Stadium Instills Pride in School

I could feel the electricity in the air as I walked onto the Estancia High School campus Friday morning.

An idea that started a dozen years ago was becoming a reality as the formal dedication of the Jim Scott Stadium was about to begin. I will steal a line from Board President Martha Fluor’s dedication address: “The stadium was Jim Scott’s original idea, and he spent more than 12 years uniting and mobilizing the community… without Jim’s vision and dedication, the stadium may not have been built.”

Costa Mesa City Manager Allen Roeder recalled to me the conversations he had with Jim Scott Sr., 12 years earlier. Scott had a dream that both Costa Mesa high schools should have a field they can call home. Twelve years is a long time. Parents, whose children were in kindergarten when Jim Scott had this dream, will be sitting in these beautiful bleachers as their now young adults walk across the field in their cap and gowns this June. “This will be our first high school graduation in our own stadium,” said one of the graduating seniors.

You have to understand what this means to a community whose high schools never had a proper stadium. I know we are all part of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, but for the residents of Costa Mesa there has always been the feeling of being a second-class citizen because both Costa Mesa and Estancia High School played their home games at someone else’s stadium.

I talked to Bruce Garlich while standing on the state-of-the-art, all-weather track that looped around the vibrant green artificial turf field. Bruce, whose son graduated in ’78 from Estancia, told me, “You never really felt like you were ever playing a home game, you always felt like a guest on someone else’s field.” I could see a glint in his eye as he looked over the field with pride.

You could see the amazement in people’s eyes as they filled the bleachers or walked around the track. This is the kind of field that you only see when watching the NFL on Sunday. The quality of the facility, with its new locker rooms, snack bar and professional press box, was not something the people of Costa Mesa were expecting.

Many of the people who followed Jim’s dream and started Costa Mesa United to get a stadium and pool complex for our high schools no longer have any children in the district. People ask why someone without any school-age children would work so hard to get these facilities. The answer I get is simple. Someone did it for us before we came along. People we will never know built our schools, parks and playgrounds before we came. In a real community, people do it for the future; for people they will never know.

Not only is the stadium being used for football, soccer and track for both Costa Mesa and Estancia High School athletes; but now thanks to Steve Mensinger, president of Costa Mesa Pop Warner Football, an agreement has been struck with the district so that our young Mustang players will have it for their home games as well.

If you are reading this early in the morning, head over to Estancia and take a look at the facility. The inaugural event starts this morning with a 5K and 2K run. Registration starts at 7 a.m., the races start at 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., respectively. If you are like me and would rather not run, they start serving pancakes at 8 a.m. Proceeds will go to support both High School foundations.

When the dedication ended I asked a few of the Estancia football players, who proudly stood on the field sporting their jerseys, if any of the other schools they played had an artificial turf field? The question bounced around some of the players, and as they turned to me to answer you could actually see them standing taller as one of them replied, “No one in the league has anything like this.” Our kids and community deserve something this great. Thank you, Jim Scott, for your field of dreams.

Damage Offends All Neighbors

There was a very disturbing incident that occurred in the wee hours of Friday night or early Saturday morning. The incident took place in the very quiet and peaceful Mesa Verde neighborhood known to many as the State Streets. Which, not surprisingly, takes its name from the fact that all the streets are named after States.

According to Realtor Larry Weichman, president of Weichman Associates, this neighborhood is known for its sense of community and cohesiveness. “This is your typical friendly Costa Mesa neighborhood where they have neighborhood Fourth of July barbecues and everyone knows each other. It is the reason people choose to live in Costa Mesa instead of the more ‘master planned’ communities to the south where nobody knows who lives next door.”

It all started off when a resident of Montana Street, Charlene Ashendorf, received an anonymous typewritten letter in her mailbox asking her to remove her portable basketball hoop from the street. Though the hoop had been there for more than two years, Ashendorf told me the letter stated that the hoop was an eyesore and that it was lowering property values.

I have heard about a lot of things that lower property values. Uncut lawns, yes; Christmas lights hanging from eaves in July, yes; cars parked on lawns, yes; but in my 30 years in the real estate business, portable basketball hoops in the street was not one of them.

In fact, just take a drive to the “Port Streets” neighborhood in Newport Beach, where the homes go for more than $2 million apiece, and you’ll find a portable basketball hoop every sixth house. In fact, the number of portable basketball hoops is only exceeded by the number of USC flags hanging from every fifth house.

