As I was taking my daily walk up Santa Ana Avenue last week, two cars went speeding by, obviously breaking the speed limit for neighborhood streets.
Because I had wanted to address the City Council Meeting on Tuesday evening about our speeding problems in the Heights, those fast moving motorists, much like the famous Madeleine in Proust’s novel, elicited a stream of emotions and visual images in my memory related to that meeting.
These visual images, while definitely not factual, are actually just a parody of what did take place in the form of questions and answers. Any resemblance to actual facts is purely coincidental.
- The development in question is actually taking a smaller slice of the public’s view now that they have revised the plans.
Q: Aren’t there laws in Newport that prevent that, taking away public views? I think other cities prevent that and they put up story poles to keep that from happening.
A: Well, we can’t do anything about that.
- Q: Since it is mixed use, and mixed use usually means something other than office buildings, couldn’t we put some boutiques or something in there other than offices?
A: Well, we couldn’t do anything like that.
- The traffic problems in the Heights are going to increase as a result of the transformation of Mariner’s Mile. We can look back to our childhoods when you could run and play on West PCH.
Q: How about putting up some signage and dedicate some police officers to ticketing those who break the speeding limit, or ride large motorized bikes on the sidewalk threatening the pedestrians?
A: Well, we couldn’t do anything like that. We are just going to have to live (or die) with it.
- The Coastal Commission might have something to say about the development. Q: Maybe we could sit down with them and get some ideas about what could or couldn’t be done ahead of time?
A: Well, we couldn’t do anything like that.
- A: It’s the state’s fault. Our hands are tied. That darn Sacramento. Go talk to them. We just can’t do anything about any of this…
Lynn Lorenz / Newport Beach
