Monday, December 15, 2008

CM PRESS # 555



WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT FROM A LOCAL NEWSPAPER?


1. We should expect it to report the news and not scrub the news to avoid putting in racial/ethnic descriptions of outstanding criminal suspects. The fullest descriptions possible may help protect the public and lead to the arrest of the criminals. Just report what you have and let the chips fall where they may. Don't try to create the impression that gangs and violent crime in Costa Mesa are equal opportunity employers, they're not.

2. We should expect it to be a watchdog over government and institutions so that individual citizens don't have to spend their time making sure their money is used wisely and institutions are operating properly.

However, we don't expect a local newspaper to spend its time looking for problems. We'd just like it to be knowledgeable about the community, pay attention and make some reasonable inquiries when appropriate. If things seem to be getting off track, a gentle nudge often gets them back on track.

3. We should expect it to be honest and knowledgeable.

Do we have such a local newspaper in Newport-Mesa? Sadly, we don't.

Enter the CM PRESS
We started the CM PRESS in 2000 to help with improving Costa Mesa. We believed then, and we believe now, that Costa Mesa can be the best almost-coastal city in Orange County.

And, we believe that it should not be like inland cities full of slums, crime, gangs and low school scores.

Good grief! Costa Mesa is almost on the Pacific Ocean in Orange County. It's not some landlocked inner city next to the train yard and slaughter houses. Costa Mesa needs to start acting like what it is and it needs to stop trying to be a slum city.

In order to accomplish our improvement goals, the CM PRESS constantly looks at why things are as they are and how they can be improved.

If you're a long time reader you know that we rely heavily on statistics to take the vital signs of Costa Mesa, but we won't belabor this point here.

It often seems that when we do start looking at why things are as they are and when we start gathering information for a simple few line story about this or that aspect of Costa Mesa, that we end up opening a can of worms.

We don't like playing gotcha
Opening cans of worms is not really what we want to do. We don't like playing gotcha. In fact, we hate it. We just want our government to run as it should for the benefit of the citizens of Costa Mesa and to be working to make the city a better place for citizens.

Here's just a few examples of the cans of worms we've seen.

Remodel permit that wasn't
A few years ago we wanted to write a few lines about the remodel of some homes on the Westside by a non-profit that was using taxpayer money. When we started gathering facts, it became clear that it wasn't really a remodel with a minor permit as had been publicly stated, but a complete tear down without proper notification of surrounding neighbors and without the permits for such a radical change. The more we looked, the more problems we found.

Racial/ethnic discrimination
Another time, when we tried to write a few simple lines about a non-profit in the city, it turned out the non-profit was discriminating on racial/ethnic lines and trying to hide this fact. The Feds ended up taking action against the non-profit.

Did the local newspaper ever report this? Nope. Our guess as to why the paper was silent was because the kids being discriminated against were white. Had the kids being discriminated against been non-white there probably would have been front page stories all year long.

Danger to children
When we saw potential danger to young grade school kids in the way traffic was being handled on Presidio Way behind Davis School, we tried to quietly get things changed but met a wall of resistance. So, we went public. Finally, the City made the street one way and made a few other changes. Now there's less chance of a car running over a kid. But, when we went public, the usual dimwits said it was anti-Latino to make the street safe. We kid you not.

Not following their own rules
More recently, when we tried to write a few lines about the Costa Mesa High School Foundation and the Estancia/Tewinkle Schools Foundation, a new can of worms was opened.

Our simple fact-finding questions were treated with hostility or got less than complete answers. And, it turns out that one foundation hasn't filed tax returns for two years and neither has filed required annual reports with audits. We tried to handle things quietly to get things corrected, but we got stonewalled. That's when we went public.

The Senior Center
Now, it looks as though we may have to look more into the Senior Center. We want to know why there is so much hostility and even open hatred and so much resistance to having City Councilperson Wendy Leece ask a few questions about the center after some senior citizens told her about some perceived problems.

We've now seen comments from, as you might guess, "anonymous" individuals smearing Ms. Leece, and also smearing the complaining senior citizens as "malcontents."

We're even seeing the local newspaper trying to get Ms. Leece off the case.

We want to know if the complaints are legitimate. And, we want to know that the City Council is doing what it should be doing to help our senior citizens and making sure our money is being spent wisely and properly.

# # #

AND SPEAKING OF THE SENIOR CENTER

We've now learned that (at least as of this writing) the Senior Center has not updated its website, and that some of the people shown as being on the board haven't been on the board for some time.

Who is on the board? Well, maybe Wendy Leece can find out.

# # #

DRIVE-BY SHOEING OF BUSH--ARAB WORLD REJOICES--ONLY OUR BOUGHT BOOTLICKER FRIENDS ARE UPSET

The reaction in Iraq and the Arab world generally is joy over the journalist throwing his shoes at President Bush in Iraq the other day. Only our bought friends are upset. LINK

When we leave Iraq, watch as our bought leader of Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and our other bought friends suddenly resettle to the U.S. because their own people hate them so much.

And, you can bet they'll have some hefty bank accounts with which to buy some 7-11 franchises.

Instead of trying to win the hearts and minds of the common people around the planet, the U.S. continues trying to buy a few leaders who the American people are falsely told represent the real voice of the people in their nations.

We need a change in the way we do things.

Here's a later link on the shoe incident and its aftermath. You mean when we invade a country, kill thousands of people and put in some puppets, the world won't love us? Go figure. Ingrates.

# # #

Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

 http://frankspeech.com/