Three days after getting the disturbing letter, when the Ashendorf’s were not home, a City of Costa Mesa flatbed truck came by to remove the basketball hoop only to be stopped by several of their neighbors who convinced the driver not to take it as they quickly rolled it up onto the driveway. Now that’s the difference between a Costa Mesa neighbor and a “fill in the blank with any South County master-planned city” neighbor. Costa Mesa neighbors watch out for each other.

Now the story only gets more bizarre. That Friday evening with the help of her neighbors, the portable basketball hoop was moved down to the end of the cul-de-sac off the street. At 8 a.m. the next morning, Charlene Ashendorf noticed a group of her neighbors, still in their slippers drinking coffee, at the end of the street. She walked out to see what was happening only to be stunned by the sight of the basketball hoop’s metal pole and backboard cut up in pieces and dragged out to Gisler Street.

Now, even though I am a planning commissioner for the city, I am not sure what the codes say regarding portable basketball hoops. But what I do know is this type of vigilantism cannot be tolerated. If you have a complaint with a neighbor and for whatever reason you do not want to confront them about it, the city has a code enforcement department that will handle the complaint.

The fact that some disturbed person, in the middle of the night, would cut up a steel pole and backboard and throw it out onto a main street makes the hair on my neck stand up. Costa Mesa police should not treat this incident as some minor act of vandalism.

This is an act of neighborhood terrorism. The person or persons who displayed this act of cowardice, in the cover of darkness, was trying to settle a score with not only the Ashendorfs but the whole community when they threw the metal carcass into the middle of Gisler Street. This is an offense against the community, and I hope our fine police department is treating it that way. This terrorist needs to be brought to justice.

Costa Mesa is a great place to live because of the neighbors that Charlene Ashendorf has on Montana Street. Great neighbors make great neighborhoods. In the long run that is what really affects real estate prices. If people want to live there, the price goes up.

55 Mess Requires Compromise

Traffic is always considered one of the biggest issues for residents whenever a poll is taken in Orange County. Newport-Mesa residents are no different. Recently the Orange County Transportation Authority had three local meetings to get input from residents on seven solutions for the traffic problem along Newport Boulevard.

The transportation authority was looking to shed some light on solving the problem, but in the end I think they just got a lot more heat. Discussing traffic solutions just isn’t done in polite company. It’s too emotional. Everyone wants to find a solution, unless they think it might negatively affect them.

Some history on the topic: The last approved plan, which would significantly increase capacity from the 55 terminus at 19th Street to the beach, was in 1985 when California’s population was less than 26 million.

By 2010, we will be approaching 40 million. That plan extended the 55 freeway just east of Newport Boulevard, bulldozing homes and businesses along the route. Lucky for us it was never built, or we would have another scar running though Costa Mesa dividing our town.

The traffic on Newport Boulevard is at a complete standstill on any summer day with people coming and going to the beach. These motorists that block the street are not just from Orange County. More and more are coming from the booming Inland Empire.

The 55 is the backbone between the beach and the 909 area code, and that doesn’t count the 5 million out-of-town visitors from Disneyland who want to cool off in the blue Pacific.

One thing to understand is that even though they are driving to Newport Beach, their final destination is not always Newport Beach; it’s Huntington Beach.

Huntington Beach has 10 miles of wide sandy beaches with available parking almost the whole length. It draws more than 11 million visitors a year, and a large percentage of them come via Newport Boulevard and the 55. This traffic problem will get a lot worse before it gets better.

We need to figure out how to get cars from the 55 to Huntington Beach without going down Newport Boulevard.

One obvious way would be to have a bridge at 19th Street connecting us with Brookhurst Street’s direct shot to the beach.

Though this may move a lot of cars off Newport Boulevard it sends a chill down the spine of some Eastside residents who are leery of any plan they feel will bring more cut-through traffic to their neighborhood.

A bridge on 19th Street is one of those plans. You also have some Westside residents who would rather drive a circuitous six-mile route to Huntington than have a bridge if they thought it might bring one more car though their neighborhood.

I am not advocating any of these ideas and do not know whether they would solve the traffic problem created by a freeway that ends abruptly in the middle of a city.

Of the seven solutions that OCTA presented, the preferred solution by those at the meeting, was called “cut and cover.” This plan involves building express lanes under Newport Boulevard from the end of the 55 to Industrial Way.

