Keep fairgrounds, keep neighborhood I read the...

Keep fairgrounds,

keep neighborhood

I read the articles regarding the state wanting to sell the

fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, but I would like to keep the fairgrounds

as an event complex. As Costa Mesa residents, my husband, family and

friends all enjoy the variety of events there. If there are any

meetings to be held to preserve our neighborhood, please publish them

to ensure I may attend.

DOMINIQUE DALE

Costa Mesa

Marinapark solution

in mobile home rent

Why choose when we can have it all? Newport Beach Mayor Tod

Ridgeway’s Community Commentary in the Aug. 15 Pilot gives only two

choices -- a public park with no income or a luxury hotel with

possible income (“City could never satisfy Greenlight on resort”).

The third choice is to have nearly the identical income as a hotel

might yield, if it pans out and doesn’t go bankrupt.

This can easily be accomplished by providing the Marinapark mobile

home community a long-term lease and doubling their rent. The

tidelands commission has not ruled that the present usage is

unallowable, despite opponents’ statements to the contrary.

The mobile home park’s residents have indicated that they are

willing and able to pay twice as much rent with a long-term lease,

similar to the city’s other tidelands leasehold properties, Beacon

Bay and the Balboa Bay Club. . This would continue to be

uninterrupted, risk-free money in the bank, unlike the “iffy” hotel,

which may or may not succeed, and even then, not until five years

from now, when it may or may not be up and running.

Public park proponents and Marinapark advocates are willing to

work together to provide the best of both worlds. The existing public

beach would remain, as would tennis courts, and the Girl Scout

House-Community Center. So, why debate between a risky hotel and a

public park? Is there something going on that we Newport Beach

residents don’t know about? It seems clear that we can have the best

of both worlds and still leave all the existing amenities to our

grandchildren. Let’s do it.

MARTIN AND MILDRED LITKE

Newport Beach