LETTER TO THE EDITOR:Letter-writer was not gloating; he was celebrating a hopeful win

Reader Jay B. Litvak labels another reader, a Mansoor-Leece supporter, a “gloater,” and says “gloating is best done in the privacy of one’s own mind.” (“Nothing changed on Costa Mesa council,” Mailbag Nov. 17).

I would submit that that suggestion should apply equally to sore losers. The problem is that Litvak fails to understand the difference between rejoicing and gloating. The so-called gloater, Mike Berry, (“The deserving defeat the demanding in race for control of Costa Mesa council,” Nov. 16) is simply celebrating and expressing the hope that the city’s downward spiral, resulting from bad decisions in the past by prior councils, will not continue.

Many of us believe it would, had the election gone the other way. The other side consisted of the most formidable and determined opposition ever assembled in Costa Mesa-elections history. But residents interested in true improvement saw through the hype and name-calling to emerge victorious over the anti-improvers.

Litvak claims that the reader and many others overlook the “simple point: nothing changed,” with a continuation of the council 3-2 majority.

On the contrary, that is exactly what this voter, and I believe many others, had in mind: to maintain a council majority of the current bent, and prevent a 3-2 majority takeover by the other side. The policies supported and implemented by the council majority in the last two years are not responsible for the recent upsurge in crime that Litvak and others cite, and I applaud those policy changes.

The recent increase in crime is the natural outcome of the prevailing conditions in certain sections of the city, conditions that have been allowed to proliferate by council leadership in prior years — leadership devoid of vision and contributing to an increase in slum-like conditions, resident dissatisfaction and attendant gang activity.

Undoing the poor decisions of years of previous city councils is a daunting task, but people of courage are ready to take it on.

ILA JOHNSON

Costa Mesa