At least make decision on St. Andrew’s

It could have been easy to turn my back on the people who were asking

for my help. They live in Newport Beach, and all of Newport Beach --

or so it seemed -- was ready to tar and feather me for my failure to

support an airport at El Toro.

Since I have no evidence that any of the current crop of

Newporters was among those who voiced their disgust, and since I

wasn’t ready to start a guilt-by-association war, I have to just let

it go.

Not that it would have mattered. Supporting or opposing a request

by St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church to expand by an additional 21,000

square feet is an issue that should be decided on its own merits, not

based on whether someone thought you were a rat for not supporting

their pet issue months or years before.

On the expansion, I still have a couple of questions.

First, I’m still waiting for an answer to the question I posed a

few months ago. I want to know from the church how many new

parishioners they want or expect to attract as a result of the

expansion. That, to me, is the true measure of the expansion’s

effects.

Do they expect 1,000 new members? Ten thousand? Five hundred? And

how will they get in and out of the church?

What I don’t expect to hear is that no new members are to be

added.

There’s another issue too. I attended an expansion debate at

Newport Harbor High School earlier this year, during which the

renovation of the high school’s parking lot was offered up by the

church. In exchange, the church wanted to use the parking lot in

off-hours for the next 50 years.

I would almost swear that in that meeting I heard the church offer

the remodeled parking lot regardless of whether the expansion was

approved. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Maybe someone who

was at the meeting could set me straight.

Well, Thursday night it could all be over, except the cryin’. The

Newport Beach City Council is set to discuss the matter, and there

may even be a final decision. Bring your defibrillator in case the

City Council appears to be headed for a vote.

Or don’t. This issue has been kicked around more times than a

football.

After considerable thought, my opinion is that the expansion

should be denied. The bottom line for me is that an additional 21,000

square feet is just too much of a facility for the space it is

occupying. It’s like trying to stuff 10 pounds of mud in a five-pound

sack.

The preservation of a very nice neighborhood should be the first

consideration of the City Council. The expansion, while it may not

destroy the neighborhood, will undoubtedly create an ebb and flow of

people and cars that is too much for the streets and residents to

handle.

My unsolicited advice to the church -- if it still wants to move

if a permit is denied -- is to move to another location, someplace

where a facility that size will blend in more with the surroundings.

No, I am not thinking of the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in

Huntington Beach.

The church will not fail if it moves. Yes, it is likely to lose

some members, but it is also likely to pick some up, wherever they

land.

In the meantime, there is some healing to be done. Having

residents picket a church before a Sunday morning service, as they

did over the weekend, is not good public relations; it is not the

image one wants to be stuck with.

I hope that when all is said and done, that is, when everything

has been decided and the appeals exhausted, that the church and the

locals will get along as they have for years, regardless of who has

won.

Now, will someone please grow a spine and decide this thing?

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer.

Readers may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at

(714) 966-4664 or send story ideas to o7dailypilot@latmes.com.

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