Commentary: Costa Mesa should not turn away from its compassionate heritage

Arriving Saturday morning at the infamous Costa Mesa Motor Inn on Harbor Boulevard, I saw three little girls, about 7 or 8 years old, giggling and chasing each other near the golf course fence, behind the motel’s entrance gate.

I immediately recognized one little girl, whose picture had been in the paper recently.

My heart was telling me Saturday to go with a handful of others to pass out fliers to motel residents, informing them of their legal rights. Recently, the City Council voted to approve a zoning change and replace the motel with luxury apartments. Those little girls and their parents live at the motel and will need to find a new home in 2016. The fliers will help them with their futures.

This apartment project came before the council in 2014 for a “screening,” when I was still on the council. At the screening, I approved the new project’s concept. The outdated motel had a bad reputation for crime and many police and fire calls.

However, at the time, I had asked the developer representing the owner to please include affordable housing to match the incomes of those residents being displaced in the final project. Unfortunately, that request was denied. There will be some affordable housing in the new project, but the future residents would need to make approximately $75,000, perhaps more than $100,000, to be eligible for an apartment. I wouldn’t qualify.

By passing out the fliers, I was, in a very small way, helping residents in their relocation plans from the motel to a new home. I told them that if they have lived at the motel for more than 30 days, they were promised cash relocation assistance. The owner agreed to pay the benefits beginning in February 2016 and through Aug. 1, 2016.

In addition, Councilwoman Katrina Foley successfully negotiated with the owner for $250,000 for the city staff to assist residents. Those details, I understand, are still being worked out.

As I spoke with some residents, I was told by several that the conditions of the motel had improved greatly since 2013. Gone were many drug dealers and the problems they brought.

I talked with parents, children by their sides, all concerned with their futures and how things would work out for them. They welcomed the fliers, which reminded them of some things they could do to prepare for their moves. I listened to several stories of lives on the brink, a few steps from homelessness. Fortunately, they were looking forward to church members bringing cheer and presents for a Christmas party for them.

This motel had been characterized many times by the council majority as a den of iniquity, filled with drugs, pimps and prostitutes, needing immediate removal from our city. But that is not what I saw. I saw a very clean motel (no trash), a nice playground, a sparkling pool and normal-looking people and kids. Many told me they were longtime Costa Mesa residents wanting to stay in Costa Mesa.

I believe all lives matter, and some lives are not worth less than others.

If we keep going in this direction in Costa Mesa, we might end up with more money in our budget because of more revenue from property taxes, but we will have lost our heart, our compassion, and that will be pretty hard to restore.

It takes all kinds of people to make up a great city like ours. We seem to be going down a road where we are squeezing out those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. It wasn’t too long ago that residents of the Rolling Homes mobile home park on Newport Boulevard almost lost their homes to a proposed apartment project until an adjacent property owner saved the day and said he wasn’t going to sell his property to provide access to the new project.

God intervened.

I’m praying for these folks at the motel. They could use some miracles too.

Costa Mesa resident WENDY LEECE is a former member of the City Council and the school board. She first published this piece on her blog, ocpublicsquare.blogspot.com.