Online banter ranges from caustic to helpful

Jennifer Kho

CYBERSPACE -- The conversation resumes daily, with concerns, opinions

and advice scrolling down the e-mail lists at all hours.

Some days, one e-mail is added to the list of thousands that make up

the ongoing conversation.

Other days, when the discussions heat up and are controversial, there

can be as many as 50.

Citizens for the Improvement of Costa Mesa, a group that supported

Chris Steel’s election to the Costa Mesa City Council in November and

continues to agree with many of his platform views, hosts the running

dialogue on its online e-mail group, o7

[email protected] . Only five e-mails went

out during its first 10 days, though by March, the number had grown to

434.

The organization is dedicated to improving rundown areas throughout

the city, not just on the Westside.

Still, many of its top issues deal with the Westside -- including

using eminent domain to create more expensive housing on the Westside and

cracking down on illegal immigrants, a move members say would vastly

improve property values, schools and the overall quality of life in Costa

Mesa.

The group opposes a John Wayne Airport expansion and supports lowering

the city’s housing density, encouraging home ownership, rezoning the

bluffs to pave the way for single-family homes instead of industrial

buildings, encouraging more social education at charities -- which many

in the group say are magnets for illegal immigrants -- and eliminating

the city’s “slums,” Chairwoman Janice Davidson said.

Most of the time, the views expressed in the e-mail group postings

closely match Citizens for the Improvement of Costa Mesa’s opinions.

This week, for instance, day laborers became the topic of conversation

and the opinion that such people should not be allowed to loiter at a

7-Eleven on Placentia Street was uncontested on the site.

One contributor urged people to complain about loitering day laborers

to 7-Eleven’s corporate headquarters and to complain to the city about

the job center.

Citizens for the Improvement of Costa Mesa member Don Elmore and

Martin H. Millard, who is not a member, are both regular contributors to

the e-mail group, and both wrote that they had filed complaints using

7-Eleven’s Web site.

But occasionally, the debate can heat up, with contributors offering

opposition to the views of the majority on the site.

Last week, Gladys Olmedo spoke against the Citizens for the

Improvement of Costa Mesa’s support for rezoning the bluffs.

Olmedo and David Martinez, another contributor, also challenged

Millard’s assertions that illegal immigrants are the major source of the

Westside’s problems. They said they were offended by his comments, which

they said targeted Latinos.

“The problem exacerbates other issues when we start to over-generalize

ethnicity,” Martinez wrote. “The clear and present risk unfolds when we

go from illegal aliens generally to Hispanic ethnicity in general.”

The two were soon run off the e-mail group because of other

contributors’ opinions that they were attacking Millard personally,

rather than just his views.

“Not all ideas are good ideas and not all people who say they want

improvement really want improvement,” Millard wrote toward the end of the

debate. “I’m getting a little tired of seeing [Martinez’s] childish

attempts to divide citizens. Maybe he should go ‘help’ some other groups

who are more in line with his negative thinking.”

“I’ll second that,” an unnamed contributor wrote.

“Call for the vote,” Elmore wrote.

“My vote is ‘I,”’ the same unnamed contributor wrote. “Like my

grandfather said, ‘If you don’t like what you’re reading, set the book

down and walk away.”’

Davidson said it is no surprise there is some diversity of opinion in

the postings, considering Citizens for the Improvement of Costa Mesa

members make up fewer than 20 of nearly 70 residents who have signed into

the e-mail group.

Even members of other organizations frequent the e-mail group, she

said, because it is a way for people in need to find help and for people

who want to get involved to learn how they can help.

One of the original goals behind the e-mail group was to connect

people in need of help with others who could help, Davidson said.

“That way, if you only have a little bit of time, you can go on the

site and find out what people need that you can do in the amount of time

that you have available,” she said. “Maybe you can help someone mow their

lawn if they can’t do it. It’s a good way for people to be active in

improving their community in the time slot they have available.”

Even though many of the e-mails are focused on arguing a point of view

or persuading others to write or speak about an issue rather than on

helping individuals in need, Davidson said the activism still helps

others.

“We are talking about what we can do for the city that are viable and

visible,” she said. “Things that will benefit everybody. The dialogue is

a very valuable thing.”