Don’t let history repeat, City Council I...

Don’t let history repeat, City Council

I am absolutely mystified at the Costa Mesa City Council’s

decision to close the Job Center. Has anybody told the council

members what life was like in the Westside of Costa Mesa before the

Job Center opened?

I lived at the end of West 19th Street from 1984 to 1989, and I

remember seeing dozens of men, every day, waiting at the corner of

19th Street and Placentia Avenue for somebody to pick them up and

give them some kind of work.

They spilled out into the street, the police were a constant

presence, and many of the local merchants shut down or saw a dramatic

drop in sales because of all the men loitering in front of their

shops.

When the Job Center opened in 1988, these crowds suddenly went

away, as they finally had a place to go.

Does the City Council really believe these men won’t return to

19th and Placentia, or to Lions Park, or to the Home Depot, or to

Armstrong’s nursery, or to many other public areas in and around the

Westside when the Job Center closes?

Do they really believe the police won’t spend many times the

$100,000 it takes to fund the Job Center just to control these areas?

Do they really believe the problem is solved?

Don’t believe that history won’t repeat itself, just because you

want it to be so. Keep the Job Center open.

STEVE JOSLIN

Newport Beach

Racism is not the reason for changes

Oh, please! The race card is now being played by some who profit

from down-scale conditions on the Westside. These slum profiteers are

afraid that Costa Mesa is going to be improved so that their

other-side-of-the-tracks cash cow will be taken away.

Remember, the city isn’t talking about using eminent domain or

even redevelopment on the Westside.

All that is being proposed is to get government out of the way so

free market forces can work their magic. How horrible!

However, the anti-improvement types don’t want good, old-fashioned

American free market conditions. They want to be protected by

government through various zoning codes and land-use regulations that

keep improvement from happening, and they want government to fund

things -- such as the Job Center -- that help keep the Westside as

slum central.

Instead of running facts and statistics about the condition of

Costa Mesa that objectively show why we need improvement, the Daily

Pilot appears to want to run fact-free, knee-jerk, subjective,

opinion columns from know-nothings, illegal-immigrant advocates and

out-of-towners with agendas, who tell readers -- after you strip away

the phony verbiage -- that we shouldn’t do anything to make Costa

Mesa a nicer place for citizens because illegal immigrants and

various special interests may be inconvenienced.

These improvement obstructionists should go tell that to the

family of a long time Pilot employee who was murdered in Costa Mesa

by an illegal immigrant, or to the parents of the 16-year-old girl who was murdered by an illegal immigrant. They should go tell that to

the victims of the gangs in the city or to the parents who are

fleeing Costa Mesa because the school scores are so low.

Costa Mesa is a coastal-close community, not an inner city. We

should be trending more like Newport Beach -- with whom we share a

school district -- than cities such as Santa Ana. And, we would be

trending more like Newport Beach if the heavy hand of government were

removed from our backs.

Costa Mesa is down in the dumps and we need to improve this city

for citizens. Citizens should not be kept from improving our city

because illegal immigrants, and industrial and business owners from

Newport Beach, who make money off the backs of illegal immigrants,

feel that a nicer Costa Mesa will ruin their little game.

America is a free country and citizens of all races and

ethnicities can live wherever they can afford to live. I’d like to

live on Balboa, but I can’t afford it. Are the people of Balboa

racists because I can’t afford to live there?

It is time that Costa Mesa take its rightful place as the Shining

City on the Hill. This means that we need to allow free market forces

to work to improve the Westside. To do this we need to get government

out of the business of running a job center and out of the business

of protecting out of town industrial interests by letting them keep a

stranglehold on the Westside via out of date industrial zoning.

It may not be sexy, and despite the implications found in a number

of columns in the Pilot, Costa Mesa doesn’t require dark, racist

forces and secret cabals to improve things. It just has to be allowed

to seek its own level as a coastal-close community.

Closing the Job Center and putting in a residential overlay over

the vast industrial zone squatting on our view bluffs are steps in

the right direction so free-market forces can work.

M. H. MILLARD

Costa Mesa

Drug dogs are

nothing to snarl about

I see no problem with the dogs on campus. That’s ridiculous that

the American Civil Liberties Union is opposed. We could do without

those people.

The thing is, these kids are not stupid. They can’t search the

body or the backpack, so they’ll keep them in their backpacks.

So, if they go by the lockers and cars, that might help. If they

have nothing to hide there wouldn’t be a problem with letting them

search you with a dog.

BOB HOFFMAN

Newport Beach

My husband Howard and I are both retired teachers, and we

definitely agree that drug-sniffing dogs should be allowed to sniff

our schools.

ROSE MCVICKER

Costa Mesa

I am definitely for the drug-sniffing dogs on campuses. I am a

great-grandmother of six, and a grandmother. I know all about the

schools and their drug problems.

FLO HOLZGRAF

Newport Beach

Keep drug-sniffing dogs out of schools

I absolutely disagree with having drug-sniffing dogs search

campuses for drugs.

Why in the world would you turn children into suspects because of

a few bad apples who may or may not bring drugs onto campus?

It’s ridiculous and should not be tolerated. Kids go to school to

learn, not to dodge drug-sniffing dogs and police officers.

ROBERT DICKSON

Costa Mesa