Boundary ended up on right side for...

Boundary ended up

on right side for city

The report by Elia Powers about Costa Mesa City Atty. Roy June

mentions the tug of war between Costa Mesa and Santa Ana over the

boundary between the two cities (“Changes aplenty since 1977,”

Sunday).

Costa Mesa ought to be quite grateful that, as June said, “Santa

Ana went to sleep at the switch.” The boundary was drawn along

Sunflower Avenue, and Costa Mesa later became the home of South Coast

Plaza and beneficiary of all the tax revenues generated at that

location. Costa Mesa is also the home of all the attractive arts

venues east of Bristol Street.

DAVID J. STILLER

Costa Mesa

Time for El Morro tenants to move on

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s last-minute rescue attempt for the El

Morro tenants is totally misguided. He should be protecting the

taxpayers of California rather than tenants who are defying their

landlord and the promises each made to leave on time when their

leases were up.

For their promises, they received 20 years “relocation benefit” in

l979 and the five years more when they whined and cried in l999. If

their original landlord and owner of the property, the Irvine Co.,

had not sold to the state in 1979, the trailer park would have been

long gone by now.

So, they should count their blessings and move on.

EDWARD MERRILEES

Laguna Beach

Bills for El Morro make fiscal sense

It has been brought to my attention that Assemblyman Chuck DeVore

has introduced two bills that maximize state assets while delaying a

costly project that would use more than $10 million of public bond

money to demolish about 300 homes at El Morro Village, while spending

many millions more to construct a lifeguard station at Crystal Cove

State Park.

The bills both rescind the more than $10 million budgeted to

demolish El Morro Village; open up for general public fee-for-use a

50-car parking lot at El Morro; increase the net annual profit to the

state from rents to $3.2 million per year, up from $1.2 million

today; and require that the local residents pay to hook up to an

existing sanitary sewer line. One of the bills extends a 30-year

lease to the residents at the El Morro Village in return for at least

a $50-million payment to the state to reduce California’s budget

deficit. The other would send the money to a special fund to work off

some of the state’s $466-million park maintenance backlog, either in

the form of a $50-million payment, or as an ongoing $3.2-million

annual line item.

It appears self-evident that with the current California budget

crisis, these two bills attempt to maximize our local state assets

and minimize projected expenditures. Therefore, even as a nonresident

of El Morro, I feel compelled to express my support for DeVore’s two

bills.

HUMBERTO R. RAVELO

Long Beach

A wait-and-see approach for El Morro

I do support Chuck DeVore’s proposals for El Morro.

I know that the issue isn’t supposed to be a fiscal one but a

matter of public use versus private access. However, wouldn’t it be

more prudent to wait and see how the Crystal Cove State Park just a

mile up the road works out? Let’s finish one project and see if there

is a need for another campground. If they find there really is a

demand for more state parks, then tear down the trailers. In the

meantime, keep the El Morro trailers. California could use the

income.

LESLIE MONTGOMERY

Newport Beach