Mailbag - Oct. 22, 2009

Who uses land for senior center?

Regarding “Seniors want new center,” Oct. 8:

The one aspect of the controversy of parkland use for the proposed senior center that I don’t understand is that the land in question is never used. I’ve lived in Huntington Beach since 1979 and I’ve driven by this area hundreds of times, and I’ve never seen a human being walking across this land.

I’ve walked the park near the library many times, introduced my grandkids to the ducks at the pond, watched people play disc golf on the plateau above the area designated for the Senior Center. Not once have I seen anyone play or utilize this land. Is this just a smoke screen? Is having open space that’s not used more important than making something useful of a precious commodity?

It’s obvious that a senior center will never be built if the citizens have to pay for the land. The truth is that it may not even be possible in today’s economy. For me, the true issue is where the money is going to come from.

Elected mayor may not be best idea

Regarding Drew Kovacs’ letter of Oct. 1 (“Let the people select mayor of our city”), in which he expresses his desire to have an elected mayor, I can tell you from personal experience that the result may not be better than what we have now.

Where I came from (Yonkers, N.Y.), we went through the gamut of a non-elected city manager, 20 elected citywide officials representing all sections of the city, 13 elected council members, and finally a strong mayor with seven elected council members each representing certain sections of the city.

The mayor has powers that probably most Yonkers citizens have no knowledge of.

Before changing Huntington Beach’s form of government, I advise a thorough review of both the pros and cons before changing to the elected strong mayor model.

We could be electing a mayor with too much power and district elected representatives with narrow interests.

Change is sometimes good, but not always.