SOUNDING OFF:

“Where there is smoke, there is fire.”

Well, that old adage isn’t always correct; too many times someone is, as the common expression goes, just “blowing smoke.”

Case in point: the campaign against the Costa Mesa Senior Center.

Four hundred or more citizens of Costa Mesa, Newport and other cities, members of the center or not, go in and out of those doors daily. Some drive to get there; others walk; others take the center bus. Some come for food to sustain their nutrition, others for classes, for exercise, for games, for activities and companionship to ward off the loneliness so many seniors bear.

Volunteers man the desk, run travel programs, deliver food to the home bound, giving their time, good will and financial support to vulnerable seniors.

The center is funded by help from the city, by foundations that issue grants for specific activities, and by public donations and volunteer time.

Because public donations and volunteers have become harder and harder to come by, the center will be forced to cut some services.

There is the nationwide recession; that’s true. But in our locality, the public donors ask about all those disturbing charges uncritically reported in the local papers and all those unchallenged inflammatory accusations and innuendos made in public comment.

“Where there is smoke, there is fire.”

There is no fire.

There is nothing evil at the center, no elderly abuse, no sneaky financial things, no discrimination, no secret plot to take over the world.

Were any of those things true, why don’t the complainers go to the police, or the district attorney, or the attorney general? Do the complainers think that the cops and district attorneys are part of some devious cabal?

Why do they instead repeat vague charges, sneaky innuendos, mean implications and sly hints at public comment sessions and in letters to papers?

The citizens of Costa Mesa and adjacent cities must ask: Why do those people want to slander the center?

Why do they want to strangle fundraising?

Why do they want an end to meals for the home bound, nutrition for the impoverished, transportation for those on limited budgets, companionship for the lonesome, and health and social services for those who built our country?

Why?

What is their game?

PAUL FLANAGAN lives in Costa Mesa