REPORT FROM THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF 4/17/07
The hot item on the agenda last night was the Gang Initiative.
The CM PRESS believes that the majority on the Council did the right thing and took a no-nonsense approach to ridding our city of gangs (but, they could do more as we explain a little further on).
The majority voted in favor of the enforcement aspects of the initiative, but stripped it of the liberal feel good measures that would, in our opinion, have turned our cops into social workers and recruiters for the local charities.
Specifically, the Council majority of Mansoor/Bever/Leece voted against giving $ 65,000 (this year, and who knows how much next year, and the year after that, and the one after that and...) to the NMUSD for gang intervention services.
The Council also voted against the Truancy Ordinance.
Mayor Pro Tem Bever sent a strong message about what the Council majority wants, when he recounted how he had grown up in a gang infested neighborhood in Los Angeles and how the police didn't do much to get rid of the gangs in his neighborhood.
One got the impression that Bever knew what he was talking about from first hand experience--unlike some of the supposed "gang experts" we have running around who have never lived in a major city with gangs ruling the streets and who are blinded to reality by liberal group-think, bias, and voodoo sociology.
We hope we're not reading too much into this, but what the CM PRESS took away from Bever's comments was that he and the majority want strong police enforcement and zero tolerance for gangs. If we understood Mr. Bever's comments correctly (and, admittedly, we're using our own words, and reading between the lines here), the Council majority wants the CMPD to be a police department dedicated to protecting and serving the citizens of this city and doesn't want it to be a social welfare agency.
It seems to us that the Council majority of Mayor Mansoor, Mayor Pro Tem Bever and Councilperson Wendy Leece, want gangs gone and crime driven down. And, it sounds as though they mean business.
As far as libs Katrina Foley and Linda Dixon go, well, they talk the talk but they don't walk the walk. They're still out in Kumbaya land as pre-mugged liberals. They'll say they want gangs gone, but when it comes time to actually do something, they come up with squishy non-solutions based on, we believe, incorrect liberal assumptions.
Of course, as we alluded to above, the CM PRESS thinks the Council can still do more to rid our city of gangs and can change the course of our city's future by getting rid of the few slum buildings we have in this city that are acting as safe harbors, breeding grounds, and habitats for gangs and criminals. To do so would be expensive, but to not do so is to, in our opinion, never get rid of gangs.
And, we're talking about the barracks style apartment buildings that we have as open sores in several neighborhoods including on the Westside, in Mesa North and in Mesa del Mar.
These buildings are now functionally obsolete. They can't be fixed and be brought up to date any more than you can bring a twenty year old car up to present automobile standards.
They're too dense along the street and they lack architectural refinements and quality construction that would make them places that could be effectively rehabed.
Unlike in some large cities with old buildings, these are not brownstones that just need some TLC.
These are slabsided, particle board boxes, all alike and all in a row sitting there cheek by jowl on a few streets in our city as though Costa Mesa is a military base.
In fact, the military doesn't even build housing this box-like, this close together, this uniform, and this plain-Jane for troops these days. Yet, Costa Mesa endures these in our presence.
Upwardly mobile people don't want to live like sardines in what look like military barracks with no modern amenities. So, to find tenants, the landlords have to accept gang members and those who create the ambiance liked by gangs. And, if you check the police reports you'll see many links between these "projects" in our midst and to the gangs and crime in this city.
Destroy the habitat of gangs and the gangs will move away all on their own accord. And, without a comfortable habitat, they won't return.
This is the natural way to make an area safe. It works with alligators who will move when the swamp is drained, and it works for gangs when the slums are removed.
All living things gravitate to where they feel comfortable, as surely as water flows down hill, Grasshopper.
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FOLEY AND DIXON TRY TO KILL A GOOD PROJECT?
If you've been around Costa Mesa for a while you may have discovered a real gem of a produce store at 101 E.17th Street, near Trader Joe's, called Grower's Direct. The produce is plentiful, of good quality, and priced right.
The owners of Growers Direct have now purchased a former gas station site across from their present location where they want to move their store.
The screening request that they brought to the City Council last night about what they want to build on that site included an architectural sketch of a nice looking three story building with the produce market on the first floor and small condos up above. There would be a subterranean garage for parking.
This is the sort of thing that improvers have been saying would be right for some parts of the heavily industrialized Westside: businesses with people in their midst, instead of just acre after acre of industrial buildings.
No sooner had this been presented to the Council than did Katrina Foley and Linda Dixon start trying to pick the plans apart.
Now, the reason for these screening requests is to give the owners an inexpensive way to make sure that what they want to do is what the Council will eventually approve. So, the Council is supposed to weigh in on what they want to see.
However, it appeared to some observers that Foley and Dixon were especially negative and that they went above and beyond what would normally be expected; almost as though they were trying to discourage the owners from proceeding at all.
Some observers told the CM PRESS that they thought that Foley and Dixon may have been trying to get back at the Growers Direct owners for having put Mansoor/Leece signs on their property during the past election.
Whether this is the case or not, we don't know. Foley and Dixon acting petty and small? Why, who would believe that? Say, do you remember just a couple of weeks ago when Dixon refused to give up her seat? Do you remember Dixon's screwy column in the Pilot before the last election in which she wrote that Mansoor must be defeated?
Not being especially involved in the inside baseball of local politics--other than that sign thing--and rather than being upset at the suggestions from Foley and Dixon, it appears that the Growers Direct folks are going to give Foley and Dixon's suggestions serious consideration as good faith comments to make a nicer project. Which, of course, is exactly how any applicant should handle such things.
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PAULARINO PARK
Residents of Mesa North were upset recently when they learned that notices for the meeting about Paularino Park to be held on May 2, at Paularino School were only sent out to single family homes in a 500 square foot radius of the park and that notices to the Fillmore/Coolidge tri-plexes would be hand delivered rather than mailed.
These residents of Mesa North rightly believe that Paularino Park is for all residents in the 700 plus homes in the Mesa North tract and that all homes in the tract should be noticed about the meeting.
Some also believe that the notices to the Fillmore/Coolidege tri-plexes should also be mailed instead of being hand delivered.
At last night's City Council meeting, City Manager Allan Roeder announced that with the Council's approval, a new mailing of notices would be made so that all homes in Mesa North will receive an official notice about the meeting to discuss the proper uses of Paularino Park.
Mr. Roeder did not address the issue of the hand delivery of the notices to the tri-plexes, so we assume that this will still be done.
We believe that such hand delivery may skew the results of opinions given on this matter, as those who receive the hand delivered notices may also be lobbied at that time by those who want to allow Paularino Park to be used for soccer games, instead of making it an official passive park as most homeowners say they want.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
