Newport Beach Residents Don’t Deserve ‘Bad Rap’ From the Media

As a 28-year resident of Newport Beach, living in this city because I choose to live here and worked many long hours to be able to achieve this goal, I resent the media’s inference of a community catering to the rich and scandal-ridden.

As a longtime community activist, working to balance the needs of the residents who live and pay taxes here along with the needs of the tourists who visit our wonderful free beaches, I wish to inform the media that the vast majority who make up the mix in our community are retired folks who bought their beach homes some 30, 40 and 50 years ago and a fine group of young adults who work hard to be able to live here and who have chosen to live here because of the wonderful area and because of the security of this city in which to raise their children--security provided by outstanding rank-and-file police officers.

Yes, there is great wealth among us as well--people who have earned the right to live on our bays and ocean fronts and harbor ridges with spectacular views. These are the people who organize and hold the almost weekly benefits and extravaganzas that give virtually millions of dollars to provide food and shelter for abused children, for battered women, for the troubled, for the poor and homeless. I could go on and on about these folks who never say no and are so willing to open their pocketbooks for others.

I resent being lumped together with the very few who serve themselves alone by taking what is not rightfully theirs, and I ask that the media, who claim to be champions of right against wrong, give credit where credit is due. We are a city made up of a vast majority who are good and kind and righteous and we don’t deserve the bum rap that the media is bringing upon us.

DAYNA PETTIT

Newport Beach