MAILBAG - May 25, 2006

City hall should reflect Newport’s history

Being a fortunate heir to property in Newport Beach (Balboa to be exact) since 1927 and living here mostly during the summer (now permanently), I am very aware of how important it is to have affection and pride in our beautiful city.

With our centennial fast approaching, it is clearly making a statement of continuity and pride of treasures and locations of past times. Our location of the present City Hall is about as close as one can get to being the birthplace of our fair city. Somehow the Newport Center Drive location doesn’t seem appropriate for the next generations to point out as the city hall of Newport Beach. Where is the tradition?

Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not against growth. Our future generations will be well aware of the growth in all locations. We have a legacy here, let’s don’t throw it away. Sometimes it takes a few “old timers” to keep tradition alive. There are many excellent books on the history of our area. Do we want a future chapter to describe our new City Hall as being closer to Irvine? Please, let’s keep our treasured location with a new building and an appropriate one!

RUTH GARSTONE

Balboa Peninsula

Newport Center makes sense for city hall

Clearly a new city hall at the Newport Center site makes the most sense.

The center of the city is no longer West Newport but rather the Newport Center area. Relocating to this 10-acre available site, if done right, could result in not only a new city hall but a wonderful civic center that could combine, fire, police, a cultural arts center and some open space on the same property. It appears that the Irvine Co. is willing to do a land swap for the present city hall site, which makes it economically feasible. We could even put Donald Bren’s name on it as part of the swap!

TOM BILLINGS

Newport Beach

Taggers are like gang members

As a teacher at ACCESS, the county’s alternative high school program, I take exception with your story Saturday “Cops: Graffiti increase isn’t gang-related” since you have your graffiti facts all wrong. I have spent the last 15 years covering up graffiti in Santa Ana and in Costa Mesa. Taggers have much to do with gangs. They are their own gang, just maybe not the Latino territorial ones that mark territory with hastily applied spray paint. But their gang is also a bunch of misfit juveniles looking to make a mark and not usually writing with artistic expression in mind. And like the gangsters, they are getting more aggressive and more competitive as their numbers grow. Their tags promote more graffiti since other taggers cross them out in a non-ending cycle.

Taggers are similar to gangsters in that they are frequently poor performing students, not into extracurricular activities but most possess hard working, concerned parents. I am constantly amazed that both gang and tagger parents don’t have a clue as to where their kids are and what they are doing because the vandalism is usually done in the middle of the night. And just like the gangsters, taggers when caught, fined, prosecuted and put on probation will continue to do more graffiti. Graffiti vandalism from a tagging crew is the same as that attributed to gangs. Graffiti is graffiti, no matter who is to blame.

My solution? As part of their probation, make caught offenders clean up graffiti until they’re 25.

LISA LOCKE

Costa Mesa

Garlich deserves credit on lighting issue

Bruce Garlich, a Costa Mesa planning commissioner, deserves credit for imaginative thinking about portable lighting for athletic fields.

After a recent public meeting Garlich asked me if I thought that the city might be able to induce the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to resume allowing portable lighting at some of the district’s fields if the city could come up with state of the art equipment which would overcome the district’s concerns about liability for use of older, outdated equipment.

In the past the district was concerned about students becoming injured when coming into contact with large generating units which were being left on the fields when not in use.

On checking with staffers at City Hall, I have learned that new and much smaller technology is available.

One product has a tripod-mounted fixture and generator small enough to be transported in the trunk of an auto. It can be carried on and off the field by one person and set in operation in a very short time. This equipment would enable the City to light the field as needed and to completely clear the field of the equipment within a few minutes of the end of the athletic activity.

DAVID J. STILLER

Costa Mesa