Mailbag: Bunny issue indicative of oversight problem

Whether the sculptures of bunnies at the Civic Center stay or go will be debated. In the meantime, the bunnies point to a larger issue, namely an abdication of oversight and follow-through and lack of accountability by city staff and the previous City Council.

As the Civic Center project summary at the Jan. 13 study session states, “The rabbits were included in the landscape package, and we were not aware of the line-item cost. If we had known the line-item cost, we probably would have deleted or replaced them with something more modest.”

This points to an appalling lack of oversight on a major project.

First, if the city staff was not tracking line-item costs on the landscape package, what other costs were missed?

Further, the bunnies represent a bait and switch. Original plans showed statutes of native animals, such as eagles, placed in the park, to complement the Orange County plants. The Newport Beach bunnies do not look like native desert cottontails.

Go hiking at Crystal Cove, and you will see that native cottontails have a mix of brown and gray fur. They do not have pink, blue, purple or green pastel eyes. And the fact that city staff has referred to them as representative of native desert cottontails on its website will not make it so.

Finally, the bunnies and the Civic Center project, on a larger level, highlight the need for a culture of accountability at City Hall. Residents should not have to ask for a performance audit of major projects. Residents and Councilwoman Diane Dixon asked for a project recap because the city’s performance audit procedures are so weak.

So while the letters about bunnies continue to flow, we should look at the larger issue and demand true, systematic accountability from City Council and staff.

Laura Curran

Newport Beach

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It’s business as usual in Costa Mesa

Our not-so-new, but newly shuffled, Costa Mesa City Council may well continue to heat the dais thrones in padded comfort, but members have yet to offer (or foist onto) citizens any new, debatable or intelligent programs.

Unfortunate, yet totally avoidable, phenomena merit post-election contemplation. Costa Mesans are again blessed with the same old-boy council majority just playing musical chairs. So we may well look forward to the same mentality as in years past.

Another phenomenon is the failure to honor the spirit of our First Amendment rights by redefining the public comments period, for example.

James H. Bridges

Costa Mesa