READERS RESPOND

My goodness! Your paper has certainly gone out of its way to do its hatchet job on the mayor of Costa Mesa! Is this what the Return to Reason group is all about? I know several people who have written in on support of the mayor and yet we read nothing in your paper?

I am sick of it! Let us hear the issues and the candidates’ views. Then the people of Costa Mesa can make their decision in November.

JANICE GAMMILL

Costa Mesa

I recently picked up my Daily Pilot and read the Aug. 11 commentary by Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Linda Dixon (“Why we must stop Mansoor”). After reading her tirade I see why we in Costa Mesa must get involved and stop Return to Reason, or better termed, “return to ruin.”

Dixon’s ranting about driving neighbor against neighbor and her attaching it to the program to remove the hard-core criminals from our streets seems to fly in the face of common sense. By eliminating the illegal immigrants that are the hard-core career criminals from our streets, we will make the streets safer for all of the residents in our great city. Furthermore, her shallow attempts to accuse our mayor, Allan Mansoor, of trying to make Costa Mesa a “lily white” community is an embarrassment to all residents of Costa Mesa.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is one of the leading departments in the United States, and the deputies are some of the finest in law enforcement. So in Dixon’s book, being a sheriff’s deputy makes Mansoor a bad person? Dixon failed to show in her comments how she, in her opinion, witnesses his “alleged” callousness and insensitivity at meetings; obviously the mayor doesn’t have time for nonsense, time-wasting-at-work sessions at our council meetings. Thank God we aren’t in Irvine where the council meetings start early in the day, when residents are at work, and many times end at 3 a.m. when they are home in bed! Nice to see some leadership to keep this nonsense out of our city.

In her closing paragraph attempting to use the scare tactic of closing the golf course and parks to our children and link it to the mayor, this smear is humorous at best. These are desperate, flailing words from a very shallow-thinking person who refuses to see that hard decisions are necessary for the future of Costa Mesa. What Dixon and many other “feel good” politicians fail to realize is that it takes a greater individual to make those hard decisions today that will affect the quality of life in Costa Mesa in 10 to 20 years. Just think if the Costa Mesa City Council said no to the Segerstroms in the early 1960s about building a giant indoor mall in Costa Mesa?

Dixon’s tirade of name calling and baseless accusations reeks of a desperate person who is afraid of the truth. What is Dixon hiding? I, too, would be scared if I voted for a $500,000 “bridge to nowhere” in Fairview park that no one uses, except the local taggers. Money might have been better sent on intramural programs for Costa Mesa’s youth!

HOWARD HULL

Costa Mesa

A young man with a promising future is killed and four of his friends are gunned down by a random madman. I have lived in Costa Mesa for 13 years and have read about horrible tragedies, but I cannot recall such a random and senseless act of violence having happened here. What has happened in the ensuing weeks has laid bare the pathetic state of affairs in our wonderful city.

Our mayor, Allan Mansoor, uttered a truly baffling and spectacularly insensitive statement in the aftermath, and the gloves were off. One letter writer, a man who should know better, compared Mansoor’s statement to the shooting itself — going so far as to say that Mansoor’s statement was “no less disgusting” than the death of Israel Maciel. A fellow council member used Maciel’s murder as a convenient introduction to a Mansoor-bashing letter to the Daily Pilot, filled with vitriol about “Minuteman Mansoor’s” alleged efforts to turn Costa Mesa “lily white” and keep kids from playing sports. All of a sudden, the most evil person in this whole situation is our mayor, not the killer.

How pathetic. Each and every person who has used Maciel’s murder as a campaign tool against Mansoor should be deeply, deeply ashamed. The mayor’s statements were inexcusable, and his attempt to lessen their impact fell short. The almost gleeful piling on by his opponents, however, has made me ill. Instead of rising above his shameful statements, his opponents have sunk far lower. My prayers are with the victims’ families and their neighbors. I am truly saddened by their loss.

ROB DICKSON

Costa Mesa

Mayor Allan Mansoor may not have chosen the timing of his words wisely. However, I believe his point is that crimes such as drive-by shootings are more likely to occur in illegal-immigrant neighborhoods. Mansoor’s primary job is to protect and guide the city of Costa Mesa. If his policies result in decreasing the number of illegal immigrants in Costa Mesa, then Costa Mesa will be a safer and better place to live and do business.

I can still recall the beauty of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles — illegal immigrants have turned that area into a crime-ridden slum. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to Costa Mesa.

In his columns, Steve Smith claims that illegal immigrants help small and medium-sized businesses. Laws currently do not allow for the hiring of illegal immigrants yet some businesses prosper by cheating. There are those businesses that play by the rules and pay a good wage, workers’ compensation, Medicare, Social Security, state income taxes and federal income taxes. Those ethical businessmen must compete with the businesses that hire illegal immigrants and consequently have greatly reduced overheads. The ethical businesses suffer a distinct competitive disadvantage and, as a result, will either fail or have greatly reduced profits.

It’s Smith’s pontificating and sensational rhetoric that creates the black and white, “us versus them” scenario. The tone of his writing falsely assumes he has the moral high ground.

Smith just doesn’t get it. The mayor does!

GEORGES ROUDANEZ

Corona del Mar

About the mayor not being sympathetic toward the young person who was killed: I don’t think that’s the case. Now with another shooting, it seems there’s more gang activity in Costa Mesa than ever before. We need to do what the federal government hasn’t done and apprehend these people who think nothing of the law. The neighbors are alarmed and concerned. I think if you have an issue with someone, then talk to them, don’t call the newspaper to complain. Ask them to call and then you can get it straight. Sometimes people say things and someone else misinterprets what they said, and then it’s in the newspaper blasting this council member, that council member. In this city you’re not going to agree with everyone.

You can’t baby-sit these people. If they are here illegally, they should be prosecuted if they commit a crime. You can’t do in other countries what they do here. Try to; you’ll be arrested faster than fast.

JUNE MCKINZIE

Costa Mesa