MAILBAG - Oct. 21, 2006

Hope for clean campaign side-swiped

As a woman, I was delighted to see that six female candidates, including one incumbent, were running for half the council seats up for election in Newport Beach. And I fully expected that these candidates would bring a new sensibility to campaigning and issues facing our community.

What I didn’t expect was that District 4 candidates ended up more concerned about being in (or avoiding) the headlines and focusing their time (and ours) on issues that have little or no bearing on the level of skill and expertise they bring to the table to solve our city’s issues and set a vision for our future.

In an election with issues that impact the quality of life for each and every Newport resident (land use, traffic, development, open space, affordability of services, etc.), why do we make it so easy for candidates to run a negative campaign rather than an informative campaign that addresses real issues? Why is it more rewarding to cast doubt on a contender than have a real dialogue with opponents and constituents?

This is the type of old-school politics I had hoped were behind us by now, at least in city government, at least in this election. Guess I had hoped for too much.

KAREN TRINGALI

Corona del Mar

No surprise mayor’s support comes from outside of city

I smell a rat — a rat of the green persuasion. It comes as no surprise to me that most of the money Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor has raised for his campaign has been donated by people who live outside of Costa Mesa. The people of this community do not care for him that much, which will be definitively determined on Nov. 7.

LIZ MCNABB

Costa Mesa

Newport will be surrounded by traffic, Measure X or not

On my daily 2-mile walk through my Corona del Mar neighborhood, I passed a sign reading “Vote Yes on Measure X — Stop Traffic.” I shook my head. Newport Beach residents don’t understand that our traffic can be stopped only by putting up a wall around the city. So much of our traffic comes from people driving through our city.

As I continued my walk, a horn sounded and I saw the driver wave at me. I immediately recognized the driver — the head of a firm who lives in Laguna Beach and works in Irvine. He was driving to work right through Newport Beach — up Pacific Coast Highway, up Marguerite Avenue, along San Joaquin Hills Road, then onto MacArthur Boulevard.

Then a thought struck me. If a new office building were built in Newport Beach and his firm moved into it, he would drive from Laguna into Newport Beach and stop here, thus cutting his contribution to our traffic in half.

No, Measure X is no answer. As long as the cities to the south, north and west of us continue to grow, traffic will increase. Reducing development in Newport Beach, the goal of Measure X, will do little except to hurt our economy — and maybe worsen traffic.

MARTIN A. BROWER

Corona del Mar