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Mailbag - April 18, 2000

Newport’s traffic ordinance works well

I am writing in reference to the public forum hosted by the Chamber of

Commerce at the Newport Beach Police Department on Monday April 3. For

your readers who were unable to attend, I’d like to reassure them that,

is spite of the recent opposition to the city’s Traffic Phasing

Ordinance, the ordinance works.

Newport Beach’s ordinance is arguably one of the toughest in Orange

County. Although the ordinance is very technical, the basic premise is

that it prohibits projects from being built that would cause an

intersection to become congested. Based on a series of formulas and

calculations, the goal of the law is to ensure that traffic at major

intersections in the city never exceeds 90% of capacity during peak hours

of travel.

It’s important that your readers are aware of the ordinance and the

benefits it brings. It creates a pool of money for traffic improvements.

For example, in recent years, the ordinance has generated nearly all of

the local money for city traffic improvements. Revenues have also allowed

the city to receive matching funds -- from state and federal government

-- that would not otherwise be available. In Newport Beach, we need and

have an ordinance designed to help reduce traffic congestion. Without the

ordinance, we will have a traffic crisis.

LYNNE FISHEL

Newport Beach

Editor’s note: There is not yet a proposal to change or repeal the

city’s Traffic Phasing Ordinance, although an argument has been made that

the proposed Greenlight initiative will render it useless.

Newport Beach shows its ‘reel’ face

Does it not seem just a bit hypocritical that the City of Newport

Beach donated in cash a total of $37,000 to the newly created Newport

Beach Film Festival (under a year in existence), while failing to support

the previous Newport Beach International Film Festival (four years in

existence)?

If the city of Newport Beach wanted a different festival -- separate

from the one that Jeff Conner worked so diligently and unselfishly toward

for more than four years -- then why does the city support the current

festival which is a carbon copy of the previous film festival (i.e., same

staff, same volunteers, same programmers, same theater venues, same

reception venues, same sponsors, same filmmakers, and same name, albeit

one word)?

I guess I won’t be attempting to create a nonprofit organization

within the city of Newport Beach any time soon -- you never know which of

its two “faces” you will see.

GREG MCCARTHY

Costa Mesa

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