Community Commentary -- Tom Egan

Costa Mesa City Hall can learn something from the high achievers down

at Newport Beach’s City Hall. The lesson? City Hall might have

world-class skills in stonewalling the voters, but voters have the last

laugh.

The particular stonewalling in mind is the failure of the last few

city councils to address demands to protect Newport’s quality of life.

The activists who got stiffed turned into the Greenlight gang that, with

the clout of a majority of the voters, emasculated the council’s powers.

Now, in a last ha-ha, so to speak, the Greenlighters promise to run a

slate to “trow da bums out!� (“Greenlight launches slate for candidates,�

Friday.)

Costa Mesa is on the same track, but a few years behind. There have

been uncoordinated complaints for years about quality of life, but in

recent times the complaints have gotten more focused. For example, the

year 2001 saw a couple of high-profile issues -- Home Ranch and Westside

-- that were, at heart, quality of life issues. The pace is quickening

for Costa Mesa voters to reach a point where they’re willing to throw out

the good with the bad, just as Greenlight has, in an attempt to protect

quality of life.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If Costa Mesa would undertake a

“mid-course correction,� draconian maneuvers such as Greenlight would be

unnecessary.

Guiding a city into the future is not unlike guiding a space vehicle

to a distant planet. You don’t just point the rocket in the right

direction, light the fuse, and turn your back on it, expecting it to

shrug off disturbances from winds, gravitational variations, solar

pressure, and to be immune to unknowns and human errors. The protocol for

every space launch mandates there be opportunities for correcting its

path en route. Every city should have a similar protocol for mid-course

correction.

But I’m not talking about just mid-course revisions to the general

plan. A general plan update (“City’s future focus of festival,� Friday)

only addresses future development. It will not make existing problems

better. I’m talking about going back and actively fixing the fallout from

past development. I’m talking about correcting for the smothering side

effects from the carpet of urbanization that’s been unrolled over us;

only targeted surgery can correct existing trauma such as traffic

congestion and air quality.

Both Costa Mesa and Newport Beach are well-launched. They’re not young

cities anymore and don’t need to chase after development. But both cities

need to correct for the excesses and misadventures of their early years.

Only after corrections are made will the electorates be happy with their

quality of life and again trust elected leaders.

When their quality of life is assured -- but not before -- the

electorates will again be receptive to proposals for new developments.

TOM EGAN

Costa Mesa