REPORT FROM THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF 5/1/07
On a 5-0 vote, the City Council approved the final map for 1045 El Camino Drive in Mesa del Mar.
This is the location of the now closed El Camino Shopping Center. This approval moves the process for building 24 homes on that site a step closer to fruition.
The developers told the Council that they are looking at bids on the demolition work now.
One cautionary note was struck when the developers told the Council that they have not yet found a "builder partner" to actually proceed with the construction of homes. Finding such a home builder partner is necessary if this project is to move forward.
When these homes are finally built (sooner rather than later, we hope), it is reasonable to assume that the new homeowners may put additional pressure on the city to do something about the Mission-Mendoza slum directly across the street from this project. Such pressure is needed to start cleaning up the slums in this city that are breeding grounds and safe havens for gangs.
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CDBG FUNDING
The City Council gave away $ 210,181,00 of your money to fifteen charities that had asked for various amounts.
The amounts given were exactly what the 3R Committee had suggested after interviewing the charities earlier this year and rating each one.
The interesting thing about this part of the meeting was that Mercy House (Homeless services) had asked for $ 5,000 but the 3R Committee suggested they should receive $ 15, 000 and Save Our Youth (SOY) (Youth services) had asked for $20,000 but the 3R Committee suggested they only receive $ 5,786.00.
SOY is apparently a favorite charity of the liberals in the city. This was further indicated when both Linda Dixon and Katrina Foley tried to short out Mercy House to give SOY another $ 10,000.
SOY, you may recall, was also one of the charities that was specifically named in the recent CMPD gang report as a possible charity that would help with the intervention strategy that was mostly eliminated by the City Council.
Dixon whined that charities that serve senior citizens were getting $ 74,000 while those that serve youths were only getting $ 28,000, and then she repeated the cliche: "youth are our future," several times. Yawn. Say, Linda, tell us exactly how these youths are our future? How does that work, exactly?
Dixon's whining didn't work and, as indicated above, SOY left with the lesser amount that was suggested by the 3R Committee.
The two charities rated highest by the 3R Committee were Youth Employment Services with a score of 93.5% and CM Sr. Corp--Lunch Box with a score of 85.2%. CM Sr. Corp--Lunch Box had asked for $14,000 and left with that amount.
The two lowest scoring charities were Save Our Youth (SOY) with a 59.0 % and Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter with a score of 57.8%. OCIS had asked for $15,000 and left with $5,000.
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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:
TODAY--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 SUGGESTION: Improvers should ask that the City make certain parks in the city 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.
