Letters to the Editor: Koll Center Residences proposal works in the John Wayne Airport area

I live and work in Newport Beach. I grew up in Newport Beach and graduated from Corona del Mar High School in 1980.

I have leased and sold commercial properties in the airport area for over 33 years. I like the idea of the Koll Center Residences in the airport area. I have consummated many transactions with the Koll Co. and appreciate its professionalism and the quality of product it builds.

Koll has been building in the airport area ever since I can remember and is familiar with the city’s general plan. As buildings become antiquated and have outlived their highest and best use, it is time to remove and replace.

As the city of Newport continues to grow and prosper it needs a project like this to accommodate new businesses and residents without impacting the existing residential areas.

Jon H. Merry

Newport Beach

Project impact goes beyond airport zone

Currently a petition is being circulated involving an important traffic issue in Newport Beach. The issue involves the pending approval of a mega development, the Koll Center Residences near John Wayne Airport, within the city limits.

This huge, new residential development, if built, will impact our already-overloaded streets in a negative way. Because it is being proposed near the airport it is easy to overlook its importance to the rest of the city.

I would urge all interested citizens to read the petition. Go to ProtectNB.org and do some research. The website makes it very understandable.

Please look into this for yourself and contact the Newport Beach City Council and help defeat this new assault on our community.

Melinda Seely

President, Airfair

Newport Beach

Koll project is nothing like Banning Ranch

This email is to express my support for the Koll Center Residences. Growth is inevitable, and it needs to be controlled and within reasonable limits. I prefer growth in the airport area and not down by the beach, where it is already busy enough.

I’ve been a resident of Newport Beach for 45 years and have seen many changes that I have not been able to comment on. I own a home here in Bayview Heights, and my wife does as well, near Banning Ranch. We are active in the fight opposing the development of Banning Ranch. Her great-grandparents built the seventh house on Balboa Island back in the early 1930s. The project has my full support.

Andy Wolfe

Newport Beach

Buck Gully fire risks concern

In response to Linda Oeth’s letter (“City should require Buck Gully-area residents to clear vegetation as fire-prevention measure”): Buck Gully is a disaster waiting to happen. Several rows of the Flower Streets, as well as Corona Highlands and Shorecliffs, could be devastated.

The problem is not the homeowners ringing Buck Gully; it is the open space from the trail head at the top of Poppy Street to San Joaquin that has not burned in decades. If that brush ignited at San Joaquin in dry Santa Ana conditions, it would be unstoppable.

Someone just spent a lot of effort to maintain the trails and add new bridges. The city does enforce brush clearance in Buck Gully controlled by homeowners, but not as strongly as it should.

David Dowd

Corona del Mar

Voters can do better than Rohrabacher

Eliza Rubenstein’s Mailbag letter to the Pilot was very articulate and well-reasoned (“Rohrabacher should follow Royce and Issa and leave office.”) I could not agree more that we need someone who actually represents the entire district, not just the wealthy. He is a better representative for Russia than he is for California. Perhaps being a highly paid lobbyist for that country will be enticing enough for him to call it a career. We deserve better.

Thomas Barry

Huntington Beach

Daily Pilot is too thin these days

Every day now, for the most part, I begin my day by reading the newspaper. Not the web version, but the good ol’ paper paper. For 30 years now since I moved to Costa Mesa, the Daily Pilot Wednesdays through Sundays gets my eyeballs first. Lately, the paper has been as thin as could possibly be, and I wonder if some day soon we might be losing our beloved Pilot.

I read less and less about local sports from Costa Mesa, Estancia, Newport Harbor and CdM high schools and more and more from cities surrounding us. And it’s not just the sports section but the other sections as well. The only thing that’s stayed relatively constant are the paper’s contributors — the same familiar names and columns for years now fortunately.

Is there truly such a dearth of printable news in our area? Surely we’re not that boring. I know the paper merged a few years ago with the Coastline Pilot and the Huntington Beach Independent, as noted in the masthead, but Costa Mesa and Newport Beach are mostly left out of the paper these days. Now H.B., Laguna Beach and Fountain Valley are all fine cities, and certainly occasionally newsworthy, but there was exactly one article pertaining to Costa Mesa and zero for Newport Beach in the Jan. 14 edition. This has been the norm now for the past couple of years. Anyone else notice?

Mike Aguilar

Costa Mesa

How to get published: Email us at dailypilot@latimes.com. All correspondence must include full name, hometown and phone number (for verification purposes). The Pilot reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity and length.