MAILBAG:

Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor had a good article in the Daily Pilot (“Improvers living up to namesake,” Feb. 17).

Few Improvers would disagree with what Mansoor wrote, and most would agree that Mansoor, Mayor Eric Bever and Councilwoman Wendy Leece are slowly turning this ponderous ship of state Costa Mesa back from the rocky shoals near where previous city councils had allowed it to drift.

However, it is not enough to put a heavy emphasis on fixing potholes and other needed but minor things. Potholes and similar things were never the real problem. Fixing such things is just routine maintenance, not real improvement. Of course, saying you’re going to fix potholes is a safe political position. Who is going to complain about that being done?

Still, Costa Mesa needs more than just a little tweaking of things. It needs major structural changes.

This is so because Costa Mesa is “designed” backward. We have our massive industrial zone on our view bluffs, and our homes are downwind of that zone. We also have far too many barracks-style apartments on some of our streets. Some of these buildings remind me of when I was at Parris Island. What worked for Marines doesn’t work so well here.

Costa Mesa needs to reduce its industrial zoning by about half, and it needs to start removing some of these apartments that are breeding grounds and safe havens for gangs and crime.

Here are just a couple of statistics about this: Costa Mesa has 14% of its land zoned as industrial. Newport Beach has only 2% of its land zoned this way. Santa Ana has 18% of its land zoned as industrial.

In Costa Mesa, about 40% of our dwellings are owner occupied, and 60% are renter occupied. This is just about upside down.

So, how do we know if we’re steering in the right direction and not just listening to PR spin and fuzzy adjectives? We compare our city’s vital signs to the five cities that touch some part of our border: Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Irvine and Santa Ana.

A look at the vital signs of these cities almost always shows that Newport is at the top of the heap in quality of life, and Santa Ana is at the bottom of the heap.

Most Improvers believe that due to our closeness to Newport Beach, both geographically and traditionally, that Costa Mesa should trend more like that city than Santa Ana.

Unfortunately, just the opposite case is true. And without statistics, it would be difficult to navigate through the happy talk to the truth. Common sense tells us that fixing potholes is not going to change anything.

I won’t bore you with all the statistics I’ve been gathering since about 1999; but if you look at the statistics I gave above, along with home prices, student school scores, income levels, crime levels, education levels and more that give a snapshot of how we’re doing, you’ll probably agree Costa Mesa needs real improvement. Structural improvement. A design change.

So, while this isn’t a criticism of Mansoor, it is a call to do much more and to take on major changes that are needed.

We don’t need to pay five council members to fix potholes. The city has a large staff that is perfectly capable of putting a shovel full of asphalt in holes in the street.

We need council members to provide vision and leadership on major matters. The council should be initiating improvement, and staff should be implementing it. To put this another way: The council should be coming up with strategies, and staff should be worrying about tactics to make those strategies a reality.

M.H. MILLARD

Costa Mesa