Mailbag:

Regarding “T-Mobile has until Friday to appeal city’s decision,” Feb. 4:

Although the decision to deny the building of a tower by T-Mobile may be valid for the residents, I would like to support T-Mobile’s claim that there is a coverage gap, at least in our residential area near Atlanta and Greenfield avenues. I have T-Mobile, and very poor reception and dropped calls when I use my cell phone from home. I hope T-Mobile finds a suitable area to add a tower that would improve reception.

Seeing red over traffic signals

From my house, I drive the two and a half miles to and from the freeway on Magnolia Street and can’t help but be frustrated by the poor timing of the traffic lights, especially with the new light that was added for Home Depot near Garfield Avenue on Magnolia. Quite frequently, the light will change at Garfield, then the line of cars drives 100 yards and slam on their brakes as the Home Depot light changes to red — perfectly mistimed. Unless it’s off-hours, more often than not, lines of cars start off going south on Magnolia at Warner Avenue at a red light, and then proceed to hit every light just as it turns red, perfectly timed so there’s no chance of traffic flowing smoothly. I usually miss every single light on my way home, and it can take me 15 minutes to go two and a half miles.

I wonder what amount of fuel is wasted every day by thousands of cars accelerating toward the next light, only to slam on their brakes a quarter-mile later over and over again on one busy street simply because we can’t coordinate traffic lights better to keep traffic flowing. Imagine if we coordinated all the lights in Huntington! That’s a lot of miles per gallon.

P.S.: Do we really need left-turn arrows at every intersection?

Is Pacific City project still afloat?

For far too many days, many of us have driven past the big hole in the ground known as Pacific City. Although the W Hotel was slated to open in 2010, it’s pretty obvious that this project is well off track or dead due to the lack of real estate construction financing. Given the state of the hotel market, it’s far more likely that the residential component of Pacific City will be built long before a hotel emerges.

Which brings me to my point — there seems to be no reporting at all by our local paper as to what we might expect from this incredible eyesore. It would be nice for many of us if the local paper could provide a detailed update.

Ocean’s health hanging by a thin thread

I make it a weekly habit to take a walk with my wife on the beautiful Huntington Beach Pier. The sunset from the pier is a spectacular sight to behold. The surfers, waves and minstrels complete the picture. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, you’ll get treated to the presence of a beautiful, sleek seal swimming along the pier and a wily old pelican perched on a rail.

The various groups of people casting their lines are lucky to have a clean environment to fish in, but as I walk, I can’t help notice two things that trouble me: 1) running water from the sinks and 2) cut pieces of thin, nylon line scattered across the deck. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these pieces of nylon will eventually make their way into the ocean, into the mouths of marine life and possibly wind up on your dinner plate. Can’t something be done to correct this situation?

Is there a conspiracy in the clouds?

Thanks for giving your personal account about our storms (“Scary times in a storm,” City Lights, Jan. 28). When did we ever have 93 mph winds? We felt the tornado passing near us and there was a huge lake in our backyard after it went through. Days before these storms, there were many strange (not natural) cloud formations in our skies. In these days before the upcoming storms, there have been very similar clouds.

I am beginning to believe that these clouds and storms are being caused by the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which is some kind of program developed by our government. (There are many sites on the Web.) Some believe that the recent quakes in Haiti and others are also being caused by this. It seems that no one in the media is mentioning HAARP. Jesse Ventura talked about it on his very first “Conspiracy Theory” show on truTV (still available on YouTube).

Maybe you can take this ball and run with it?