Where’s the outrage over El Toro? The...

Where’s the outrage over El Toro?

The attempt to let El Morro residents stay in their seaside homes

by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who received $66,000 in campaign

donations, affects relatively few people. His actions generated a

number of letters to the Daily Pilot.

Christopher Cox’s successful efforts to prevent an airport at El

Toro negatively affects millions of people. His bragging that the

U.S. government received $1 million per acre ( red herring ) means

nothing. I don’t care if they got $50 million per acre. I’m not

saying that he has been paid off, but why would he work so hard to

prevent El Toro Airport to the detriment of so many people?

What other logical conclusion can be offered? Where are the

letters of outrage in this sad case?

JAMES PECK

Newport Beach

Many will be hurt

by Job Center closure

I am outraged by the shortsighted, and frankly, bigoted vote to

close the Costa Mesa Job Center. On the usual 3-2 vote, boys against

girls, the Costa Mesa City Council has taken us backward 17 years to

a time when people looking for an honest day’s work had to walk the

streets like prostitutes.

Not only did the job center provide an economic interest to the

city, matching workers with employers, but it also improved safety

for our residents. When we send the day laborers back to street

walking, will you really know who that is getting into your car to

help you clear brush from your hillside?

At the job center you did. Now that the Costa Mesa Police will be

spending a larger part of their time enforcing traffic and street

solicitation laws as a result of the closure, they will not be able

to respond as quickly to traffic accidents and crime. Expect an

increase in petty crimes from those no longer able to find day jobs,

but who are determined not to see their children go hungry.

In the long run, the costs to the city will be higher without the

job center than the cost of running it. So who wins by the closure?

Developers who know that “Westside Redevelopment” is the city’s code

word for driving out manufacturing businesses and moderate income

housing. They want to replace our city’s balance of jobs and

middle-class housing with a vision of a sterile “Spyglass Hill-Lite.”

For now, greed and bigotry have found common cause in closing the

job center and increasing the misery of honest people just trying to

get by.

RICHARD GILLOCK

Costa Mesa

Parking proposal has questionable motives

Passing St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on the way to work

recently, I observed the common “No student parking today sign” and

reflected on the evening of March 8, 2005 when the Newport Mesa

Unified School District board met regarding St. Andrew’s proposed

long-term lease of the Newport Harbor High School parking lot.

I was a bit mixed up at this meeting because St. Andrew’s leaders

wanted a lease but kept on saying the $3.5 million consideration they

were proposing to pay was not just the cost to lease, but mostly for

the rehab and enlargement of the parking lot.

The contractors they talked to said the rehab of the parking lot

could cost anywhere from $2.1 million to $3 million, figures with a

large spread that had no verification from a written estimate or any

contractor present at the meeting.

St. Andrews then went on to say that if the school board managed

the project correctly, the board would have a surplus of

approximately $500,000 to $1.5 million for the betterment of the

school. When was the last time you saw a construction project in

today’s day and age come in under budget? I would venture to say the

board would be lucky to come out with any excess money and what’s

amazing is St. Andrews is not really offering to lease the property.

What they are offering is money to improve and enlarge a parking

lot (by 80 parking spaces) that they will use and have control of for

50 years.

That means that Harbor High will not be able to expand, build or

modify that land for 50 years and every school board for the next

five decades will have their hands tied regarding that land. I know

that St. Andrew’s called it a 30-year lease with four five-year

options, but who in their right mind would not exercise an option on

land for free?

Yes for free.

There is no additional consideration for any of those options. As

a matter of fact, there is no expense associated with the options or

the initial lease term. No taxes, maintenance or insurance. The

taxpayers will take care of the expenses while the congregation uses

the taxpayer’s asset for 50 years.

Even if there is some kind of betterment money for the school, the

economics of the lease boil down to this: St. Andrew’s gets to use

and control a piece of prime real estate in one of the most affluent

neighborhoods in the country for a minimum of five to six cents per

square foot with no increases and no expenses for 50 years. Here is

the best part.

This lease is the only contingency that the Newport Beach planning

commission required for a general plan amendment permitting St.

Andrew’s a massive expansion of their church.

I have lived in the immediate neighborhood for the past 19 years

and the Newport Harbor High School parking problem was always there.

Why hasn’t St. Andrew’s been so generous before this?

Because there was nothing in it for them. The church says it will

give the school the money even if the Planning Commission turns the

expansion down. The Planning Commission has already said if St.

Andrew’s gets the parking, they would allow the expansion.

How about St. Andrew’s offering the money in the name of school

and neighborhood betterment without the caveat of their proposed

leasehold? The expansion is not to help neighbors or the school but a

business decision driven strictly for survival. At a prior Planning

Commission meeting, St. Andrew’s leaders admitted to losing

membership. Why expand when membership is down?

The reason is to compete. They need to compete with the churches

that have expanded to locations that were meant to handle the

traffic, noise and crowds. St. Andrew’s current location was never

meant to have a massive church, parking or no parking.

I implore the school board to deny the lease, which would create

more traffic, noise, safety and security problems in the

neighborhood. It is all about the church expansion, not about the

parking.

A Benevolent gift?

No it’s a smoking deal for St. Andrews and for St. Andrew’s only,

for now and for decades to come.

FRANK ADLER

Newport Beach