MAILBAG - April 27, 2006

Fond memories of ‘Gibby’ Fernandez

For many years, my wife and I enjoyed dinner nearly every Thursday at the Arches. Gibby always had a rose for my wife except for one evening. The next day he came by the house with a rose saying he was sorry he had forgotten.

One evening at the Arches, he came to our table with a friend of his from World War II and introduced us with, “Loraine was in the service, but Bob wasn’t. He was in the Air Force.” Just another fond memory of his wit. He was a very special gentleman.

BOB and LORAINE CAMPBELL

Mesa Verde

Get work going underground now

We read Byron de Arakal’s Watchdog column on April 16 about underground utilities in Costa Mesa. We, of course, want a safe city with excelling schools, and we assume those are priorities that most likely are from different allocations of money than the utility work.

We do not know who took the survey the city did, but no one asked us. Not one neighbor or friend we know had even heard of this survey. We believe any survey can slant an outcome, and pitting crime prevention and education against an entirely different issue is doing just that. A positive view is that property values will increase as our city is updated, which means more tax money.

Opinions differ, but our City Council is listening, and we have asked for underground utilities.

KEITH and LOIS RAFFEL

Costa Mesa

Safety over cost in burying utility lines

I believe underground electrical, phone and cable wiring would be a big improvement for Costa Mesa. The ugly power pole and overhead cabling in our city labels us as being old and poor and not worthy of better. Costa Mesa is an enterprising, forward-looking city with a strong tax base and it deserves to look its best. A city that is clean and well cared for attracts the highest levels of businesses, industry and citizens. This, of course, increases property values and the tax revenue base for the city.

There is safety in underground utilities. In an auto accident involving a power pole, live electrical wires may result in electrical shock (or electrocution) or fire. We have electrical power lines running along our back property line and our neighbor’s palm tree fronds would sometimes touch the power lines. The fronds would then ignite and fall to the ground like spears of fire from heaven. The neighbor had to eventually remove the beautiful palm tree. We have also had power interruptions from lightning and autos crashing into utility poles.

I think we should continue to pursue plans to place all our pole-mounted utilities underground. This should be doable without affecting other important issues such as immigration policy or Westside improvements. Yes there is a cost issue, but it should be manageable. A reasonable assessment for individual private properties would be comparable to other improvements such as house painting or landscaping.

However, some financial support from the city may be needed. Utilities on public property of course must be done with tax revenue.

CHARLES GROVE

Costa Mesa

Mayor’s plan is an affront to justice system

Mayor Allan Mansoor’s justification for his ill-conceived immigration enforcement plan, as he stated in response to student walkouts, is that it will take illegal immigrant offenders off the street.

This is an insult to the numerous public servants who work in the criminal justice system. Since when is a criminal allowed to walk free on account of his or her illegal status? The mayor has been employed by the Orange County jails for many years; doesn’t he have at least a vague idea of what it takes to release a dangerous individual on the streets? Besides, deporting a criminal carries the very real risk that his or her home country release him or her and that he or she comes back.

What the mayor and the Costa Mesa City Council have achieved, though, is to pit sections of the community against one another and scare some Latino residents to the point that they don’t even shop in Costa Mesa anymore. This flies in the face of the old principle that the government exists to serve the common good and defuse conflicts, while never challenging science or reason.

The true promise of the mayor and City Council’s plan is a combination of a degradation of police services and a simultaneous increase in their costs, which they are starting to quantify only now and under pressure. In the private sector, this degree of deliberate mismanagement usually gets heads rolling.

Better watch which corporations will finance Mansoor’s reelection campaign this fall.

DANIEL A. NOËL

Costa Mesa

Homeland Security must secure homeland

When asked why he robbed banks, famous Depression-era thief John Dillinger responded, “Because that’s where the money is.”

Using this same logic, our law enforcement officials every now and then publish announcements about upcoming sobriety checkpoints. Usually they are at Newport Boulevard and Flower or Broadway. Why there?

There can only be one reason. In the parlance of our Air Force “Top Gun” fighter pilots it’s obviously because these intersections are a “target-rich environment.”

If Dillinger could do it successfully, and our police can do it successfully, I’ve got a question: Why can’t our Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials bother to stop by these interminable nationwide pro-immigration marches and check out a few documents? And since immigration is a department of Homeland Security, doesn’t it make you feel just a little bit less safe knowing that I thought of this and they didn’t? Could it be they’ve chosen to enforce some laws and not others?

It seems these protesters have chosen to obey some laws and not others. I’m going to spend the next few days deciding which laws I’m going to obey from now on and which I’m simply going to ignore.

After all, it can’t be anarchy if it’s sanctioned by Homeland Security, can it?

CHUCK CASSITY

Costa Mesa

dpt.27-mailbag-gibby-BPhotoInfo9S1QC66320060427ixy2crnc(LA)Gibby Fernandez, right, with Arches restaurant owner Dan Marcheano. Readers Bob and Loraine Campbell write about what a gentleman Fernandez was. He died April 14.