ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Protecting Our Greatest Resource

Like every other citizen in Huntington Beach, the protection of our precious beaches and coastline is of paramount importance to me for the beauty and serenity it provides to our community.

When the youth sports community wrote and submitted Measure D to the Huntington Beach City Council we had just that protection in mind. But we were also trying to protect an even greater resource--our children.

Measure D is one of two ballot issues concerning the beaches and parks that will come before Huntington Beach voters Tuesday. Measure C would require a public vote and majority approval on the lease, sale, transfer or exchange of city-owned beach and park land. Measure D would also require the public vote, but only if the land was being sold.

True, Measure C will provide a voter mandate to approve building much needed visitor-serving amenities on a blighted parking lot at the base of our pier, services that have been approved by the State Coastal Commission and passed unanimously by our own Planning Commission.

That might work in a small town, but is it any way to run a city of 200,000? More important, however, are the programs, the facilities and the people, especially children, that Measure C will harm.

Various legal opinions not withstanding on both sides of the issue (and the key word here is “opinion”), Measure C will require that a full-blown and expensive political campaign be waged in Huntington Beach every time we want to build for our children a sports facility, a Boys’ and Girls Club or even a Youth Shelter on any city-owned park land. That would be true even if no public money is spent. Quite clearly, these obstacles will freeze our kids out of the process by either delaying or ending the hope of these much-needed facilities ever being built.

In these times of rampant drug use (yes, even here in Huntington Beach!) and ever-increasing gang activity, is this the message we want to give to our kids? I don’t think so.

Huntington Beach is rightly proud of its nine miles of pristine coastline and its city park system that boasts the highest acreage per capita of any community in Orange County. Measure D will help ensure that not one grain of beach sand or one blade of existing park grass will be disturbed by any project, including the Youth Sports Facility. But most importantly, it will guarantee that our greatest resource, our own children, will be protected by us all.

Like our representative form of government, Measure D may not be perfect, but I believe it is the best option to prevent our parks and beaches from being sold by our council to anyone. And most significantly, it allows for the planning, building and completion of projects that the entire community agrees will serve those with the weakest voice in our political system--our kids. I think the voters of Huntington Beach will agree on Nov. 6 by rejecting Measure C and voting Yes on Measure D.