Beach Residents

Re: Miguel Bustillo’s excellent article “Valentino’s Beach Party,” Oct. 30.

I take personal umbrage to George Johnson’s assertion that the assessment districts were just a tool to get the peasants off the beach, principally because, I suppose, I’m one of his so-called peasants.

I’m not a doctor, lawyer or corporate head. On the contrary, I’m a senior chief petty officer, U.S. Navy, retired. I own and reside in a small cottage in the Hollywood-by-the-Sea tract in the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District, and have been a beach resident since 1959 when the Navy assigned me to serve as leading chief of the Naval Security Group Detachment at Point Mugu. Also, I was elected treasurer and was an active member of the Hollywood Beach Project Ad Hoc Citizens Committee, in its successful campaign to establish the badly needed improvement projects that Johnson strongly denounces.

At one time in the not too distant past, we beach people had to make an important decision: whether we would just trod along indifferently and let the chips fall where they may. Or, instead, take advantage of our new harbor and work to create the dynamic community we now have, despite opposition from a small group of dissenters like Johnson. Fortunately, the large majority selected the latter.

JAMES J. BENNETT

Oxnard

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I am deeply distressed over comments made in “Valentino’s Beach Party,” Oct. 30.

The characterization that more recent residents of Channel Islands Beach have brought about “the Encino lifestyle” is puzzling. Is that the same as a Pasadena lifestyle, or Glendale lifestyle or even Toluca Lake lifestyle? It certainly is not the Malibu lifestyle.

Our neighbors at Hollywood Beach are eclectic, running the gamut from well-to-do to a little above poverty level. Some are even middle class. But, who cares? We all love the beach and the still unpretentious lifestyle.

Perhaps these naysayers would be more productive and happier citizens if they stopped trying to polarize our community and renewed their efforts toward preventing annexation.

FRAN SAVITCH

Oxnard