Letters

Our readers wrote letters throughout 1985 expressing their viewpoints on a variety of issues. Here are condensed versions of some of those letters. We appreciate their taking the time to share their viewpoints and look forward to hearing from you in 1986.

Sobriety checkpoints:

True, there is much too much drunk driving in America. But combatting this problem doesn’t lie in illegal search and seizure. I feel that stiffer fines and longer incarceration periods would do more to first-time and chronic drunk drivers than would police roadblocks.

KEITH ENGEL

Santa Ana

I am also a member of the ACLU, but I part company over the issue of sobriety checkpoints designed to reduce drunk driving.

I am appalled by the number of innocent people killed by drunk drivers. . . . If we have to check drivers, and punish those who insist on driving while under the influence of alcohol, in order to protect the innocent in our society, I say, so be it.

JAMES L. BOONE

Irvine

Freeways:

We have freeways, but they turn into slow-moving parking lots twice every working day. I would like to offer four steps that would greatly reduce the current congestion we have come to expect as normal:

- Close many of our freeway on-ramps and off-ramps. Freeways were originally intended to move automobiles over relatively long distances.

- Start flexible work-time programs.

- Increase car-pooling.

- Build superstreets.

PAUL J. MITCHELL

Orange

I oppose the Orange County Transportation Commission’s effort to transfer $8.5 million in annual interest from the county’s mass-transit fund to pay for highway improvements.

It would actually make more sense to tap the interest from the highway fund for mass transit rather than the other way around.

KIRK SCHNEIDER

La Habra

County Jail:

Alternatives to jail are imperative at this time because new facilities are not expected to be ready for two years. It’s conceivable, at the growing incarceration rates, that these facilities will be full at the ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

LORRAINE LAMBERT

Fullerton

. . . While new alternatives to jail are imperative, your readers should understand that many such programs are in place in Orange County at this time. The problem isn’t that we don’t have alternatives to confinement. It is that our progressive, tough-on-crime county has reached a point where additional quality alternatives are difficult to find.

BRAD GATES

Sheriff/Coroner, Orange County

John Wayne Airport: The real solution to airport problems in Southern California does not lie in loading up Ontario and Los Angeles International airports and then wonder where the excess capacity will come from later. Rather it rests in implementing the Southern California Assn. of Governments’ regional plan, which calls for additional capacity, specifically in the Orange County area.

CLIFTON A. MOORE

General Manager

Los Angeles Dept. of Airports

Camp Pendleton has the potential of meeting the total additional air transportation requirements for the foreseeable future, not only for Orange County but also for the adjacent communities, even to the eventual possibility of becoming an international airport.

LEONARD R. HALL

Newport Beach

To make Newport Beach the “sacrificial lamb” for the convenience of the rest of the county is gross insensitivity and unjustifiable.

Mr. and Mrs. E. P. BENSON

Newport Beach

Maybe the best measure of the fairness of the agreement is that no one is totally pleased. It could not be a just resolution if all interests on any side were totally met. We are finally moving ahead rather than burying our heads in shifting legal sands.

FREDRIC J. FORSTER

Newport Beach

Local newspapers have tended to describe the recent John Wayne Airport agreement as a cause for celebration and as a “compromise.” It was neither. The county won, hands down.

DONALD A. STRAUSS

Newport Beach Councilman

Parks:

The League of Women Voters of Orange County opposes the easing of park dedication requirements for large builders in unincorporated areas. Inaccessible parks will serve no purpose for residents who are not able to live in gate-guarded communities and will only compound the problem for any to-be-formed cities in the area.

LEE PODOLAK

President

League of Women Voters

of Orange County

Homeless: It is sad to note in your article on the homeless that 4,000 to 6,000 people are homeless each night in Orange County.

A solution might be to convert the almost-empty Chet Holifield “Ziggurat” into a shelter in Laguna Niguel for these unfortunate people.

JACK SEYMOUR

Laguna Beach

Angels-Anaheim dispute:

As a homeowner in Anaheim, I’m outraged about all the money that City Manager William O. Talley is spending to fight the California Angels--the team we love.

Anaheim has many areas that can be developed or redeveloped for a so-called high-rise office project. There are some neighborhoods in our city that need the money that Talley, Mayor Don Roth and others on the City Council have spent fighting our team.

