MAILBAG - Oct. 7, 2006

Councilman Ridgeway needs to apologize

I have no desire or reason to take sides in the he-said-she-said story in the Sept. 29 Daily Pilot, “Official denies bullying guard,” the official in question being Newport Beach Councilwoman Leslie Daigle.

What blew me away was the reported comment by Councilman Tod Ridgeway that even if what Fernando Ospina, the guard at Corona del Mar High School, said about the incident were true, it did not impugn her integrity and her ability to be a council person.

Does Ridgeway not realize that if the incident as reported were true, it would cast Daigle as a racist bully, unfit to govern in any public capacity, at least in Newport Beach?

I am perfectly willing to give Daigle the benefit of the doubt and the presumption of innocence, absent any further corroborating evidence beyond he-said-she-said. However, Ridgeway needs to apologize to the community for his ill-advised and by implication at least, racist comments.

I do not believe that the people of Newport Beach want their elected officials to go around bullying and threatening people of apparent Latino origin with deportation because the official can’t get their way.

Absent an apology, a recall petition on Ridgeway would be in order.

JAMSHED H. DASTUR

Balboa Island

Curfews, regulations should be enforced

I want visitors to feel welcome at Newport’s beaches, but I certainly think they need to obey the reasonable curfews that have been established, use the trash cans provided and follow the speed limits on our residential streets.

Bayside Drive and Ocean Boulevard turn into drag strips from 10 p.m. to the early morning hours. I can hear the squealing tires and gunned engines. Please, during the summer and on weekends year round, let’s clear the beaches at 10 p.m. and keep some officers patrolling around for a couple of hours after closing to get everyone home safely.

Permits won’t help us unless there is follow-up and consequences.

I think it will be better to enforce the safeguards we already have before establishing new ones that can just be ignored with impunity. Littering, speeding, vandalism and drinking in public are the cause of many resident complaints. The last I heard, these are already illegal.

Call me crazy, but I think if half the violators who commit these offenses were ticketed, our city coffers might just overflow. Especially if we started to fine for littering.

I don’t feel the residents of Newport Beach should be burdened with picking up the tab for out-of-town visitors, or even for local scofflaws. Obviously, someone has to pay for sanitation and police services, and it should be the people who abuse the beaches and cause the problems.

Let’s not cast a blanket of blame on those visitors who come to appreciate and respect the coast.

On the other hand, let’s make sure that those who come to sully and spoil it understand that there will be penalties and that they will pay them.

TERRY SENKO

Corona del Mar