Soccer club should go to sports complex...

Soccer club should go to sports complex

I sympathize with the neighbors at Hope View School, having put up

with the same irritations in my own neighborhood as we are getting

some of the overflow from Hope View.

These fields were meant for the elementary school-age children who

are attending school in the area, and not for crowds of adults and

older teenagers. Let the soccer club people get together with our big

new sports facility and put it to good use. Let us have some peace

and quiet in our homes.

GRACE NELSON

Huntington Beach

KOCE should stay a local PBS station

My vote is to keep KOCE as is. KOCE currently reaches a very large

viewership throughout the Southland, being broadcast from its new

antenna atop Mt. Wilson.

Everyone also needs to know that last May, KOCE completed the

necessary engineering changes mandated by the FCC that brings them to

digital broadcast capability. If sold to the wrong organization, and

there are a number of them on the bid list, the tens of thousands of

KOCE viewers could loose valuable PBS programs and irreplaceable

educational classes. Keep KOCE local, keep KOCE Orange County.

JIM STEAD

Huntington Beach

The use of police helicopters is overkill

I am a resident of Huntington Beach and a retired electronics

engineer. I’m still having to work because of the stock market

status.

My main topic is to add to the letter you published by Kim Palzes,

regarding scaling back the police force (the helicopter air force and

crew). If the Huntington Beach residents would realize the cost of

that air force, they would immediately initiate elimination action.

The annual maintenance/insurance figures would be a wake-up call,

the purchase price of helicopters another heart attack. All of this

is public accessible information: Can someone please obtain those

figures and publish them in a future article.

We are all in agreement regarding an overkill of these unmuffled

flying leaf blowers. We do not have a remote vast wilderness

requiring a hovering craft for rescue or pursuit of gang-owned drug

trafficking aircraft. The present choppers are just busybodies,

hovering over accident scenes, seemingly forever, and disturbing the

peace all evening getting their flying time over the Santa Ana River.

I repeat: In these adverse financial times, it’s chaotic to not

reduce or totally cut/sell choppers. We have Costa Mesa and Newport

Beach who also have air forces, Why?

CINDY KLAVY

Huntington Beach

Planner’s reasoning sketchy at best

I was floored when I heard Huntington Beach Planning Commissioner

Robert Dingwall suggest that the commission should “suspend the

rules” if necessary to reopen the environmental impact report for the

desalination facility that was approved on July 8.

It turns out, it wasn’t necessary to break the law to reopen and

reanalyze the proposed desalinization plant, but it certainly is

frightening that Commissioner Dingwall wasn’t going to let the law

get in the way of his effort to stop this project. I look forward to

having this project heard by the City Council, where I hope cooler

heads will prevail.

KIMBERLY A. HODSON

Huntington Beach

Planners should not OK Poseidon report

The Planning Commission should not approve the Poseidon

environmental report. The misrepresentations that have occurred thus

far show that it is unreliable and biased.

HOWARD GEOGHEGAN

Huntington Beach

Commissioners missing big picture

I find it highly ironic that while Huntington Beach Planning

Commissioners Ron Davis, Randy Kokal, Robert Dingwall and Steven Ray

are railing against the dangers of desalinating seawater and

questioning the science of reverse osmosis (which separates the water

molecules from the salt molecules), they often pause their

filibusters to refresh themselves with bottled water.

I wonder if they are aware that bottled water uses the same

reverse osmosis process that they claim could be as damaging as DDT

or MTBE. Of course, the most paradoxical moment of the evening came

as Planning Commission Chairman Kokal claimed that he was

investigating whether or not it was proper for a private company to

purify public water, then resell it. Of course, as he was

pontificating about the dangers of private corporate involvement in

the water industry, he was sipping his bottled water.

LISA O’LOUGHLIN

Huntington Beach

Report should not be brought back

It is ridiculous for the Huntington Beach Planning Commission to

reopen the environmental impact report on the desalination facility

just two weeks after they approved it.

The desalination company, Poseidon Resources Corp., has invested

thousands of dollars in scientific analysis showing that “saltwater

in, saltwater out” does not damage the ocean habitat. Additionally,

the city of Huntington Beach hired its own independent environmental

analysts and scientists who came to the same conclusion.

Yet the rantings of a handful of environmental extremists, who

have not offered one shred of scientific evidence to back their

unsubstantiated claims of environmental damage, have convinced a

majority of the Planning Commission to start back at square one. The

environmental impacts of this project have been analyzed by the city

for more than 10 months now. Huntington Beach and Orange County needs

desalinated seawater, and yet the anti-business majority on the

Planning Commission has done everything possible to scuttle this

project. It’s time this project was approved (again). Let’s move on.

