HMMM, WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN?TWO CLUES FOR IMPROVING COSTA MESA
1.SANTA ANA--THE MOST UNAMERICAN CITY IN THE U.S.?
After all the gang related shootings in Santa Ana, including the killing of two 14-year-olds the other day (see CM PRESS #38), the libs in Santa Ana held a group hug in which they blamed the City for not providing opportunities for youth.
That's the usual sop offered by libs and it never works. Of course, that's what you might expect from Santa Ana, which is essentially part of Mexico, and from libs who, while preaching about humanity, always remove humans from the equation and posit inanimate objects and faceless forces as the cause of problems. People being killed by guns? It's the fault of bad Mr. Gun. Gangs? It's the fault of bad Mr. No Midnight Basketball.
And, after almost every gang shooting you read about some parents of the shooters or the victims saying that their kids are good kids and aren't in gangs. If you believe them, then we must have no gangs, no shootings, no killings, no graffiti. It must all be a figment of our imagination or, if real, these things must be caused by some inanimate thing or other.
How about this as an alternative answer: The parents and the community aren't acting responsibly or are too stupid to see what's plain to see and can't connect up the dots to understand why some communities are nice and safe and why some aren't. And, as a result, they look for false causes and posit false cures to solve the problems and only make the problems worse.
And, we have plenty of dopes in Costa Mesa who fit in with the characterization in the paragraph immediately above. Why, we even have a few of them in positions of power in our local government.
As you may have read in the main stream press, Santa Ana even let the schools out early so kids could go to their real country, Mexico, for Christmas.
Santa Ana has become a no-go city for most citizens and the only reason many citizens even go there these days is because, as the county seat, it remains the locus for many government agencies.
As long as Santa Ana remains an illegal alien sanctuary city, the problems will not only not abate, but they'll increase. There will be more gangs, more shootings, more crime.
2. NINE YEAR OLD GIRL IN SERIOUS CONDITION AFTER SHOOTING
There's a report in the LA TIMES today (12/22--page B5) about a 9-year-old girl who is in critical condition after a stray bullet fired by suspected gang members passed through the wall of her house and struck her in the head.
Here's something else from the above LA TIMES article that might be of some interest to Costa Mesans interested in improving our own city and avoiding the type of tragedies that we're seeing in Los Angeles and Santa Ana:
"News of the shooting frightened residents [of the neighborhood] where well-off newcomers have restored...old homes. Even as some of these homes sell for more than $1 million, a handful of apartments and old homes house gang members."
What lessons can be drawn from the above?
1. You can't be tolerant of some illegal activity, such as allowing illegal aliens to occupy your city, and then hope to stop major illegal activity such as shootings. The two things go together.
2. You can't improve neighborhoods if you allow slums to remain in the neighborhoods. The slums just act as breeding grounds and safe harbors for criminals.
Costa Mesa has many slums mixed in with expensive single family homes and we're seeing the same result as we see in Los Angeles.
Mesa del Mar-- (where Katrina Foley lives) has the Mission-Mendoza slum that is a densely packed couple of streets of functionally obsolete barracks style fourplexes. They're overcrowded and they're a breeding ground for crime and gangs. There have been many shootings and murders with a nexus to this small slum area.
Mesa North-- has the Coolidge-Fillmore slum that has densely packed barracks style triplexes. There have been many shootings and murders with a nexus to
this small slum area.
The Westside-- has many slum areas that are too numerous to list here. Shalimar, and the Wilson/Placentia area are two of them.
As we've written many times before, we believe that the City of Costa Mesa should act to thin out these slums by buying up individual buildings when they come up for sale and then tearing them down to provide parking in the short term and to develop the vacant lots into sports fields as parcels are assembled into large enough sizes.
This will reduce crowding and other pressures that lead to these areas being breeding grounds for crime.
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JAN DAVIDSON
As long time readers know, Jan Davidson was one of the first Improvers in the city and she was an activist even before the current crop of big "I" and little "i" improvers started their activism. She was also in at the start of the Improvement movement that led to election victories in several past elections.
Because of a car accident several years ago, Jan has been in almost constant pain and this has kept her from being as active as she would like. However, the buzz is that Jan wants to get active again.
Watch out City Council if you don't agressively pursue improvement!
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COMMISSION APPLICANTS
The names of those who have applied to be on the Planning Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission should be available around December 29. When we get them, we'll post them.
Hopefully, the City Council will appoint people to these commissions who want our city to become the great coastal community it should be.
In the past, City Council members have appointed some people to these commissions who have never been active in the city and who have no clear idea of how to improve Costa Mesa. Even worse, some people have been appointed to these Commissions who actually oppose improvement.
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REMEMBER TO PUT THE CM PRESS IN YOUR LINKS OR FAVORITES FOR EASE IN VISITING US OFTEN.
http://cmpress.blogspot.com/
We now publish something new almost every day and we only send out a few of the many issues. All of them can be read at the above link.
Also, don't forget to pass on copies to your friends who want a nicer Costa Mesa.
Merry Christmas Costa Mesa.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
