 30, 40 and 50 years ago. Costa

Mesa’s future is in the hands of those bright, young people who are

enrolling their children in our schools today. We should discourage

planning practices that force some applicants to practically turn

themselves inside-out before they can build a larger home on those

wonderful, large lots. We should be happy to reap the benefits of a

growing tax base, too.

Finally, we should stop the futile attempts to eject the growing

immigrant population from our city -- a bad idea even if we had the

authority -- and find ways to integrate this resource into the

mainstream of our community. Like it or not, this growing demographic

group is the wave of the future and we had darned well better find

ways to harness and direct the energy of that wave or we will be

drowned by it.

A great place to start is with an increased outreach into the

Spanish-speaking community. Let’s continue to do a better job of

educating the children -- and their parents, too. Our goal for this

growing segment of our population -- estimated at more than 30%

recently -- should be assimilation, not elimination.

These issues and many others will face our elected leaders in the

months ahead. It’s up to us to select people with the integrity,

intellect, energy and commitment necessary to meet these challenges.

This election season promises to be an exciting ride, full of twists

and turns and the occasional queasy stomach, so strap yourself in and

hang on.

* GEOFF WEST is a Costa Mesa resident and frequent forum

contributor.