READERS RESPOND

I am incensed over Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor’s comments regarding Wednesday’s drive-by shooting in Costa Mesa (Voices, Friday). How about some sympathy for this young man’s family and our community, which has to cope with this violence? Or maybe some assurances that our police department will do everything in its power to arrest the perpetrator. Instead, we get finger pointing and political mumbo-jumbo. Do we really want someone who is this plebeian to be the head of our city? I cannot wait until November when he is gone!

LIZABETH MCNABB

Mesa Verde

As a longtime Costa Mesa resident, I was saddened by the news of the drive-by shooting. However, I was appalled by the comments of our mayor. Hopefully all residents will remember to vote in November’s council race.

KATHLEEN COX

Costa Mesa

I must admit that I was impressed to read our mayor’s comments in Friday’s paper. I had thought that Mayor Allan Mansoor was worrying about the wrong issues in Costa Mesa when he spearheaded the drive to eliminate the human relations commission, close the job center and direct our local law enforcement officers to get involved with enforcing the current failed U.S. immigration policy. But I didn’t realize just what an excellent amateur detective Mansoor is. Despite the fact that our police officers reportedly don’t have any clues as to whom the gunman is or why he shot at the men in an alley of the 1300 block of West Baker Street, Mansoor has decided that the gunman is a gang member who, by implication from his other quoted comments, was one of the illegal immigrant workers who frequented the job center, ate at local soup kitchens, lived in a local downscale rental unit and probably had contact with an ineffective social worker. I guess that this desperate individual must have driven down to the job center earlier in the day, found out that it had been closed and got so enraged that he decided to drive up to an alley off Baker Street and just shoot someone.

My question is this: Is Mansoor an excellent criminal profiler or is he just projecting his own personal prejudices into everything that he says and does?

PAUL KELLY

Costa Mesa

If you thought that Mayor Allan Mansoor could not possibly sink any deeper into insensitive political demagoguery or racial stereotypes, take another look at his response to last week’s tragic, senseless killing.

Instead of compassion and sensitivity for the grieving family, the mayor rants about job centers, soup kitchens and “downscale rental units,” and he calls for stronger gang enforcement. Setting aside that there is no reported evidence that the killing was gang-related, if gang enforcement is so important, why did the mayor vote against a proposal for a proven, enhanced anti-gang program that was supported by police professionals? In your wildest dreams could you imagine the mayor making the same remarks if the victim had been a white college student instead of a hardworking Latino surf shop worker?

Shame on you, Allan Mansoor.

STEVE DZIDA

Costa Mesa

Steve Dzida is the spokesman for Return to Reason, a political group that has endorsed candidates opposing Mansoor in the fall City Council election.

That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. In his term on the City Council, Allan Mansoor has repeatedly disrespected a large portion of the residents of this city and brought shame upon us all. But as if to mock that there were any more lines to cross, he’s gone and outdone himself with his response to the shooting that happened last week. He actually had the nerve to blame the victims, saying “when you have job centers, soup kitchens and a high concentration of downscale rental units, it drives the city down ? “

Are you kidding me? I live in the neighborhood adjacent to where the shooting occurred ? a neighborhood that has an active Neighborhood Watch and homeowners’ association, and has won numerous awards for community spirit. Those “downscale rental units” are right across the street (literally a stone’s throw), and they may not look pretty, but they provide affordable housing for the hardworking families who live there. These families are Mansoor’s forgotten constituents.

He couldn’t even muster some momentary sincerity to express sympathy for the families who have been brutalized by this event. Mansoor should finally have the nerve to say what he really wants for Costa Mesa ? a whites-and-upperclasses-only zone.

Shame on you. You’ve certainly motivated this resident to get out and vote in the next election. Good riddance.

TRAE DIEDE

Costa Mesa

I was just reading the story about the Baker Street shooting, and the one thing that stood out the most was Mayor Allan Mansoor’s comments. I could not believe what I was reading, although it shouldn’t have surprised me.

How is a drive-by shooting that killed a young man linked to job centers and soup kitchens? When he makes a statement like that, along with all his other actions and comments lately, one has to truly wonder what our mayor’s true intentions are with his immigration policy and his term as mayor in general. He claims over and over that his immigration policy has nothing to do with race; yet he basically is saying that somehow this young man’s death is related to the job center, which was closed due to the many “illegals” who used it. Is our mayor saying that all of Costa Mesa’s Latinos are not only illegal but are the only ones who use the soup kitchen and who used the job center? Unless he has checked every single Latino’s papers, he can’t put an entire group of people into one category. The last time I drove by the soup kitchen, a high percentage of the people in the line were white males, most of whom look like the same guys I see sleeping on benches or in Lions Park ? that’s a whole other story we never seem to hear about, though.

The way he is running the city has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal ? it’s just wrong. I’ve lived in Costa Mesa for 20 years now and I’m raising a family here, and I always tell people it’s the best city in .Orange County because it’s diverse and has art, music, shopping, a nearby beach and freeway.

I’ve always been proud to say I’m from Costa Mesa. We cannot just get rid of a group of people in our city, despite the fact that some people would love to.

Mansoor is able to use this newspaper as his sounding board anytime someone says something he doesn’t like, and when someone brings up the fact that some of his policies may have some racial overtones, he gets defensive.

I really hope that come election time the people of Costa Mesa of all backgrounds wake up and really think and realize how much your local elections really do affect your day-to-day lives, and not get stuck on one issue such as immigration. That to me is just one of the many issues I see Mansoor and his followers bringing up; there will be many more if he wins come election time.

PATRICK GRINDSTAFF

Costa Mesa