Stop wasting money and move the yard...

Stop wasting money and move the yard

I continue to read musings by the opponents of moving the City

Yard put forth in these columns. While amusing, it is disconcerting

that they lack clarity. No, I correct myself, they are clearly

dedicated to being obstructionists by wrapping themselves in the

cloaks of political correctness and self-serving agendas.

They never start with the fact that the City Yard must be moved.

It has outgrown its current location because there is an ever-growing

demand for more city services. Because of age, it is woefully

inadequate, unsafe and unstable. I am sure some years ago it made

perfect sense to store a few wagons, some horses and shovels behind

City Hall. That was then, but now it has grown to become an

unsightly, inefficient and overgrown facility crowded with major

capital equipment and employees who pay the price for the heckler’s

inane challenges and delaying tactics.

Also, there is no other place to put the yard, but at the ACT V

location. Location has been studied to death and the costs of not

implementing the move are cutting into taxpayer’s pocketbooks deeper

and deeper every day that goes by without action.

If these few objectors are so dedicated to stopping this and every

other positive improvement to the city, then let them foot the

mounting bills caused by delay. They are playing with my and most of

the other residents’ money. Just as there should be fines for

frivolous lawsuits, there should also be fines for all those who,

after the fact, try to destroy a responsible and prudent action.

I want the money spent on projects that move the city forward in

time. One of those moves is the ACT V City Yard. This isle of Laguna

Beach will be better for the project, and yes, even for those that

protest too much about too little, too late.

DENNIS MYERS

DE Myers Group

Laguna Beach

School board ignores parents again

Gary Jenkins, husband of school board member Betsy Jenkins, argued

in a recently published letter to the editor that robust public

debate about public school policy offends his sense of dignity and

respect. Perhaps he too suffers from the confused notion that

augmenting the taxpayer funded public school budget through our

donations to SchoolPower means we are more like a private school

system, where the elite rules serenely and actual debate is

politically incorrect.

Before shedding any tears because the school board was given a

long overdue piece of the community’s mind on the MTV deal at Laguna

Beach High School, we need to remind Jenkins that school officials

act under the color of law and exercise the power of the state.

Parents have a right to speak out on how that power is applied to

their children. School board president El Hathaway’s warning that

parents might be sued for what they say at school board meetings may

or may not be a veiled threat, but he needs to remember that under

the law of defamation truth is a defense.

The school board’s job is to make sure the superintendent and

principal act in a manner consistent with the legal rights of

students and parents, and with community values. In my own

experience, the school board condoned actions by school authorities

that violated the civil rights of students and parents. I often think

I should have taken legal action, but I counted on the school board

to do what was right. I believed getting the truth on the table would

compel the board to address the injustice, but I was dead wrong.

Now, we are scolded by Jenkins for speaking up, yet his defense of

the school board’s action in the MTV deal only confirms the very

worst. Board member Kathryn Turner says the school board knew MTV was

“sleaze,” yet she and the other board members all voted for it.

Hathaway says, “It was something we wanted to do for the kids,” and

Laguna High Principal Nancy Blade used the SchoolPower message system

to tell parents it was a “positive opportunity.” Now we are told the

school board was trying to improve the terms of the deal because it

“failed to protect the students.”

This is duplicity. School officials cannot have it both ways this

time. Even if some people in other parts of the country think the

board killed the deal because of the Super Bowl strip show, a lot

more people are either cringing or laughing at board member Bob

Whalen’s nationally broadcast claim the board thought it was a

“documentary on student life” that we “should not judge until we see

the final product.”

Blade announced the MTV project to the public as a done deal

because the board had approved it. She also stated in her message

that “representatives from MTV will be available” in our school

district offices. The truth is that parents mobilized before the

Super Bowl, and the board stopped the deal because there is an

election coming up.

We did not elect the school board to help broker a deal between

MTV and the superintendent, and we did not pay our taxes to build the

school district building so the superintendent can provide office

space to her friends at MTV. This was not about putting children

first, it was the superintendent’s warped concept of doing something

trendy and glitzy to make her regime at Laguna Beach High School part

of the local culture of celebrity. She didn’t realize this is still a

small town in America, even though we are also home to the rich and

famous.

Even worse, we are told school officials now admit MTV warned them

not to let parents know about the Laguna Beach High School-MTV

project. At the same time, some student leaders, including some of

those chosen to “star” in the show, say they knew about the MTV deal

months ago. Ask any fully-trained school counselor with a state

credential, I assume there must be at least one at the high school,

if it is a good model of adult-child relations for the principal and

superintendent to let students in on a secret that is being kept from

parents. Next time the PTA coffee break program hosts an expert on

teenagers and integrity, just ask if that is a good message to be

sending students.

Whalen should not have been helping MTV and the superintendent

perfect their deal, he should have been protecting our students by

telling MTV it would face a united school board opposing any

affiliation between our public schools and MTV. The board also should

have made a public announcement that any student or parent

participating in an MTV project would do so without endorsement or

encouragement of the Laguna Beach Unified School District.

That, Jenkins, is what the school board would have heard from the

community if they had allowed public discussion and debate before

they approved the MTV deal. Your “no harm, no foul” defense, based on

the fact that Whalen was still dickering over contract details until

the Super Bowl show shocked him back into his senses, is simply

denial -- like the shoplifter who tries to put the merchandise back

after getting caught.

We are hearing that some students being filmed by MTV and their

families are saying they never would have gotten involved if not

induced by the school’s support for the project. Locals who have

observed shooting say it is staged to be provocative and some of the

students being filmed say privately they just want it all to go away

so they can use the time to study, be themselves with friends and get

the most out of their school year.

That is what kids are supposed to be able to do at a public high

school. Too bad the school board didn’t understand before becoming

beguiled by MTV promoters that our theater arts program at Laguna

Beach High School is an on-campus activity, and parents who want to

launch their children to stardom are perfectly free to go off campus

for that.

HOWARD HILLS

Laguna Beach School

Spirit Project

Laguna Beach

Uh, El Toro is a dream long dead

In a recent letter from Donald Nyre he suggests the way to reduce

the noise from jets over the coastline by closing John Wayne Airport

and opening El Toro (“El Toro could solve the noise issue,” Coastline

Pilot, Feb. 13).

What a crazy idea. I guess Nyre hasn’t read the facts that the

county submitted in their now failed plan to turn El Toro in to a

commercial airport.

Current restrictions limits the use of John Wayne at about 80

operations of the noisiest jets and limits the operating hours from 7

a.m. to 10 p.m. at night.

What Nyre forgot was that according to the county plan for El Toro

the airport would service 840 daily operations of commercial

passenger and cargo jets flying 24 hours a day seven days a week.

Matter of fact, El Toro was planned to carry the largest cargo 747

and L1011 aircraft with the majority of cargo operations between

midnight and 6 a.m.

Nyre is dreaming that an airport the size of San Francisco

International would not affect anyone. John Wayne, with it’s limited

flights and curfew operations, creates so much noise, what would an

international airport at El Toro offer the residents of Orange County

24 hours a day?

Nyre and other Airport Working Group members have been pushing to

move John Wayne to El Toro for the last 10 years and now that the

dream of El Toro is quickly fading away Nyre continues to dream of a

quiet peaceful Newport Beach and Balboa Island.

Sorry, El Toro is closed to aviation uses and it will stay that

way.

DAVE KIRKEY

Coto de Caza

If you would like to submit a letter, write to us at P.O. Box 248,

Laguna Beach, CA 92652; fax us at (949) 494-8979; or send e-mail to

[email protected].