FROM THE NEWSROOM:Here’s to Sid, who sought justice

I’ll never forget the first time I met Sid Soffer. And the last.

The first time I met him was about 1991, and it was also the first time I was covering a Costa Mesa City Council meeting.

Public comments were just about to wrap up when this guy with a plain white T-shirt and jeans, white hair and white Santa Claus-style beard walked up to the microphone.

“So I was paid a visit by Costa Mesa’s finest again this week,” he told the council. He was more than a tad angry about what had transpired on his property and with his cars, so he forewarned them how he was going to exact revenge.

He noted that he had the right, as a citizen, to comment on each and every item that was before the council that night. If it was a routine item about say, council stationery, he was going to chime in.

Not knowing Sid, I didn’t think much of the threat. But that was a big mistake, because chime in he did on every item.

On each of those council items, he asked the city attorney or the city manager to give him a lengthy, detailed explanation of why the decision was being made and how much they were spending on it.

As you can imagine, that City Council meeting went deep into the wee hours of the next morning.

So I didn’t really have fond memories of my first Costa Mesa City Council meeting.

Thanks, Sid.

But my encounters with Soffer were just beginning. I learned later that he was a fairly regular news topic on the Daily Pilot front pages, especially when it concerned his old cars and his neighbors who hated looking at them.

And we wrote about him and wrote about him. Once, one of our sales representatives told me that when he asked Sid if he wanted to advertise in the paper, he laughed at him.

“I own the Daily Pilot front page,” Sid told him.

As the years went by, I ran into him a few times at his steakhouse, a favorite place of mine and several members of the newsroom. We’d go there after deadline for dinner or a beer.

I remember it had a big cigarette machine with no cigarettes to buy inside, and stuffed heads of deer and antelope and such. And if you bought a beer at the bar, you got your change back in silver dollars and $2 bills.

As time went on, I moved up the ladder a piece and became editor. After that, Sid, who had moved to Las Vegas by then, must have had my number on his speed dial. He’d call me every morning to cuss me out about some story or another, or complain that our website wasn’t updating soon enough.

But really, most of our discussions were cordial. He made me laugh, and I think I did the same for him. His near hatred of city hall and city government was pretty deep-rooted by this time, and he was forever trying to get me to write stories about him and his cause.

It wasn’t easy to tell Sid that we can’t just write a front-page story because he thinks it’s news or because he thinks the city is breaking the law. We need a little more than that.

My last encounter with him wasn’t the most pleasant. And instead of him making me laugh and me making him laugh, it ended on a sour note.

I regret that now, because whatever you thought of Sid Soffer, it was hard to argue that his intentions were anything but good. He fought for what he thought was right, and I admire him for sticking to that until the very end.

So long, Sid. I hope now you’ve found that peace and justice that you were always seeking here.

And for one last time, you get the front page.