Marinapark beach access through gate is available...

Marinapark beach access through gate is available

Just to set the record straight, I would like to respond to Chris

Dabbs’ comments and misleading picture you painted (Letter to the

Editor, “Gate doesn’t seem like easy access,” Feb. 20). He was

responding to a letter to the editor from Betty Berkshire regarding

beach and boardwalk access in front of the Marinapark mobile home

site on the Balboa Peninsula (“Marinapark is not closed to public,”

Feb. 13).

The gate picture he supplied as evidence that the mobile home park

somehow prevents people from reaching the beach or boardwalk is

terribly misleading and completely untrue. If he took the picture, he

knows he has provided a false impression. One might ask, why does

Chris Dabbs believe it is so necessary to distort the truth? He says,

“a picture is worth a 1,000 words.” Well, that picture is worth one

word: deceptive.

First of all, and most importantly, no one would ever go through

that gate to reach the beach. Why? Because that always unlocked gate

does not lead to the beach, but leads to a public boardwalk that

passes in front of the mobile home park that many people use to get

between 15th and 18th streets or to and from the American Legion

building or docks.

As to the issue of beach access, there are several avenues of

access to the bay beach as has been said by many before me. They

include the walkway leading from Las Arenas Park and both 18th and

19th streets. As a matter of fact, there is nothing preventing people

from walking directly through the entrance to the mobile home park

and on to the beach.

JOHN RETTBERG

Newport Beach

Santa Ana Heights avoids Costa Mesa successfully

Congratulations to the residents of the west section of Santa Ana

Heights in achieving their quest for a prestigious Newport Beach

address. This also gives the city of Newport Beach the affordable

housing area that it has been seeking for a long time.

Now is also the time to rein in Russell Niewiarowski and friends

with their written/verbal degrading remarks about the residents of

Costa Mesa and the city of Costa Mesa.

I want to repeat a statement that I made in a letter to the editor

that was printed a couple of years ago.

Niewiarowski should build a Berlin-type wall around his little

enclave out there in order to keep us Costa Mesa residents from

coming in and contaminating those residents and property.

Unfortunately, he could not build it high enough to keep the “snob

appeal” smell from drifting over into our Costa Mesa neighborhoods.

DON KNIPP

Costa Mesa

Westside should fight redevelopment zone

I am still reeling from Martin Millard’s melodramatic diatribe in

Wednesday’s Daily Pilot (Letter to the Editor, “Rezoning bluffs will

aid Westside”).

It is almost laughable that Millard is so dead certain that there

are places where only those with “enough disposable income” should be

allowed. The plain little businesses and their surroundings should

just be whisked out of the horrified gaze of the moneyed, the sooner

the better. They are the “lowest and worse” use of the land, they

“fester and rot,” etc.

Interestingly, to a lot of us of the hoi polloi, another

development of cookie cutter million-dollar-plus “estates,” crowded

cheek-to-jowl on the bluffs, would not exactly be nirvana. For all

their grandiose names and architectural excesses, they are still

constructed of two-by-fours, chicken wire and stucco.

I like knowing that there are still plenty of thriving small

businesses in Costa Mesa and neighborhoods where working people can

still find shelter.

What we do not need is more development and higher-cost housing

and heavier traffic and great-big pretentious houses. So I hope that

the offending owners of the bluffs-blighting businesses stick to

their guns and put up a good fight.

I’ll be rooting for them.

WALLACE WOOD

Costa Mesa

Newport campaign reform issue should be put on ballot

Yes, we should put the issue of campaign reform and conflict of

interest before the citizens of Newport Beach on a ballot

(“Greenlight hopes to put reform on ballot,” Wednesday). Expecting

the City Council to police itself is absurd.

It is up to the citizens of Newport Beach to set the standards for

its city council and then hold them accountable.

BARBARA JOHNSON

Newport Coast

Newport Beach should go farther to honor Salata

We think it’s about time (Mailbag, “Rename Bonita Canyon park to

honor Paul Salata,” Thursday). The only thing better would be to

rename the city New Salata.

JAN AND MICKEY ARTENIAN

Newport Beach