Community Commentary: Destruction nothing to celebrate

Re: “A crowning moment for Crystal Cove,� (Editorial, July 3): It is hard for me to celebrate evicting more than 300 residents from their homes to build a another phony Disneyland park while destroying one of the most unique sites along the California coast where people lived, raised their children and were part of a tight-knit community.

The public employees, the Irvine Co., the Sierra Club, the Surfrider Foundation and all the people that said nothing and did nothing should feel nothing but shame.

Or at least a little guilt, if that is possible.

Then possibly it is just me who thinks that homes, especially low-cost housing, are more important than creating more public employee jobs, new accommodations on the beach for the public employees and creating a tax liability vs. a tax base. And, what makes this an even more despicable act by the public employees is that they could have done what they wanted without harming the residents in any way, save for some construction noise.

“I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it in Southern California,� Crystal Cove State Park Supt. Todd Lewis said in an earlier news article.

Lewis is right, and it should have stayed that way.

What was “not like anything else� has been destroyed. And what has been created is more traffic, more make-believe and less affordable homes along the coast of California.

The city of Newport Beach is in the process of doing the same thing, on a much smaller scale, to the mostly senior residents of Marina Park. The city would replace 57 mobile homes. The operative word here is “home.�

And, once again, the public employees could do what they want without harm to the residents. When you have 10 acres to work with, housing could have easily been included in the plan. Just imagine a tax income vs. a tax liability — and affordable homes along the coast.

And I guess the answer of feeling at least a little guilt for the destruction of more than 300 homes plus an additional 57 homes has been answered.

AUGUST LIGHTFOOT lives in Newport Beach.