Mailbag: Newport can’t afford city trash haulers

I believe that the underlying motivation to farm out trash collection to an independent vendor is to eliminate paying pensions to retiring city employees.

Recently, Newport Beach negotiated retirement benefits with its employees. A new matrix was conceived that gave retirees a more-than-generous retirement benefit package. An example would be lifeguards who have retired and are now receiving more than $100,000 a year in pension benefits.

The city can’t afford to continue to pay outlandish benefits to retiring employees, regardless of how popular hometown workers are embraced by the residents.

Rob Macfarlane

Newport Beach

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The adage I learned was “sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.” You stop bullies by:

1.) Getting off social media. Ignore it.

2.) Taking a self-defense course. Then walk up to the bully and tell him or her to stop.

3.) Getting a big burly friend to walk up to the bully, grab him by the shirt and say, “Stop bullying my friend.”

Case closed. We’ve become a society of sensitive wimps. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Even if you fight a bully and lose, you may gain his or her respect.

Robert Bubnovich

Irvine

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Stop Fairview development

Costa Mesa has taken an action that will result in more expensive litigation for the already over-burdened city.

The City Council has agreed to proceed with construction of a playground and turnaround in Fairview Park, with little regard to applicable state and federal laws.

The Fairview Indian Site — officially known as CA-ORA-58 — contains a prehistoric village and cemetery. The site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Native American Heritage Commission’s sacred sites list, has already been covered and blighted with mud and trash hauled there when the river was dredged. Renovation is going to be very costly to the city.

We recommend the city respect its open-space commitments for the park and cancel further development.

Jane and David Olinger

Irvine