EDITORIAL

We might as well have been set up in a sting or hoodwinked in a

high-stakes shell game.

Either way, the loss is devastating: a heist to the tune of $13 million.

It all started last year when local residents were lured into voting for

Proposition 12. If approved, officials promised, the measure would unlock

$2.1 billion for parks and coastal projects up and down California.

Highly publicized locally was the $13 million that was supposed to be

funneled here to help with a major and much-needed Back Bay dredging

effort.

We took the bait and Proposition 12 passed overwhelmingly in March. Now,

instead of that money going where it belongs, it seems the promise was

all a ruse.

Just last week, Newport Beach officials learned from their paid lobbyist

in Sacramento and their Legislature representatives that the money had

been hijacked--sucked up and drained away by politicians eager to feed

their own pet projects.

How did that happen?

How did a lobbyist, paid to mind the store for our residents, let the

money slip away before his eyes?

How could Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), who lobbied so hard last year to

have the bay-dredging project written into the text of the measure, allow

his colleagues in Sacramento to pull this off?

Those are the questions, and the residents and voters deserve clear

answers.

But even more critical is what this all means to the Back Bay. This

ecological sanctuary for endangered birds and other wildlife is too

important, too fragile to be held hostage in this political tug of war.

To state officials--particularly Gov. Gray Davis, who may have the power

to right this wrong--the people of Newport-Mesa have one thing to say:

Keep the promise you made to voters last March. Give back the $13 million

for Back Bay dredging.