Mailbag: Failed Great Park could have been an international airport
Failed Great Park could have been an international airport
Re. “Irvine council debates, then mostly sides with grand jury on Great Park report,” (Oct. 17): Was the “Great Park” hubris or design?
Think back to the days when the Great Park was the El Toro Marine Base. When the base closed, it became the perfect candidate for an international airport.
This could spare Balboa Island, the Newport Back Bay and Dover Shores from constant air traffic from John Wayne Airport. What a coincidence that fantasies suddenly emerged of an Orange County Great Park to rival New York’s Central Park at this spot.
Millions were spent, but nothing was achieved? Wrong!
Irvine/Lake Forest (formerly El Toro) remain free from air traffic, and the land purchased by developers can now be built out with homes. The Great Park achieved the real goal of the developers.
Kim Jansma
Newport Beach
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Appropriate response to COIN law
The Daily Pilot recently reported on a newly enacted State law that would affect Costa Mesa. (“New law affects agencies using COIN,” Oct. 15). Costa Mesa’s COIN (Civic Openness in Negotiations) ordinance applies to the city’s negotiations with its employee associations.
It requires, among other things, an analysis of proposed benefit increases by an independent auditor, disclosure of the proposed changes for public review, two public hearings prior to adoption of the changes and disclosure of contacts between council members and others involved in the negotiations.
According to the article, the new state law would require cities with COIN laws to apply essentially the same procedures to city contracts worth more than $250,000. In other words, the council would need to be as open and transparent in negotiating contracts with private companies as it is in negotiating with its own employees.
Mayor Steve Mensinger is quoted as saying the law will “grind government to a halt, as no contract will get approved, period.” Mensinger brags about using this process for employees who provide city services. Why is he afraid the same transparency would be so threatening to contracts with outside companies seeking to provide the same services? Is there something going on that we, the public, don’t know about?
Perry Valantine
Costa Mesa
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Addictions keep us from addressing issues
Hey, I admit it. Like everyone else, I love those stories about UFOs landing on the White House lawn, mountain lions who raise a puppy, or a poor teacher’s once-in-a-lifetime trip on the Orient Express that ends in true love and a big house in Monte Carlo.
Part of the fun is we know it’s not real (barring a Grace Kelly). It’s just an imaginative romp. Just a fantasy.
But here we have an America with some issues, as people say. There is an obesity epidemic (nothing against chili cheese fries). Wall Street and the banks have turned to gambling (nothing against Las Vegas). The school system is falling behind those heretofore also-rans Singapore and Hong Kong (who?).
We seem to be in a permanent war with the people of the Middle East (where?). Students regularly stroll into schools and kill people (what were they thinking?). Average Americans have exactly the same income they had in 1910 (well, maybe not that bad). And roads and bridges all over the place are crumbling (mind the gap).
Anyway, as they say on “Seinfeld,” Where is everyone? Where is the shock? Where are the cries for accountability? Where are the task forces? Where are the solutions?
The core of addictions is creating pleasurable experiences (enjoyable fantasies) as a means of avoiding painful experiences, like fixing problems. That avoidance can be in drugs, alcohol and food, but also phones, computers, games, television, tabloid news and movies. A key difficulty with addiction is that actual problems, actual realities, are ignored over and over in favor of the fantasies — right up to a serious crisis.
Is it we are getting lost in addictions?
Dr. Steve Davidson
Newport Beach
The writer is a clinical psychologist.