Chamber president needs to get in touch with Westside

Ed Fawcett’s anachronistic comments in “company towns� reference

shows his archaic out of touch viewpoint of the Westside (From the

Chamber, “What the Westside means to Costa Mesa’s economy,� Aug. 26).

It should not be a “micro economy� as he defines it but an economy

that integrates and opens the Westside, bringing it up to surrounding

standards. It should not continue to be a magnate for low-paying

employers that create and promote poverty living.

The Westside should attract and support a population base that

reflects its coastal location and in turn attracts the business and

retail infrastructure to support it.

Apparently Fawcett considers a “great balance� to be South Coast

Plaza on one side of the fulcrum and soup kitchens on the other. His

superficial statistics are anything but positive when compared to the

coastal area we live in.

The average wage paid by his 1,600 businesses employing 17,000

people is a paltry $29,000 per year on average. If you subtract the

top wage earners that manage and run the businesses and, probably

don’t live on the Westside, this leaves the majority of workers with

poverty wages that do.

It should be emphasized that this is the top of the area’s

economic ladder. Everything trickles down from there -- crummy

markets, liquor stores, bars, junkyards, overcrowded and high-density

housing and fast food hangouts. Where are the restaurants, clothing

stores and markets he refers to? There’s nothing on the Westside that

remotely resembles a decent restaurant, clothing store or market.

I have to assume Fawcett is a neighbor of Jean Forbath in Mesa

Verde. The majority of middle-and upper-income families that live on

the Westside certainly didn’t depend on its poverty economics to

achieve their status and it will take an infusion of more

upper-income families in single-family residential areas to support

an appropriate business and retail infrastructure. By necessity, most

of these incomes will be generated outside of Costa Mesa.

The reality is that most people with good incomes do not work and

live in the same city. This will be the ripple effect that Fawcett

fears but it will drastically improve the entire city. Until this

happens, the City of the Arts should be referred to as the City of

Arts and Crafts.

DENNIS BARTON

Costa Mesa