Hoping stake’s in CenterLine’s heart

Imagine my chagrin when I read my Letter to the Editor on the subject

of a possible name change for CenterLine in the same issue of this

fine newspaper that included an article on its probable demise

(“Mailbag, Sunday). Sometimes it’s just hard to hit a moving target.

However, if the full Orange County Transportation Agency Board of

Directors follows the lead of the subcommittee and does, indeed, pull

the plug on this boondoggle it will be one happy day for this Costa

Mesa resident.

It will mean that the nearly $1 billion earmarked for CenterLine

can be used for other, more worthwhile transportation projects.

I hesitate to get too giddy about this development, because it is

possible that the transportation authority will just put CenterLine

into an induced coma until all the turmoil surrounding the extension

of the Measure M sales tax blows over. I guess it is possible that

they think if they put CenterLine down for a little nap the rest of

us will doze off, too. At the end of the City Council meeting on

Monday, Councilman Gary Monahan -- recently elected to the

transportation authority board -- told his peers and the audience not

to believe everything they read about the demise of CenterLine and

implied that there’s another shoe waiting to drop on this issue.

If, in fact, the board does vote to quash CenterLine, I suspect

they will have to recalculate the plans they’ve been presenting to

the public in workshops around the county for the past month -- those

plans for relief of the traffic snarls in the central county, which

presently include alternatives that run an extension of the Orange

(57) Freeway down the Santa Ana River to the ocean. It is my

understanding from those presentations that CenterLine was an

integral part of each scenario.

It makes you wonder what kind of pipe dream they will come up with

next. How about mass levitation? Beam me up, Scotty!

Briefly, on a separate issue, after watching the City Council

meeting on Monday, it still looks very much like many important

decisions are going to be made along gender lines. During the

appointment process for the Planning and Parks and Recreation

commissions the split became obvious. There was no unanimous

appointee to the Planning Commission, and the nominees for the Parks

and Recreation Commission made by Katrina Foley and Linda Dixon were

rejected. Based on the rotation methodology used to make the

selections, the men had a chance to stack that deck and took

advantage of it. That being said, both commissions look strong and

capable. Time will tell.

Life in Costa Mesa continues to be very interesting.

GEOFF WEST

Costa Mesa