A good start to year on mesa...

A good start to year on mesa

On Jan. 1 members of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust and the Bolsa

Chica Stewards met on the Bolsa Chica Mesa to celebrate the first

sunrise of what we hope will be a wonderful year for such a wonderful

place. It is great to see the flourishing Coastal California Sage

Scrub habitat taking over the reserve portion of the mesa, a result

of the Stewards’ nine year effort. I myself have enjoyed a great

program on the mesa with the Girl Scouts. I jog on the mesa, and over

the years I have watched the native plants flourish.

Now, after 6,000 plants and tens of thousands of volunteer hours,

the Bolsa Chica Stewards have given this community a wonderful

opportunity and quite a successful effort. I encourage all in the

community to go out and see their work and to imagine the whole mesa

just as beautiful and restored.

ANJA GARWICK

Huntington Beach

Training base needs to be saved

Assemblyman Tom Harman is right to lay out a case for preserving

the Joint Forces Training Base, located adjacent to Huntington Beach,

where Garden Grove, Cypress, Seal Beach and Los Alamitos come

together. The city of Huntington Beach is easily within the flight

impact area of this air base and emergency preparedness center.

The Bush Administration is pushing for a new “base closure and

realignment” round, and it is important for people in the region to

come together behind saving the Joint Forces Training Base.

Not only is the base home to units of the California National

Guard, but it also serves as the regional hub for statewide emergency

services for seven counties in Southern California. In the event of a

terrorist attack, natural disaster or other emergency, all state

emergency operations would be run out of the base.

In a time of global conflict in which National Guard forces

comprise a huge percentage of active duty combat personnel, we need

to keep our flexibility of action available. The Joint Forces

Training Base gives our military the real estate it needs to mobilize

a force quickly and bring in the airlift needed to dispatch personnel

or supplies.

While the base closure process is a federal affair, it is

important for leaders and community members to come together to make

the case for a given base. I think Harman is right to lead the fight

locally to save the Joint Force Training Base and we should join with

him, with our Congressman and other officials to preserve this

important regional and national military base.

WILLIAM R. “BILL” ORTON

Costa Mesa

Take three people and call me in the morning

I find it rather sad that it has to revert to residents to help

the City Council and City Hall clean itself up, when they’re supposed

to be doing a job for us.

I don’t really think there’s anybody over there that’s honest

enough to do the job. Ex-mayor Cathy Green says we shouldn’t blame

all of them, that they wouldn’t let this happen, but they’ve been

letting things happen -- from spending $40,000 for three pieces of

rock on Pacific Coast Highway to just not getting the streets

properly done, not getting things clean, ignoring the south side of

Huntington Beach.

So it appears to me that there should be some kind of three-person

panel, and when I say three-person, I don’t mean somebody elected. I

mean somebody who’s idiotic enough to want to help to do this, to

help to keep the City Council and City Hall in line.

They’re just messing up the city. It’s like we’re living in

Fernwood. Either that or everyone in City Hall should give every

resident a box of aspirin for all the eye clicking and head rolling

we’re doing as we listen to the City Council.

PAT MCGRAW

Huntington Beach

Home can be where Depot is

I’m in favor of Home Depot. I don’t think there will be that much

traffic between Kmart and Home Depot, particularly in view of the

fact they have more room.

ROBERT SMITH

Huntington Beach