Edison’s Takeover of Angel Stadium

* Thank you, Edison International, Southern California Edison and John E. Bryson for the new name for Anaheim Stadium. We didn’t even know we needed it.

But what the citizens of Orange County do need is for you to put in a way for people to get to the beach as they walk by your “other” major visibility venue--the oceanfront power plant in Huntington Beach. It doesn’t even have a sidewalk in front of it.

Just think, some PR, some goodwill and safety to boot. All with a little ribbon of concrete with handicapped ramps.

And you can name it whatever you want.

PETER HAMBORG

Huntington Beach

* Instead of Edison International paying the Disney Co. $1.4 million a year for 20 years to enrich the Disney coffers, why doesn’t Edison use the millions of dollars to lower the cost of electricity for their customers?

Is the money it is using money that has accumulated while Edison was a monopolistic public utility? Will they raise rates next?

IRWIN KLEIN

Mission Viejo

* As we watched Michael Eisner on TV unveil the new stadium name, Edison International Field of Anaheim, I asked my 11-year-old son what would happen to the “Big A” sign in the parking lot. No problem, he thought. Disney could reshape it into the Big E.

WALT HALAGARDA

Mission Viejo

* Re “It’s Battery Up!” Sept. 23:

Southern California Edison, which just anted up roughly $1.4 million per year to see its name on Anaheim Stadium, doesn’t have enough shareholder money left over to install recharging stations for the electric vehicles it hopes to provide with juice, presumably at a profit. They are counting instead on local, state and federal taxpayers to do it for them.

If Edison is so confident that electric vehicles will take over the highways, let them rent space for their recharging stations from the taxpayers just as they’ve found the money to rent a sign at the Big A from Disney. That’s what other corporations do when they want to install infrastructure such as pay telephones or cell phone reception towers on public property.

Convincing taxpayers to underwrite Edison’s electric vehicle recharging stations is reminiscent of Tom Sawyer’s getting his friends to pay him for the privilege of whitewashing the fence. In a county still recovering from bankruptcy, aren’t there better uses for our tax dollars?

ANITA M. MANGELS

Executive Director

Californians Against Hidden Taxes

Laguna Beach

* The Big A will always be the Big A to me. As soon as I can change my electric company, it will be goodbye Edison!

FRANCES DILLMAN

Buena Park

* Name it what they want, this guy will continue to call it the Big A or Angel Stadium, as long as the Angels are there. Let’s face it, there are no guarantees anymore. Everything’s for sale. Ask Disney Chairman Michael Eisner.

To verify my perverse stubbornness: It is also still the San Diego, not the 405; and the Santa Ana Freeway, not the 5. It’s not South Coast Metro, either, no matter what “they” say. It’s the South Coast Plaza area. And sorry, movers and shakers, it is Orange County Airport to anybody who loves this place and is proud to say where he or she is from.

When I say it, the term is always understood, even by newcomers. Truly, it is mouth-gagging to say you are flying into a movie actor. The memorial statue is OK. No problem. Get rid of the name. It’s embarrassingly provincial, nice guy or not.

Another thought: For $1.4 million per year, how would Eisner like to see the name Disneyland/Orange County Airport? Now that’s a winner! A win-win deal! Commercially speaking, that is. But, that’s what it’s all about, right?

ARTHUR J. STANLOR

Costa Mesa

* Featured prominently on the front page of the Sept. 23 Metro section is a large photograph of one John C. Cox Jr. of Newport Beach recharging his electric car for free at a Costco in Irvine.

The companion story discusses a pending decision in Anaheim “to help jump-start the electric vehicle industry in Orange County.” Cox is introduced in the article as an ordinary fellow “who uses his leased [electric] General Motors EV1 as an everyday car and drives in from his Newport Beach home to his office in Diamond Bar.” Cox “applauds the effort,” you write, to encourage the use of electric vehicles.

This is outrageously sloppy reporting by The Times.

Cox is the executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments’ Southern California Economic Partnership. This is a taxpayer-funded “private sector business group” (whatever that might be) charged with the task of promoting the use of electric vehicles.

Cox drives to Diamond Bar every day in an electric car because that’s where SCAG’s offices are and it’s where he earns a sizable public salary promoting electric cars.

The problem isn’t with Cox; the use of electric cars may be wise public policy. The problem is with The Times. Surely readers have the right to know that the fellow charging up at Costco is a paid advocate for electric cars--if for no other reason than to assign appropriate weight to Cox’s enthusiasm for electric transport.

MARK P. PETRACCA

Irvine