JOY A. SMITH

Anaheim

Growth: The Orange County (Board of) Supervisors have voted unanimously to approve revised developer fees to build three additional freeways in Orange County. These turkeys refused to read the handwriting on the wall when voters defeated Proposition A. They have persisted ever since in misreading that vote. We did not want that freeway.

I invite you to come down El Toro Road and, as you approach the intersection with Laguna Canyon Road, note the “model” houses being erected there, jammed together with views only into the next dwelling. Then continue to the canyon. Observe the beauty of the natural, landscape. Is this the heritage we leave our children and grandchildren? Wall-to-wall tacky dwellings? Do they not deserve better?

MARY LOU RIPLEY

Laguna Beach

Smoking ordinances: The government has no business prohibiting private employers and employees from smoking in their own offices--or their conference rooms!

KEITH COPLAN

Irvine

A small minority of asthmatics and bronchial patients may be allergic to any smoke in the atmosphere but the vast majority of those who object to the smoking of others are suffering from a massive case of intolerance. The point is the time is long overdue for the public panic about smoking to moderate.

BEATRICE ROSAHN

Laguna Niguel

Individuals who smoke may think it is a personal decision that only affects their health and their pocketbooks, but it is unfortunate that each one of us must pay for the increased health-care costs.

PEARL JEMISON-SMITH

President,

American Lung Assn. of California

AIDS: In Orange County we have initiated an AIDS coalition that has been meeting monthly for the past few months. We must work together to care for those stricken with the disease, as well as educate those individuals at high risk for acquiring the disease, the health care providers and the community at large.

PEARL JEMISON-SMITH

Orange

Oil drilling: Interior Secretary Donald Hodel’s visit to the California coast will pour oil on troubled waters--figuratively speaking. Opposition to proposed offshore drilling has arisen from local elected officials of several coastal cities.

The reasons for opposition are several: possibility of an oil spill; visual blight; insensitivity to local government; political chicanery and the autocratic position that the California coastal communities are energy colonies of the federal government.

PETER GREEN

Huntington Beach

City Councilman

A powerful class of itinerant political and industrial vandals is now attempting to pillage our coast under the rubric of solving the “energy crisis.” The public needs to rally its forces and bring every conceivable pressure to bear on those who can reverse the regrettable decision to lay open the coast for offshore oil exploration.

RANDY LEWIS

Laguna Beach

We are going to have offshore oil drilling. Let’s deal for the good of the country and not just for the isolated good of a few lucky beachfront dwellers who have a much more selfish motive.

KARL O. BERGHEER

Newport Beach

Teen-age curfew: Commenting on the proposed curfew enforcement for minors in Newport Beach, Carol Sobel of the American Civil Liberties Union is quoted as saying, “Simply being on the street is not a reason for curfew--hanging out is a ritual of growing up.” I wonder is Sobel would feel the same way if the “hanging out” was being done next to her bedroom window every summner night (and often all night) as it is for many permanent residents of the Balboa Peninsula?

MR. and MRS. H. EMMONS

Newport Beach

I would like to emphasize that the problem of loitering teen-agers lies more with their parents than with the city.

Maybe if the parents got fined once in a while, they might show a greater interest in their children’s activities and whereabouts.

BENNY WASSERMAN

La Palma

Commuter lanes: If, as you say in your editorial “Express Lanes Best for Freeway” (Sept.22), the purpose of this project was to increase the capacity of the freeway by moving more people, I cannot agree with your conclusion that a commuter lane is the best way to achieve this goal.

The congestion on the Costa Mesa Freeway is caused, in large part, by the heavy volume of commuters coming in from the Riverside County area and beyond.

As long as employment centers continue to develop in Orange County and affordable housing is being developed in the outlying areas, the volume of traffic on the Costa Mesa Freeway will continue to increase.

...The solution to congestion on the Costa Mesa Freewway is not a commuter lane.

F. PAUL DUDLEY

Costa Mesa

It’s hard to believe that most people wouldn’t want to cut down on their driving time and also save wear and tear not only on their cars, but also on their nerves.

Just one more person in the car can cut down one’s driving and expenses by 50%. It would also help unclog freeway congestion and reduce smog. So, don’t wait any longer. Get in the “express” lane now by calling “Commuter Computer.”

BEN WASSERMAN

La Palma

Each and every driver, regardless of the number of passengers carried, has contributed to the highway trust fund. To restrict free access to any portion of the roads built therefrom is a breach of that trust.

SANDRA R. SWANSON

Tustin