The disruption from digging up the street would be disastrous for some of the businesses along the route. Expect them to fight it.

The guesstimate of a $100 million price is mind boggling. But in the end it may be the best solution.

Transporting people to and from the beach isn’t really a traffic problem; it’s a political problem. That is why, 23 years after a plan was approved to solve a traffic problem, nothing has really been done.

You see, it’s very hard to get elected to City Council if you upset any one constituency. Elected officials in both Newport, Costa Mesa and for that matter Huntington Beach have been kicking the can down the road for years on solutions for the beach traffic problem.

The problem with these types of issues is they take several election cycles to get solved. Even if a council can agree on a solution, environmental impact reports take years. Planning and design take years and lining up funding takes more years.

No matter what plan you come up with, someone is not going to be happy. Unhappy people vote council members out of office. So the problem never really gets solved because you cannot keep a majority on a city council long enough to finish the project.

Unless all sides can come together and agree on a plan, nothing will ever get done. It’s time for all sides to hold hands, compromise and agree on a plan. This is one issue that has to be solved sooner than later.

Acts Won’t Save Homes

You can always count on the political class in this country to solve any problem they perceive with a check. Now, of course, that is easier for them to do because it is not their money. In the case of the federal government, it’s not even our money. In fact, with the size of the growing national debt, it’s our children’s money. As I wrote in last week’s column, we are still paying back state bonds authorized in 1970.

The latest political boondoggles on Capitol Hill are the “Economic Stimulus Act of 2008” passed in January and Senate Bill 2636 “The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008” passed out of committee by the Senate Thursday. The economic stimulus package will cost our children $168 billion. The Foreclosure Prevention Act will cost another $15 billion.

Neither act will stimulate the economy nor prevent any foreclosures. But they are not really meant to do that. Their only purpose is to get incumbent legislators reelected.

All Congress seems to cares about, Democrats and Republicans alike, is demonstrating to the public how much they care. If the economy is in bad shape or foreclosures are growing, just do something about it. It is oh-so painful to watch an economically illiterate Congressman yap on some cable network that this legislation is needed to avoid a recession or to stop foreclosures.

The voting public needs to understand that very few Congressmen or women actually understand anything about economics or how the real economy works. The only requirement to be in Congress is to receive the most votes. How do you get the most votes? By letting the voters know how much you care. It’s a vicious cycle.

Now, I guess you could argue that if the money is spent on items that will help the economy, it could pay for itself. Don’t hold your breath. For the most part, the stimulus act, among other things, is just sending out checks to 119 million households in the hope that it might strengthen the economy. Though some of the tax incentives for business may be good, sending families checks for more than $100 billion is a very inefficient way to stimulate the economy. The whole stimulus package, according to Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle, is supposed to create 500,000 new jobs. Let’s see, $168 billion divided by 500,000 jobs. That comes out to only $336,000 per job. I wonder where we can apply.

Imagine my surprise, when I learned from my accountant that my family would be getting one of these checks for more than $2,000. Needless to say, the Righeimer family is not missing any meals. My accountant explained that with the magic of loss carry-forwards and accelerated depreciation on some of the shopping centers I built, we qualify. I had no idea how much we needed the help.

The Economic Stimulus Bill passed in the house with 385 ayes to 35 nays with 10 abstaining. Only one out of 12 representatives knew that this bill was a fraud and would not do anything to help the economy. Lucky for us, we have two of those nay votes, Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and John Campbell.

I haven’t talked to either of them about the bill, but I know their personalities. Campbell, a former certified public accountant, probably modeled the economic impact to the economy in net present value and concluded it was a net loss.

Rohrabacher, former Orange County Register editorial writer and speechwriter for President Reagan, just figured that you could never stimulate the economy by handing out the treasury. Rohrabacher’s Libertarian mind never fails him in fiscal situations. Either way, they both got it right. It’s a lonely place in Washington when even your own party is voting against you. These gentlemen need to hear from us that they did the right thing.

The fact is, there is very little Congress can do in the short run that will be effective in stimulating the economy or preventing foreclosures. Last I checked it was the private sector that created jobs, and I understand they can do it for less than $336,000. And as far as foreclosures are concerned, I will leave it to the lenders and borrowers to figure out how to solve that problem. Congress could never pass a law that both the lenders and borrowers would not abuse at the expense of the taxpayer.