Paper’s endorsements send wrong signal

Regarding Sunday’s Pilot editorial, “Opportunity for consensus

building in Costa Mesa,” we have come to expect the editorial staff

of the Daily Pilot to voice its opinion before every election as to

whom, they believe, would be the best candidate(s) for our community.

As we have also come to expect, they attempt to direct us on how to

vote, while not bothering to ask us what we want.

The term “consensus building” is an unctuous phrase for those of

us who have spent the better part of four years on both the Community

Redevelopment Action Committee and then the Westside Redevelopment

Oversight Committee -- both formed to try to improve the Westside of

Costa Mesa and “facilitate building consensus.” It is well known that

previous City Councils essentially ignored the Westside, which has

the preponderance of our city’s industrial land. This land is largely

owned and operated by residents of cities other than Costa Mesa. This

is interesting to me, as I also own a piece of industrial land on the

Westside. However, I live adjacent to my property. Interesting, I

say, because of the three candidates the Daily Pilot chose to

represent our best interests for the future, two are the very same

ones that the Westside (out-of-town) industrialists have chosen to

represent their best interests (Mike Scheafer and Katrina Foley). Was

this just a coincidence?

I have never seen any of the three Pilot candidates on my side of

town. None has polled me for my viewpoint. I am known in activist

circles on the Westside, but to the Pilot’s troika and the Westside

industrialists’ anointed candidates, any viewpoints other than their

own appear to be irrelevant.

It appears that we are now being told that these three candidates,

who previously had never made any particular mention of the Westside,

are suddenly now “gung-ho” advocates for Westside improvement. Is it

another coincidence that industrial bosses also endorse two of these

three as advocates for their interests? Is this not the very same

group of industrial owners who do not want the threat of anything

disrupting the flow of money from their “cash cow,” especially real

improvement and specifically no new housing in the part of town they

control? This leads me to believe that the Pilot also prefers to keep

the same old status quo on the Westside.

Many Costa Mesans would like to see the Westside move into a new

age of progress, new opportunity and forward thinking, rather than

suffer another four years of stagnation at the hands of an uncaring

City Council supported by residents of neighboring cities.

CHRISTIAN ERIC

Costa Mesa