New voices on committees

The Costa Mesa City Council tonight has a chance to set the city on a better path.

It’s time to appoint or reappoint new members to a number of municipal committees, including child care and youth services, cultural arts, historical preservation and investment oversight.

The council gets to decide which people in the community have the talent, background and ethics to act as representatives for their neighbors.

City leaders should know that many in Newport-Mesa will be watching the appointment process. And we think that too many people on the committees, instead of helping create consensus or building bridges between groups in the community, have trafficked in division and despair. These individuals have worked hard to polarize the city, pushing for an out-of-balance agenda that has hindered not only Latinos but also other groups. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, a majority on the City Council has allowed these few radical individuals to move freely in the government.

But our politicians have a good opportunity to put things right in Costa Mesa. They need to find the most qualified individuals, ones who will act as social brokers between the government and the community. To avoid unpleasant surprises, city officials shouldn’t hesitate to take the extra time to appoint the right men and women.

To begin with, it’s important to set aside political differences on the dais. Throwing low blows and lodging politically motivated charges against members who disagree with the majority on the council doesn’t help anybody. If anything, it only tells the community how dysfunctional our local government in Costa Mesa has become recently.

Also, city officials must remember Costa Mesa is going through a major social transformation. During the last two decades, we’ve seen a substantial increase in the number of Latinos in the community. Their number is likely close to 50%. Five years ago, they comprised about 31% of the population. No doubt, it’s dramatic growth. And no laws, no ordinance, not even closing the Job Center or outlawing adult soccer in the city will stop this trend. The number of Latinos in Costa Mesa will continue to grow.

City officials must find a way to integrate them rather than exclude them. For this reason, appointing the right individuals to the committees is key. These new leaders ought to work constructively, trying to find a middle ground to solve our differences. Those with narrow views only hinder our cohesiveness.

I would highly encourage doing some background checks to avoid surprises. It doesn’t take a world-class detective to find out a person’s history. It only takes typing the name into an Internet search engine. By clicking and navigating on the Internet, city officials will likely stay away from appointing former convicts, murderers or one of the most-wanted people in Orange County, whose names were just released.

Additionally, the Internet will help track down information on individuals who support unwanted ideas, particularly those espousing segregation and other dubious supremacist agendas. I wonder who would want to work with someone whose greater vision in the universe is to create a separate nation of whites, blacks, Asians or Latinos. Since Costa Mesa is enriched by the divesity of its people, we must embrace it, not demean it.

Thus, let’s say basta (no more) to those divisive elements in the community. They are free to participate in the political process. They have the right to voice their grievances in public. However, their backward agenda has never been healthy in our country, and our local government should not sanction it.

* HUMBERTO CASPA is a Costa Mesa resident and bilingual writer. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

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