MAILBAG:

A Daily Pilot editorial discussing Measure B (“City hall, park can coexist; vote wisely,” Jan. 13) contained a misunderstanding of the two future traffic options for a proposed city hall.

These need to be understood for residents to make an intelligent choice.

Last month’s council vote permitted the Irvine Co. (TIC) to build offices behind the twin office buildings in the 500 block of Newport Center Drive (500) and for an alternative city hall site. This invites a fresh comparison and quantification of how traffic will be affected in each location.

This comparison changed my mind from neutral to No on B for 1,303 reasons, but they can be boiled down to two.

One: If the city hall is built at 500, TIC has agreed to give up, yes, give up, the right to build there 72,000 square feet of office buildings (26% of their entitlement) to make space for the city hall. These offices would otherwise generate 481 traffic trips per day, per Greenlight financed Institute of Traffic Engineer (ITE) studies. TIC will lose this entitlement, and residents will lose this added future traffic, if the city hall is at 500.

Two: The city hall, wherever it is, will generate 822 ITE trips per day. By locating the city hall away from the already heavily congested park-San Miguel-Avocado, these 822 trips will move to an area of less congested ingress and egress potentially avoiding Avocado and San Miguel altogether.

If so, the city’s proposed TIC-funded $2 million traffic improvements on San Miguel/Avocado will go further to calm traffic there. The other arguments are close, but the option to reduce future office traffic and remove major traffic from the park is a quality of life issue. Stop complaining about traffic and do something about it.

GEORGE JEFFRIES

Quality of life will curtail with Measure B

Just as all citizens have equal rights to vote, all citizens should also have equal rights to be protected by the same balanced city General Plan and safeguards as all other citizens in the city.

Measure B removes all protections and constraints on density and traffic, thus removing quality of life for the citizens of Newport Center and surrounding areas. This is an irresponsible fix when there are better, cheaper solutions. Representative government is designed to protect the rights of all citizens. Measure B denies these rights.

CAROLINE B. LOGAN

Newport Beach

Pilot story priorities are topsy-turvy

It is really sad that the Daily Pilot’s top story (Jan. 14) is about a “poor” guinea pig while on page five of the same day there is a tiny story about raising funds for low-income and homeless people.

Are your priorities backwards?

JIM PIASKOWSKI

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