REBUTTAL

Richard J. Mehren

This letter is written to protest your front page article (“Planners

pave way for some park trails,” July 26), regarding the Costa Mesa

Planning Commission meeting July 24 and the issue of Fairview Park.

I believe the lead sentence and first paragraph imply that only one

trail in the park will be left unpaved. I don’t know if this is

intentional, but the article does nothing in further sentences or

paragraphs to clarify the issue or present the true facts.

The truth is that this is one more trail left unpaved in addition to

more than 6.5 miles of unpaved trails throughout the park.

The City Council-approved master plan for Fairview Park designates

approximately three miles of paved trails and almost seven miles of

unpaved trails.

At present, the park has only one and a half miles of paved trails.

The additional paved trails will provide connections for the master plan

of bike ways and will not adversely affect the park’s habitat

restoration.

Most of the additional paved trails will travel between the park’s

northeast entrance, across the flood control bridge over the Fairview

Channel, and the park’s entrance at the Placentia Avenue traffic signal.

Since no trail presently exists there, it will not require paving over

an existing dirt trail.

I believe the Reader Hotline question was also poorly worded and

implies there is a proposal that most of the Fairview Park trails should

be paved. This is totally untrue and is an attempt, in my opinion, to

imply misinformation in order to upset people unnecessarily.

While much of the article is factual, I think those parts of the

article which catch the public’s eye and are most likely to be read are

written in a way to mislead the reader as to the facts and to create an

emotional response against the park trail plan.

No one has proposed that any more than approximately three miles of

trails will be paved, and no one has proposed that most of the trails at

Fairview Park should be paved.

Also, I would like to comment regarding the article’s quote from

Charles Appell regarding the park’s cross-country course.

The Fairview Park Advisory Committee and the park planners have gone

to great lengths to preserve the approved cross-country course and to

keep it on natural, unpaved surfaces. In spite of reassurances that this

is the fact, Appell persists in claiming the plan would damage or

eliminate the cross-country course. This is not true is spite of his

claims.

If people would take the time to analyze the entire Fairview Park

master plan, I think they will find that while not perfect it does a good

job of meeting the needs of all Costa Mesa citizens.

*

* RICHARD J. MEHREN is a Costa Mesa resident and the chairman of the

Fairview Park Advisory Committee.