MAILBAG - March 21, 2008

Ode to permit parking

[The following was written in response to the story “Preferred permit parking vote axed,” Coastline Pilot, March 7.]

The parking issue, it is quite clear

is one the residents hold dear;

But to park in dark by the place we live is not a benefit they’ll give.

Those spaces now they will reserve

for hotels and the guests they serve,

since to allow residents these terms

would open up a can of worms.

So residents should all take heed

this is not a benefit they need.

Although some people should take note

residents still have the vote.

Until this council finds a way

to also take that right away.

So this then is my next question.

How long ‘till the next election?

Until then there’s no protection,

and you and I can park our car

for all they care in Zanzibar.

C. PENNEY-HALL

Laguna Beach

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Still no resolution on recycling issue

It is now six months since Waste Management summarily stopped sending a recycle truck once a week to 280 Laguna households, instead tossing both trash and recyclables into the same garbage truck.

As reported by the Coastline Pilot [“Recycling getting trashed,” Jan. 9] and corroborated by our Department of Public Works, Waste Management (whose slogan, believe it or not, is “Think Green”) contracted with our city again in July 2007 to provide recycling service to all residential customers.

Yet here we are almost into March 2008, and Waste Management has continued, week after week, to dump recyclables and trash into the same garbage truck, despite serious concerns expressed by public works, my letters to the editor and a newspaper article.

It’s time for our City Council to correct this situation.

Since being contacted in September by our city’s recycle department about this deplorable situation, Waste Management has had plenty of opportunity to study this situation and take corrective action.

Yet, a full six months later, Waste Management on Feb. 4 sent a letter to our city’s director of public works, Steve May, stating, “We are currently looking into other options that may allow us to expand services to the residents on the hard-to-service list. At this time, we will continue to keep all 280 customers on the hard-to-service list and will notify residents if we are able to offer additional services at a later date.”

There is clear evidence that Waste Management has no intention of providing a recycle truck to these households.

One example: During the fourth quarter of 2007, they wrote these 280 households and ordered them to surrender their large green recycle bins, replacing them with far smaller blue bins that say, “Trash only, no recyclables.”

Waste Management’s excuse? These streets are allegedly too curvy or steep or too narrow for their trucks to navigate. My street, Point Place, is short and not precipitous. There is plenty of room for the six homeowners on each side of the street to place several garbage bins on the street, allowing plenty of room for the garbage truck to drive down, load up and get back to South Coast Highway.

Indeed, for a long time Waste Management claimed they had not sent a recycle truck for several years. However, when I proved to them that I had met on this street with their operations manager and our previous head of Laguna’s recycle department, to analyze the situation, they immediately resumed sending the second truck for recyclables.

How much longer is our new mayor, Jane Egly, City Manager Ken Frank and our hard-working City Council going to let Waste Management yank us around?

Laguna Beach

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Worse political crimes than having sex

Here we go again. A Democrat likes to have heterosexual sex, and the hue and cry is on to kick him out.

George Bush has done irreparable harm to this country, and while nobody can say they caught him with a hooker, wouldn’t that have been better than Iraq? Four thousand dead? Tens of thousands maimed and injured? Trillions of dollars down the crapper? Ruined economy, unless you’re a Bush or Cheney.

Meanwhile, New Orleans, a landmark U.S. city, is also in the crapper. I think just one of those trillions would have restored it.

JOSH ZUCKERT

Laguna Beach