More investigation?

Alicia Robinson

If Dana Rohrabacher gets what he wants, he may be paying a visit to a

federal prison. The Republican congressman, who represents Costa

Mesa, wants to talk to Terry Nichols, who was convicted in 1997 for

his involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

April 19 was the 10-year anniversary of the 1995 attack on a federal building. Rohrabacher already had been looking into whether a

new congressional investigation into the bombing should be opened,

and news reports Wednesday revealed Nichols has written a letter to a

woman who lost relatives in the bombing claiming that a third man --

along with Nichols and Timothy McVeigh -- had contributed some of the

explosives used in the blast.

“This only suggests to me that I should talk to Terry Nichols, and

what he has to say I should consider when figuring out whether we

should have a major hearing or not,” Rohrabacher said Wednesday.

Rohrabacher also wants to view surveillance tapes from the Alfred

P. Murrah Federal Building that have never been made public. He’s

waiting to hear whether the U.S. Department of Justice will permit

him to see the tapes and talk to Nichols.

“Whether or not we need to have a hearing into this and to take a

really official look into the Oklahoma City bombing will be

determined by how much cooperation we get from the federal government

right now,” Rohrabacher said. “Right now, I have not said that the

government is keeping anything back.”

Taxing the papers that cover the news

Apparently laboring under the assumption that people still read

newspapers, Costa Mesa resident John Feeney provoked laughter and

applause at a City Council meeting Tuesday with the suggestion that

the city tax the Los Angeles Times because the paper suggests raising

taxes and fees is a good idea.

Council members have been considering ways to raise more money for

the city, but Feeney said those would impose taxes on people and

businesses that already pay too much. The Times, he said, seems

always to be supporting increases in taxes and fees.

“I believe in giving people what they want, so what I’m proposing

tonight is that this city impose a tax or a fee on newspapers that

are published or produced in Costa Mesa,” Feeney said.

Despite how he feels about taxes, Feeney chose not to chide

Councilman Gary Monahan, who tried to bring back an emergency-

medical-service subscription program after it was voted down by

council members at a previous meeting. That plan would have charged

all city residents a subscription fee or billed them whenever they

use city medical services, but Monahan’s attempt to resuscitate it

failed.

Great Park gets Newport judges

You can call them traitors, but they’ll probably ignore you. Two

Newport Beach architects have been chosen to serve on a panel that

will help select a landscape architecture firm to design Irvine’s

Great Park, which will be built on the former El Toro Marine Corps

Air Station. George Bissell of Newport’s Bissell Architects and Dan

Heinfeld of Irvine firm LPA are among seven people who will weed a

field of 38 firms down to six finalists, all hoping to design the

Great Park.

Bissell wanted to help choose a planner for what he said is

“probably the biggest planning project that will ever happen in

Orange County.” Some Newport-Mesa residents wanted to see an airport

on the former military base to ease growing pains at John Wayne

Airport, but Orange County voters in 2002 opted for the Great Park.

The development will include homes and retail and industrial parcels,

but much of the land was set aside as open space.

Bissell and Heinfeld said they’re excited to be part of the

planning for the Great Park, and they’re keeping out of the lingering

political debate over how the land should be used.

“It’s not going to be an airport,” Heinfeld said. “You can sit

around and cry about it, but that train has left.”