DAILY PILOT GETTING BETTER?
We've now had two days to see the changes in the Daily Pilot that Tom Johnson wrote were coming.
So far, we like what we see. Hopefully, the Pilot won't relapse.
In today's (4/30) Pilot, there's even a column by State Senator Tom Harman about the problems of illegal immigration. In the Pilot? Yup.
Time will tell if the Pilot really is going to be better, but the first signs are good ones.
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PASSIVE PARKS
In the Pilot's front page story today about the possibility of making some parks in the city passive, City Manager Allan Roeder tells the Pilot that:
"[I]t's sometimes hard for park rangers to know when a game [of soccer] goes from a few friends to an organized activity." (emphasis added)
Actually, it's not relevant in Paularino Park whether or not the soccer game is "organized" or just a pick-up game. The game is inherently dangerous in that very small park which has no sports field and whose central feature is a tot lot.
Golf is already barred in Paularino and it doesn't have to be organized. Just a single duffer hitting golf balls at the park is dangerous. Soccer in this park presents a similar danger even if it's just a few players.
What's been happening at Paularino Park is that people will arrive there (sometimes in cars with bumper stickers that seem to indicate a Santa Ana origin) and begin playing soccer.
Since there is no sports field of any type in the park, and given the layout of the park with small rises, trees and the aforementioned tot lot, the soccer players play their games right across the only sidewalk in the park.
Paularino Park also has no restrooms. So, when nature calls, players go behind the trees or bushes and sometimes in the tot lot itself.
Because of the soccer games, residents of Mesa North who want to use the park for its light uses have to carefully navigate the sidewalk in the park to avoid being hit by soccer balls or be run over by players.
In addition, soccer balls are often kicked into the middle of busy Paularino Ave. where cars have been hit by the balls and where players are in danger of being hit by the cars when they run after the balls.
We've even had soccer players tell residents of the area to get out of the park because there were soccer games being played and the residents--who were on the sidewalk--were in the way!
The CM PRESS doesn't think anyone is saying that parents shouldn't be able to go to the park and throw a ball to their kids, but many are saying that soccer games, even with just a few players, are causing a health and safety problem and should be kept out of this and similar parks.
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REMINDER FOR MEETINGS
Improvers might want to mark their calendars and try to attend the following meetings that have some impact on improvement, as indicated in brief below:
MAY 1, Tuesday 6:00 p.m.-- CITY COUNCIL MEETING--Several improvement issues on the agenda including:
1. A tract map for 1011-1045 El Camino Drive for a 24 unit common interest development. This is the now closed down shopping center in Mesa del Mar that sits across the street from the Misson-Mendoza slum. This will move this property a step closer to being turned into nice homes. THE CM PRESS SUGGESTION: Improvers should support this.
2. CDBG funding is on the agenda. You will recall that the CM PRESS has written extensively about how the City Council keeps giving your money to some charities that serve suspected illegal aliens and that don't look like Costa Mesa. THE CM PRESS SUGGESTION: Improvers should let the Council know that they want this money spent on fixing the physical parts of the Westside and not continue to be thrown down a black hole as has been the case for many years.
MAY 2, Wednesday--7:00 p.m. PAULARINO SCHOOL--A meeting about passive parks. Some small parks in the city that don't have sports fields are being taken over for pick-up soccer games (often by people who don't live in Costa Mesa). This endangers the players and others. If the City makes some parks passive parks, you'll still be able to throw a ball to your kids and do similar things, but you'll no longer be chased out of the park by soccer players and you won't have soccer players urinating and defecating behind trees and in the tot lots. THE CM PRESS SUGGESTIONS: Improvers should ask that the City name certain parks in the city as passive parks so these parks can be safely used by citizens for their intended purposes. Among such parks are Paularino Park, Canyon Park, Vista Park, and Brentwood Park.
MAY 9, Wednesday--City Council Chambers--A meeting about cleaning up the toxic chemicals on the 6.8 parcel at 1640 Monrovia Ave. that we wrote about in Issue # 125.
THE CM PRESS SUGGESTION: Improvers should attend to learn about this and to ask that additional tests be conducted in other places on the Westside bluffs including tests of emissions in the air, soil tests and groundwater tests.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
