COMMUNITY COMMENTARY -- Bob Polkow

I have been a relatively longtime homeowner in Huntington Beach and

should understand the controversial issues now facing our City Council

and staff, but I am completely at a loss to understand the Bolsa Chica

hairball and other controversies choking normal progress of our city.

When my family first took root here, that spot of tide-fed land from

Warner Avenue to a dam fitted with what appeared to be one-way flapper

valves was being used by water skiers. Someone had installed small buoys

to designate an oval course normally used during high tide. They had a

small dock and shack erected next to Pacific Coast Highway.

Soon after someone, probably the owner of the land beyond the dam,

installed an earthen berm to keep the water that came through the flapper

valves from flooding what appeared to be an oil field.

The berm has still withstood any erosion but, about the time the berm

was bulldozed into place, the water ski shack and buoys were removed. I

was busy commuting to El Segundo to my place of employment every day, and

each time I passed I wondered what influenced the sudden change and

suspected, correctly, that a feud of some kind had started.

Gradually, the local papers started to contain articles submitted by a

group I and my immediate neighbors had never heard of, the Amigos de

Bolsa Chica.

I assumed they were some kind of group similar to the Sierra Club that

was intent on claiming this tideland as their own.

This land was outside our city’s jurisdiction. As time went on, other

groups began to pop up -- the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, Huntington Beach

Tomorrow and others -- but they all seemed to have the same named

members.

All these Bolsa Chica splinter groups, with the help of a freshman

Assemblyman Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach), are lacking in good judgment

by pressuring our city to buy this land to provide a haven for birds. Our

city is facing myriad problems that can only be resolved by depleting our

city’s coffers:

* potholed streets;

* contaminated beaches;

* untold number of strip malls with at least one or two vacated

stores;

* empty bank buildings;

* buckled sidewalks caused by planting ill-chosen trees;

* a sewer system that has come under the attention of outside higher

authorities;

* a once-proud Huntington Beach mall that has become a ghost town and

will remain so because some of our council members refuse to use eminent

domain to revitalize it;

* discontented city employees who have been clamoring for a salary

compatible to employees in neighboring cities;

* our own nature center in Central Park, which is in dire need of

funds for maintenance and expansion;

* an effort by a special interest group to recall one of our most

aggressive City Council members for an alleged minor infraction that had

nothing do with performance and his efforts to satisfy our city’s needs

for positive improvements.

With all this, Harman on his white steed and clad in bright shiny and

costly armor that cost the taxpayers $25 million, so far, is the champion

of these people who want to buy the so-called Bolsa Chica for the birds.

I am not condemning anybody but am thoroughly confused and find it

hard to keep up with the justification for all the controversy. Let us

look at Bolsa Chica. Why does our city have to buy it?

Harman could negotiate with that owner of the land above and around

this barren tideland and consummate a buy, for the state, much better

than our city, which is gasping for air to bring our city’s

infrastructure up to acceptable standards.

I am retired now from a position with the government that was

entrusted with billions per year to spend wisely and under constant

scrutiny by Congress for any improprieties. Maybe that is why I am

confused by the political acrobatics I see going on by the special

interest groups that go by various names but seem to be trying to divert

our city’s problems from our city’s residents to problems not even in our

city’s jurisdiction.

I do not claim to be a mental giant but after leaving a working

environment that had zero tolerance for misjudgment and receiving

accolades and a warm retirement ceremony, I feel that I should understand

what is going on in our city today. But I do not and sincerely doubt that

the majority of our residents understands how we got into the mess we are

in.

I sure would like somebody slowly but succinctly to justify the antics

that our city, apparently goaded by outside influence, is now performing.

I am certain that there are many others who would appreciate

enlightenment.

* BOB POLKOW is a Huntington Beach resident.