JUST RIGHT PORRIDGECities are works in progress. They are being shaped and re-shaped all the time. The shaping may be intentional and planned or it may be unintentional and unplanned; but the shaping and re-shaping don't stop.
Some cities, Irvine comes to mind, are intentionally shaped and planned to the nth degree. To some, this seems a good way to do things. Everything is in place and every blade of grass is cut just right.
To others, including the CM PRESS, that's too much shaping and planning. We see Irvine as being too plastic, too artificial, and too antiseptic. Sort of like living in a Disneyland without the rides. It lacks authentic life and spontaneity. But, that's just our personal taste in things. There is no right and wrong about it. It comes down to what one likes.
By contrast, some other cities have too little shaping and planning and they have slums and gangs and many problems that most people would rather not have in their city.
Most Improvers think that there should be a middle ground between being overly planned and not being planned at all. They believe there must be a way to balance things and come up with the just right porridge of a city.
Costa Mesa
We at the CM PRESS have long felt that Costa Mesa has the potential to be the just right porridge city.
Things in our dynamic universe are never static. Something that is just right is always balanced between not being just right and being just right. Take that porridge. If cooked slightly less, it would not be just right. If cooked slightly more, it would not be just right. The trick is to get it just right.
What is just right for Costa Mesa? That's the question that Improvers have been asking for years and why they became active in the city.
To the CM PRESS, "just right" means a number of things, and we are advocates for what we think is right. Others may disagree and we expect to hear their logical arguments in this regard. It's up to them to advocate for what they think is just right.
And, that's what elections are about. Ultimately, and in the best of all worlds, intelligent voters will hear the various arguments and make an informed choice about which candidates will help make the city what the most voters think is best.
Improvers have been getting many improvement minded, or at least improvement talking, people elected to the the City Council over the past few years, because many voters agree with what the Improvers are saying about making Costa Mesa nicer.
Unfortunately, instead of logical arguments from the other side, we are now hearing from a small group of extremist haters, brown racists, bigots, assorted neurotics, and special interests who have crawled out out from under their rocks and who try to confuse the public with red herrings.
For example...
When Improvers say we need to allow homes on the Westside Bluffs to attract upwardly mobile people back to our city, we don't hear logical arguments on the other side.
Instead, we hear haters and bigots, who are often acting as the unpaid shills for rich out of town industrial interests, saying that we're just trying to chase Latinos out of the city.
When we say we need to reduce the number of barracks style apartment buildings and replace them with modern low income housing, we hear the same nonsense about trying to chase Latinos out of the city.
When the CM PRESS complained about a dangerous situation where cars were double and triple parked with motors running on Presidio Way behind Davis School, and little kids were running between these cars, we heard that we were trying to make it uncomfortable for Latinos.
When we joined with others and complained about dangerous conditions at Paularino Park, we heard that we were trying to bar Latinos from the park. We even saw this nonsense repeated in the Return to Reason Daily Pilot by a liberal editor who lives in Fullerton.
When we say that non-profits in Costa Mesa shouldn't receive our tax money if they are discriminating based on race, the kooks say we're trying to harm Latinos.
Of course, it's just nonsense. All of the improvement suggestions are race neutral. Improvers are simply saying: "We want a pleasant and safe city with good schools where we can raise our families." See anything about race in that?
A COUPLE OF SPECIFICS ABOUT WHERE WE THINK WE NEED IMPROVEMENT
Let's look at just two of the things that we think are unbalanced and which need to be put into balance in order for Costa Mesa to improve.
Industrial--too much and in the wrong place
Today, Costa Mesa has a whopping 14% of our land zoned for industrial uses and much of it is on the best land in our city--the Westside Bluffs.
By contrast, Newport Beach only has 2% of its land zoned that way. We think Costa Mesa has too much industrial zoning and that it should be reduced by about half and that most of this reduction should be on the Westside Bluffs.
Does it make sense to have 60 acres of industrial buildings upwind of most of the homes in the city? Not to the CM PRESS, it doesn't. All the pollution is blown over all the homes. Costa Mesa is designed backwards. It needs a redesign.
Slums
Costa Mesa has too many barracks style apartment buildings that are functionally obsolete.
"Functionally obsolete" means they can't be fixed. The problem with them is not in a lack of upkeep--or that they need new paint or flowers planted out front, the way Katrina Foley did with some of the slums in her Mesa del Mar neighborhood--the problem is in their design.
A healthy balance of renter occupied to owner occupied residences in a city is 30% to 40% renters vs. 70% to 60% owner occupied. In Costa Mesa, we have 60% renter occupied vs. 40% owner occupied. This is just the reverse of what it should be.
Making sense of claims and counter claims
To avoid confusing he said/she said arguments about improving Costa Mesa, the CM PRESS long ago started comparing our city to the five cities that surround Costa Mesa and which touch some part of our land.
This gives us a look at the vital signs and establishes base lines. So, we compare Costa Mesa with Newport Beach, Irvine, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Santa Ana.
What we usually find in looking at the statistics is that Newport Beach is at the top in most good things and Santa Ana is at the bottom.
We believe that Costa Mesa's rightful place should be second to Newport Beach in most good things.
Instead, we find that Costa Mesa is often at the bottom just above Santa Ana.
We think this is absurd and that it is not our natural place given our traditional closeness to Newport Beach.
We want to change things. That's what Improvement is about.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
