Alleged park-use citations rile resident I read...

Alleged park-use

citations rile resident

I read a Readers Response in Thursday’s paper from Rick Campo

about kids using our parks, and it just really upset me. What are our

parks for? Why do we build and maintain them if not for our

residents’ use? Yes, I realize charging rent makes money for the

city, but that’s not reason enough to ticket a team of kids playing

on an empty field. When our city leaders give away millions of

dollars to developers, we have to ticket our kids for using the

parks? Absolutely disgusting.

JOYCE WOOD

Costa Mesa

Looking at El Toro

in a historical context

In his letter published in the Pilot of July 13 Dan Emory shows

both a short memory of the last eight years of El Toro history and an

incomplete understanding of the air transportation in Orange County

as it relates to the entire southern region of California

(“Compliments, not competition, needed in airport discussion”).

Soon after the Navy disclosed that El Toro was to be closed, the

Orange County Board of Supervisors authorized the planning of El Toro

to be a commercial airport as prescribed by law. Fifty-million

dollars was spent and culminated in FAA approval. In two countywide

elections, North County cities supported the airport. Two measures

introduced by South County to overturn El Toro’s reopening were

defeated.

As the population of South County increased, so did their

opposition to the reopening of El Toro. In a third attempt to defeat

the airport, South County, under the direction of Irvine, concocted

Measure W, a scheme to put the Great (Fake) Park on the ballot in an

off-year election. With a profusion of funds, misleading

representation of the Great (Fake) Park, and adroit legal maneuvering

to prevent North County from effectively combating their propaganda,

Measure W was on the ballot. Although opposed by the cities of North

County, the concentrated “get-out-the-vote” effort in South County

was able to get Measure W passed. Emory should note that South County

travelers (who make up most of the increase now occurring at John

Wayne) are willing to fly over the many people living in the noise

zone in Tustin, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. But they scream at the

thought of planes flying from El Toro, where no one is in the noise

zone.

Emory’s complaint that the Airport Working Group is not reaching

out to all of Orange County ignores that it represents 80% of the

county’s population and is trying to work with other political

entities in the area who are affected by the lack of an airport at El

Toro. As for Leonard Kranser’s observations regarding El Toro, I can

only say that since Kranser is a mouthpiece for the real estate and

building industries, he is not really a Darth Vader but is more like

Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”

LARRY ROOT

Newport Beach