HUD Meetings in El Modena Area

I am writing in response to articles I have read in your newspaper concerning Orange County HUD meetings held in the El Modena community (“Residents Complain About Grant Process,” March 1).

As the executive director of the Orange Children & Parents Together Inc. (OCPT) programs, I have participated in HUD public hearings, in El Modena, for the past 17 years.

I have not found the allegations to be true. Seniors were not the only group represented. Sam Rodriquez and Rudy Diaz were present at the same public hearing. When the chairperson of the Coalition, Annie Quintana, asked if anyone had other community needs they wanted addressed, why didn’t they come forward, make a presentation for youth activities and put it to a vote by the community, like the rest of us? They had more than ample opportunity to do so.

The El Modena community and the Orange County HUD staff have worked together, for the benefit of the El Modena residents, for many years. It saddens me to see a small, vocal handful destructively dividing the community for personal needs, all under the guise of “the good of the community!”

ELECTRA ADAMS, Orange