MAILBAG - Jan. 13, 2000

Jim Wood does good for community

While I’m hardly an unbiased source, I can’t help but respond to your

recent ambush of Jim Wood (“Center of the storm,” Dec. 21). Reporter

Noaki Schwartz’s profile proves the adage that “rarely does a good deed

go unpunished.”

As I have observed, Wood’s volunteer work with the library began in 1994

as a member of the Foundation Board. He was appointed as a library

trustee in 1996. In that capacity, he created the Distinguished Speaker’s

Lecture Series, which has brought luminaries such as George Plimpton,

Andy Rooney, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Tom Brokaw to sold-out audiences. I

also know he advocated the addition of specialized collections totaling

6,000 volumes and oversaw the addition of a new electronic reference

system -- hardly “self-serving” acts. All of this has been Wood’s gift to

the community. As far as I know, and I’ve been working at Coast Magazine

for the past seven years, Wood has never used his position as

co-publisher of Coast Magazine “as a springboard ... to expand his

leadership role to include spearheading a $12 million Arts and Education

Center behind the library.” But Schwartz got one thing right: Strong

personalities do illicit strong reactions. So whether people resent Wood

or support him, there is no question that this community is a better

place because of his vision.

JUSTINE AMODEO

Editor, Coast Magazine

Library debate should ask larger question

Reading between the lines regarding tensions between the private Newport

Beach Library Foundation and the Newport Beach Public Library Trustees,

one can only suspect that we are but glimpsing a struggle for ultimate

control of the library itself (“Foundation says agreement lopsided,” Jan.

4). If so, the questions are as follows: Should the Newport Beach Public

Library remain a public library system, owned and operated by the city of

Newport Beach and its trustees, or should it become a private library

owned and operated by a private foundation and controlled by its donors?

REBA WILLIAMS

Newport Beach

Right about the bond, wrong about de Boom

Steve Smith’s column “Leaders are to blame for our crumbling schools”

(Jan. 8) hit a bull’s-eye when delineating the failures of the

Newport-Mesa school board of present and past. Absent Wendy Leece, Jim

Ferryman and Orv Amburgey, we have yet to see an informed school board

ready to enter the 21st century with marketing and public relations

skills.

Steve’s column hit home run after home run when factually laying out the

decades of miscues. This list is heavier than even Steve pointed out:

embezzlement, not listening to John Moorlach when he specifically told

the district to get out of the county fund, swapping principals between

Harbor and Corona del Mar high schools in the late ‘80s, letting former

Supt. John Nicoll rule with no checks and balances, continuing with a

flawed zero-tolerance policy, no term limits for board members, and of

course ignoring infrastructure improvements for decades.

Ah, but Steve, once again you have shown that your editorial skills lack

the depth of community history. All the way up to the eighth inning, your

column was going great. No way in the world would anyone in their right

mind support a bond to bail out this school board for its failures. But

Steve, really ... do you want Jim De Boom to assist in the bond effort?

De Boom was a leader of the board pack that infested our schools with

most of the problems we have today. De Boom headed the school board

through most of the years when we could have addressed these problems in

better fashion than “taxing” our community.

Come on, Steve Smith, know your community. The last thing we need is a

return to the past. Jim De Boom is a fine man, wonderful columnist for

the Pilot and very ethical. A better role for de Boom is to have his

talents focused toward selling off sponsorship rights to major companies

who may select to be a part of our schools. Of course, knowing how you

seem to despise “free enterprise” in schools, I imagine this would not

sit well with you.

At any rate, let’s not go backward.

BRIAN K. THERIOT

Costa Mesa