TONY DODERO -- Second Thoughts

This week, the newsroom got a lesson as to why it’s a good idea to have

several opinions when it comes to writing the staff editorial, which is

in essence the voice of the newspaper.

Each week, the Daily Pilot’s top editors gather to decide which issues

we’d like to take an editorial stand on. We engage in healthy debate,

some ideas are rejected and others get the green light.

Last week, we all agreed we needed to weigh in on the debate over the

Marinapark mobile home park, located right on prime bay-front land on the

Balboa Peninsula.

The land is city-owned. It also includes a Scout house and the site of

the American Legion yacht club.

The Marinapark homeowners, as well as the folks at the American Legion

post and the Scout house, have known for some time that the city has

plans for this piece of public land, and that they must vacate.

City officials are entertaining the idea of a resort hotel on the site.

And we haven’t yet debated how we feel about that idea. But regardless,

the majority of Pilot editors believe whatever happens to that land, the

public should be the beneficiaries.

And leaving 60 trailers on that land doesn’t seem to be in the public’s

best interest.

So after crafting an editorial that pretty much told the Marinapark

homeowners to pack up, another editor pointed out something some of us

had overlooked: When a newspaper takes the position of evicting

residents, regardless of the extenuating circumstances, we need to be

wary of the consequences of such an action, and at the very least, offer

a solution.

So we had some more discussions and the editorial was honed a bit.

And while we don’t have too many solutions to the Marinapark residents’

woes, the editorial, which ran last Saturday, did offer up at least one

thought that wasn’t included in the first take.

That is, the city ought to take it upon itself to help these Marinapark

residents find new housing before they get pushed out of their homes.

Let us know if you agree.

*

On that note, this column is going to be changing in frequency a bit.

This column is appropriate when an explanation is needed for why we as a

newspaper took a particular stand or ran a particular photo or wrote a

particular story.

And those explanations aren’t needed each week, just on an as-needed

basis.

So, I’m signing off, until that occasion comes.

* TONY DODERO is the editor of the Daily Pilot. Comments or suggestions

for Second Thoughts can be mailed: 330 W. Bay St. Costa Mesa, CA 92627,

e-mailed: [email protected] or [email protected], or faxed:

949-646-4170. Phone: 949-574-4258.