MICHELE REVELLE

Huntington Beach

It’s time to tap into the ocean water

Since the beginning of time, mankind has relied on the 2% of the

earth’s water supply that is fresh water. Thanks to improved

desalination technology, we can finally tap into the other 98% of the

water supply available to us. Fifty years from now, we’ll wonder how

we ever got by without desalinated seawater. It’s time to take

advantage of this infinite resource and never again worry about

drought.

ERIC CARLISLE

Huntington Beach

No to Poseidon and Brightwater pipe

The [Poseidon environmental report] is a flawed document.

Planning Commissioner Ron Davis was courageous in changing his vote

when he discovered the EIR that he had depended on was flawed. The

city of Huntington Beach will not receive one drop of the desalinated

water. All the city gets is the plant that takes water and sends

twice as much salination back into our ocean and beaches than it took

out. This plant is not needed here. We don’t get the water. Put the

plant where they get the water: Santa Margarita’s housing

development.

Also, the city should not approve the pipeline for water to Bolsa

Chica Brightwater project. The project has no environmental report

and no local coastal plan. The pipeline would come through parts of

Garden Grove, Cypress, Seal Beach, Westminster and Bolsa Chica Road

and Los Patos in Huntington Beach. This project hasn’t been approved

by the Coastal Commission. The city should not vote to let the

pipeline dig up our streets.

EILEEN MURPHY

Huntington Beach

Rent and home prices out of control

Huntington Beach is out of control. The rents here make it

impossible for anybody to be able to save money enough to get out of

the renting market. The price of rent combined with the escalating

cost of homes, the ridiculous escalation of homes, makes it all but

impossible for anybody working with a family to get out of the

renting cycle and be able to afford a home of their own -- unless

maybe a relative dies, or you have some kind of an award from a

lawsuit or something, or you are able to put a lump sum down on a

house.

Things are very difficult and getting worse. People who are in

houses and own the apartment or houses, they don’t care, it’s obvious

just by the greed that is so prevalent today, here in the city.

It’s funny that they call Huntington Beach Surf City, but unless a

surfer is independently wealthy or some kind of young professional

without kids, surfers can’t afford to live in Surf City. They have to

live in other cities and drive here, so it is kind of a joke. The

demographic of the city has changed so drastically, from a young

vibrant beach town to an affluent AARP kind of an island here down by

the beach.

And there is very little hope in sight for that to be changing. I

do live in Huntington Beach, I have two kids, and it is not easy. So

anyway, that’s my comment on your article. Good article, keep them

coming. This housing bubble has got to burst.

ROB PARCHINSKI

Huntington Beach

Airport officials were reassuring to one

From the reactions of the audience at last Thursday’s Long Beach

Airport meeting held at the library, I’m undoubtedly in the minority

in coming away feeling better rather than worse. I cannot believe how

rude some people were! While I can understand being upset at the fact

that where once there was mostly quiet there are now up to 40 flights

overhead, that is far better than being near John Wayne or LAX, or

having overnight flights.

Airport officials explained about their city’s 13-year battle to

adopt a noise ordinance, how their City Council fully supports the

ordinance and how they strictly monitor the airlines for violations

of the ordinance (although the $3,000 fine seemed low.) They

explained how there aren’t any noise monitors in Huntington Beach

because the ordinance is to control noise in Long Beach. They

explained how they were one of only six airports in the nation (along

with John Wayne) allowed to keep their ordinance in place despite a

1990 federal law that practically forbids local restrictions. They

explained that they can’t just make the planes fly higher or take a

different route just because Huntington Beach is upset, due to the

regional air traffic affecting other flights.

I got the impression Long Beach is proud of their noise-control

ordinance, and rightly so. Air travel is a reality and is not going

away. The noise from each Long Beach airplane lasts about 60 seconds

over our house. While I wish it were as peaceful as when we moved in

four years ago, I can at least sleep peacefully at night thanks to

Long Beach’s noise-control ordinance.

JULIE BIXBY

Huntington Beach

Harman has done his office justice

It is refreshing, and all too often rare, when our legislators

contribute more than partisan posturing in solving the problems and

dealing with the issues we face at the local level. It is especially

refreshing when someone you voted for hits a four-bagger for the home

team.

That is precisely what happened when Assemblyman Tom Harman cut a

deal with Gov. Gray Davis’ administration to help fund the purchase

of the Bolsa Chica Mesa in return for supporting the latest state

budget.

The deal will be a “win-win” situation for both environmentalists

and the developer and will be in the long term best interest of the

community. A classic case of bringing home the bacon.

It shows what can happen when elected officials pursue moderate

and practical courses in representing their constituents rather than

focusing their time and energy on playing political hardball. Too bad

all our representatives are not like Tom Harman.

TIM GEDDES

Huntington Beach