Keep those letters coming, readers

I owe a small debt of thanks to a few Daily Pilot readers for helping me get back on track with a couple of local issues.

The first “thank you” goes to Patricia Babineau of Newport Beach, whose letter to the editor was published on May 27.

In the letter, Babineau quotes a recent published commentary by Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor in which Mansoor wrote these words about the January 2006 closure of the city’s job center: “There was some loitering when it was open, and there is no more loitering now, and even less in some places.”

Babineau goes on to say that she had just driven down the Placentia Avenue area where the job center is located and she counted 12 men standing around loitering, also known as waiting for jobs.

Readers may recall that almost every weekend in January and February of this year, I drove or rode my bicycle down Placentia Avenue to witness the effects of the job center closure.

Each Saturday morning I was there, there were dozens of men loitering both at the old job center site and at Placentia and 19th Street. After reading Mansoor’s commentary, I made a mental note that perhaps it took a little while but maybe closing the job center worked after all. With everything else going on, I forgot about the mental note until Babineau’s letter. Then I decided to do a follow-up to my earlier two-month study.

Last Saturday, May 27, I rode my bike down Placentia Avenue at 8 a.m. Nothing had changed since I rode by three months earlier.

At the corner of Victoria Avenue and Placentia, I counted 23 men. Down the street at the old job center location, there were 21 men.

One of several things has happened. Either Mansoor is relying on bad information given to him, or he is willingly misleading the city’s residents, or he believes that 44 men hanging out on Placentia is “no more loitering.”

Doesn’t matter which scenario you choose, it indicates a mayor who is out of touch with the issue.

The mayor is wrong. There is still plenty of loitering and you have more than my first-hand experience to prove it.

Closing the job center was a mistake, the consequences of which are exceeded only by a mayor whose ego prevents him from admitting it.

It’s not just Mansoor. He may have led the charge, but Councilmen Eric Bever and Gary Monahan also voted to close the job center.

The other readers I want to acknowledge are Bob Reno and Lenard Davis of Newport Beach who reminded me that the current location of the Newport Beach City Hall would make a good location for the new city hall.

There isn’t a location in the city of Newport Beach that will satisfy everyone.

But more than that is the one reason for staying put mentioned by Bob Reno: “We own it.”

Reno was referring to the land under the building and it seems that with the cost of a new city hall rising as fast as the summer crowds, rebuilding on the current site is the best option.

Finally, there is a huge “thank you” to reader Tom Williams for two things.

First, I have no doubt that he made both Daily Pilot columnist Joe Bell and me laugh at the same time, which is no small feat.

Second, Williams reminded me that it is very important not to take ourselves too seriously.

Wrote Williams: “As long as Bell and his liberal cohort Steve Smith have a monopoly on the political discourse in this town, everything is just hunky-dory with Bell.”

That’s the second time this month I have been called a liberal, a fact that has brought much amusement to our home.

So, Tom Williams, thank you. And thanks to everyone else who takes a few moments out of their busy days to write to the editor. Those commentaries are one of the best features of this newspaper.

That, and the mayor’s latest hilarious day laborer counts.