A Short, Busy Week Ahead

MAKES MY HEAD HURT!
Next week will be a busy one in Costa Mesa.  Following the Labor Day holiday Monday we will have several very important meetings facing us.  Here's a quick rundown on those meetings for your schedule-planning.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2015
The Costa Mesa Senior Commission meets at the Costa Mesa Senior Center beginning at 9:00 a.m.  You can read the agenda for that meeting HERE.  Among the items to be discussed are:
Chronicle Contest Selection
Computer Classes
Bus Reservations
Senior Advisory Committee.
Click on those titles for the staff reports.

The Costa Mesa City Council and the Costa Mesa Planning Commission will hold a Joint Study Session beginning a 5:00 p.m. at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center, 1845 Park Avenue (Lions Park).  This venue is different in anticipation of a larger crowd.  Two items are on the agenda, HERE.  They are:

(1) Proposed Land Use Alternative For the Year 2015-2025 General Plan Update, Including The Fairview Developmental Center (2501 Harbor Boulevard) and the Los Angeles Times (1375 Sunflower Avenue) Sites.

(2) Proposed Amendments To The Westside And SOBECA Urban Plans.

If you plan to attend, a peek at those staff reports will be helpful to you.  The Fairview Developmental Center and Los Angeles Times properties have been added to this discussion.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2015
Orange Coast College Expansion Meeting
The Coast Community College District will hold a public meeting on September 9, 2015 on the modified Orange Coast College Vision 2020 Facilities Master Plan (proposed project). This meeting will include a presentation of the project by staff and an opportunity for the public to make comments.  The meeting will be held at the OCC campus at the Library Classroom 112 at 6:00 p.m.  Free parking will be available in Lots D & E off of Merrimac.

You can read the eleven (11) page revised Vision 2020 Facilities Master Plan (revision 1) July 2015 document HERE. 

If you REALLY want to get into this issue, the entire Vision 2020 Facilities Master Plan Recirculated Program EIR - all 550 pages of it - can be viewed HERE.

And, if you REALLY, REALLY love numbers, the entire EIR Apendices - 4,754 pages - can be viewed HERE. 

The PDF does not provide a table of contents but I have listed the Appendices and there starting and ending pages which are as Follows:

Appendix A – NOP/Initial Study (page 1 – 91) and Comment Letters (pages 97-126)

Appendix B – Air Quality and GHG Emissions Calculations (pages 127 – 1378)

Appendix C – Biological Resources Letter Report (pages 1379 – 1434)

Appendix D – Cultural Reports – Part 1 (pages 1435 – 1580)

Dudek letter on:  Negative Phase I Findings for the CCCD Vision 2020 Plan, Orange Coast College Project, Orange County, CA (Pages 1437 – 1446)

Historic Resources Technical Report – Jan Ostashay, Principal, Ostashay & Associates Consulting, Long Beach, CA (Pages 1447 – 1555)

Paleontological Resource Survey – Paleo Solutions, Monrovia, CA (Pages 1557 – 1580)

Appendix D – Cultural Reports Part 2 (pages 1581 – 3457)

            Historic Resource Report – Page & Turnbull, Los Angeles, CA (pages 1583 – 3457)

Appendix E – Hazards Assessment – (pages 3459 – 4180)

Appendix F – Noise Calculations – (pages 4181 – 4188)

Appendix G – Traffic Impact Analysis, Linscott, Law & Greenspan, Irvine, CA – (pages 4189 – 4754)

Just so you know, I DO NOT plan to read those documents over the weekend, but I plan to attend to hear the presentations and concerns by residents and city staffers. (click on map to expand)

HAPPY HOLIDAY TO YOU ALL

Have a wonderful end-of-summer Labor Day holiday.  We'll be back next week, ready to go on your behalf.

More Bad News At The Los Angeles Times

ANOTHER BAD LOCAL MEDIA NEWS DAY
Another day, another chunk of bad news for the local news media. Today, in his column on the LAObserved blog, author Kevin Roderick gave us this entry, telling us about more cuts coming at the Los Angeles Times. It seems like every day there is more bad news about that once-proud newspaper. This time it's another 300 souls being tossed overboard from that sinking ship.

ZELL - RHYMES WITH...
Ever since the Elf From Hell, Sam Zell, bought The Tribune Company just about a year ago not a week passes when some kind of catastrophic news doesn't emerge from that withering empire.

DRUM BEAT OF DEATH
Week after week we read about reporters being axed, inexplicable format changes and hear the steady drum beat of failure that is marking the death knell of not only The Times, but most print news outlets around the country.

OPERATING WITH HALF STAFF
Of course, the cuts at the Times are felt closer to home at the Daily Pilot. The Times is now operating with 525 staff members in the news room - down from 1,200 just over a year ago. Knowing that, the decline in the quality of their product and subsequent abandonment by subscribers comes as no surprise. Similarly, the Daily Pilot has seen their staffing slashed over the past year - much of it at the top of the organization.

GOOD GUYS, TRYING HARD
I know Brady Rhoades and Paul Anderson, the men left in charge after first publisher Tom Johnson, then Director of News and Online Tony Dodero departed. Both are fine, competent newsmen who care about providing the best, most accurate and timely news product they can. Despite the potshots taken at them by one local blogger with a personal agenda, they and their relatively young staff do a good job of gathering and reporting the news. But, as is always the case in under-staffed organizations, mistakes happen, stories are missed and reader confidence is shaken.

I don't want the Daily Pilot to fail. It, in one form or another, has been our newspaper of record for a century. We need it.

HOW MANY DAILY PILOT JOBS ARE IN JEOPARDY?
I found myself wondering, as I read Kevin Roderick's essay, just how many of those 300 jobs soon to be slashed from the Los Angeles Times will, in fact, be plucked from the ranks of the Daily Pilot and her sister newspapers in the Times Community News group. None, I hope.

WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!
In the meantime, like guys riding backward on a horse, the boneheads in charge of The Times announced that the venerable California section will be discontinued as a separate section and will be folded into their "A" section. Someone needs to remind those guys that the news we want to read is LOCAL news, and don't particularly want to wade through their faltering attempts at national and international news to find it.

LIKE A DYING FRIEND
Lately, when I pick up any of our local newspapers, I get the feeling that I'm holding the hand of a dying friend - something I know just a little bit about. I want them to find a miraculous cure to bring them back. I do not want to attend their funerals...