MAILBAG - March 11, 2007

Costa Mesa City Council is wasting time

As a longtime resident of Costa Mesa, I am finding it humorous that the seating arrangement for our council members even warrants an entire article in the Daily Pilot (“Musical chairs, but little harmony,” March 8). Our elected representatives are wasting time on this snit over who sits where.

Have any of my fellow residents noticed the potholes in our streets, the ill-timed traffic lights that keep us waiting forever to turn into our housing tracts when there is no traffic on the road at all, the illegal immigration and crime problems our residents are forced to endure, the growing gang problems, the growing graffiti problems?

Well, I have noticed all of these issues, and I am seriously concerned about them — each one!

My recommendation to our City Council is to arrange their seats in a circle, so they can all look each other right in the eyes and ask themselves what each of them can do to solve the real problems our residents face and not spend even one second worrying about who sits next to whom. Run this council like a business. If they don’t perform as the electorate expects, replace them with new recruits until we find a group of doers who can make our city a better place to live.

They are certainly not working on my behalf when they are spending time on their seating arrangements.

PATRICK AYRES

Costa Mesa

Rabbi ignores Jewish past in opinion

Many thanks for publishing Jean Forbath’s critique of Rabbi Mark Miller’s views on immigration (“Compassion lacking in immigration opinion,” Mailbag, March 8). Besides not mentioning basic biblical text, Miller’s comments manifested a total disregard of Jewish history, which I am sure he knows. Most of us would not be in America but for our immigrant forefathers, legal or illegal. It is just more of a NIMBY outlook, isn’t it?

IRYNE BLACK

Newport Beach

Action needed to stop influx of rehab homes

Rehab facilities could be the answer to keeping hospitals open nationwide.

With thoughts of disgust and with insight into a growing rehab facility problem in our town I write this. Last year I met in front of 1501 Balboa Blvd. with friends and then-council member Dick Nichols. We had asked why another facility was coming in so close to the elementary school? Nichols gave the Daily Pilot information regarding the facilities, how they skirt into our city, and how the city could actually do more. Fast forward. I sat in a state of the city address at City Hall and listened to the same run-around that we have had for years.

It is time for less talk and more action. We all know that our city has become the holding cell for the jails, the place where felons can rehab their way around our city in lieu of jail time. We hear that they do not cause parking problems due to the fact most are not allowed a license any longer. (Boy, that makes me feel better!) OK, what about the 20-plus vans that shuttle these people from their rehab house to daily counseling and classes? Is it true that Mondays are quiet because many of the rehabbers have required visits with their parole officers?

We have had meth labs busted in our neighborhoods, accompanied by police hiding in bushes to continue the cracking down of possible drug dealers. Could this be because we are giving the drug dealers and makers a perfect market to sell to? (If you have a product to sell, you are not going to market it someplace where there is no market.)

The city tries to downplay the rehab facilities (never mind the fact that the city streets are used as the Alcoholics Anonymous ashtray). In some of these facilities or homes the rehabbers have no one watching them other than each other — no counselor or administrator is living with them. How much sense does that make?

Time to see the elephant in the living room, folks! Take a stand and realize that this thing doesn’t make any sense. Why has our city become the makeshift jail for rehabbers? When home prices begin to fall further, do not blame the real estate bubble. Blame our city officials and the uncountable facilities housing the addicts.

“Handicapped?” Come on, again! Do you think when these folks finish their stay in our city after rehab they will be using handicapped placards? I do not think so. Ask them in a month after release and see how quick they are to call themselves disabled. Does the “handicapped” stigma continue to follow them? The term “handicapped” is a loophole term for the facilities. It is a slap in the face to the true disabled individuals of our society.

Time to stop the madness. Yes, there is a need for rehab facilities, places for people to heal from their illnesses, but do our streets have to house them all? Enough already.

Whatever happened to the hospitals doing this job? Hoag Hospital is right here. Why not talk to them about easing the pressure on the city? Maybe they can build a “rehab hotel” onto the hospital and put less strain on our family neighborhoods? This way there would be constant attention to the people in-house. With so many hospitals closing down, why not keep them open and empty our neighborhood of the problem? How much of our tax dollars are being used to help decrease our property values?

Time for a truce here. Stop the further growth until the truth regarding these facilities can be found. Stop giving our wonderful town away. (Don’t even get me started about the legal use of methadone that goes on with the released users! And subsidized by our government!)

This has become an extremely emotional issue, and it is one that the city better start doing something about. Less talk, more action.

RENÉ POWERS

Newport Beach

Improvement, but not at residents’ expense

This is in response to Mark Greenberg’s Sounding Off article, (“Newport, take pride in those seeking help,” Feb. 18) about rehab homes in Newport Beach. We all, of course, agree upon the virtues of people wanting to improve their lives by becoming clean and sober. However, it should not be done on the backs of Newport residents who never expected to have more than 100 of these facilities in our city.

These for-profit facilities should never have been allowed to proliferate in residential neighborhoods.

This social engineering experiment and misguided political correctness has spun completely out of control. And our local and state political leaders who have continued to avoid addressing the problem by saying, “there is nothing we can do” have become the problem.

Maybe Mr. Greenberg should talk to someone who indeed lives near these homes. His view would most assuredly be altered.

BILL GARRETT

Newport Peninsula