Rehear ye, rehear ye

I totally agree that the Costa Mesa City Council needs to give the

1901 Newport Boulevard condo project a second look. I’ve attended the

City Council meetings. I don’t think it should have been approved and

passed without more information. And I am very glad they are doing a

rehearing on it.

At least so that they know when and why they made a decision and

so the rest of the residents also can participate.

IRENE SHANNON

Costa Mesa

Yes, they made the right decision to review this project, and

Costa Mesa Mayor Gary Monahan should abstain from voting because he

has a vested interest in increasing foot traffic to his nearby

restaurant.

DENNIS BARTON

Costa Mesa

I believe that the City Council should have allowed the rehearing.

In fact, the city planning department and the council made a mistake

by even approving this project to start with back in April. And now,

we have gone through this situation here, and the last month for

rehearing, we were ready to express our opinions, and then last

night, how disappointing. This big development company, they just

want to bully the city and bully the group that brought this to the

attention of the city council to start with.

So for what it’s worth, the city should not have approved this

development. They could have said something to the effect we don’t

want this development now because you are trying to bully us into

OKing your mammoth project, but they didn’t.

JUNE MCKINZIE

Costa Mesa

I am calling in regards to your question, “Did the City Council

make the right decision to rehear the 1901 Newport condo project,”

and I think they did.

ED MAZZARELLA

Costa Mesa

You’ve heard quite a bit from me about the 1901 project. But I am

responding to your Reader’s Hotline question, and Councilman Allan

Mansoor is totally justified in granting the rehearing.

We brought up enough new information that it has been changed

quite a bit prior to this last attempt at a public hearing. And we

raised enough new issues that Councilwoman Libby Cowan, who is a very

intelligent woman, saw that there were some discrepancies and some

things that needed to be answered that she hadn’t seen before. And

that was all new information or she would have not changed her mind

and supported the rehearing.

One of the problems with the original process is there hardly was

a public hearing in the first place. What I mean is that even though

the April 14 hearing was technically a public hearing, not much of

the public was actually there. People didn’t know about this project,

and there was no attempt to inform the community. There was no

outreach, so very few people could weigh in. In the last two attempts

at a public hearing, a lot of people came to speak.

Those public hearings were canceled, and the people went away

without being able to speak. So we still haven’t had a hearing where

we hear much from the public.

ROBIN LEFFLER

Costa Mesa

Yes, the City Council made the right decision to rehear the

project, but then they denied residents two times the right to be

heard, so we haven’t really gotten to the place where they reheard

anything. The first meeting that approved the condo project was held

in a secret area that not many people knew what was going on. It

wasn’t advertised in a City Council meeting. And some of the

information presented that night regarding the shadowing was not

accurate.

Basically, the City Council has denied the residents of Costa Mesa

the right to be heard two times. And many, many people have turned

out now for two evenings and not even had an opportunity to speak on

the agenda item. And I think that it is time that the City Council

listens, even if it takes all night, to what the residents of Costa

Mesa want or don’t want regarding this project. It will cause great

congestion. We don’t need that high of a density. We are overbuilt

and we need to look at other places to build and not build a

four-story building.

WENDY LEECE

Costa Mesa