Mailbag: Residents right on liquor licenses

The juxtaposition of your March 10 article on Councilman Keith Bohr’s hijacking of a recent council meeting (“Bomburger cancels alcohol license request”) in order to criticize the Huntington Beach Downtown Residents Assn. and their work to limit downtown liquor licenses, in this case Bomburger’s, next to an article about the same councilman’s financial woes and his personal connection to the Bomburger business (“Councilman Bohr grapples with bankruptcy, home foreclosure”) only serves to underline why we all must take a greater look at who is running our city and where their interests lie.

Bohr’s vocal participation at the meeting in this matter is inappropriate at best and corrupt at worst. The Downtown Residents Assn. is representing a large and, up till now, unheard group of taxpaying constituents who are, for the most part, at their breaking points with regards to dealing with the rise in downtown drinking-related issues and crimes.

Those of us living in the downtown area are regularly woken up at 2 a.m. by the loud, drunken musings of late-night drinkers who are either walking home from a downtown bar or who have parked earlier in the evening in front of our homes and walked to the bars in order to evade the police presence downtown when they return to their cars to drive home. My family has more than once had the displeasure of finding an inebriated downtown bar patron urinating against the side of our home, taking care of business before getting in his car for the drive home. And we live eight blocks from the center of town.

According to a report from the Downtown Residents Assn., our beautiful city has ranked No. 1 in DUI arrests of the 69 largest cities in the state four years in a row, the downtown neighborhood has a crime rate 800% greater than other areas in our city; Huntington Beach has 700% more bars per capita than the rest of Orange County, and 28% of all the bars in the city are in the tiny three-block span of our downtown neighborhood.

Expanding the number of liquor licenses in our town is an irresponsible move right now. Council members like Bohr need to start representing the interests of us locals soon by creating a safe environment for all who live here or visit, or they may find themselves either without a job or, sadly, with a mass exodus of those who make up their highest real-estate tax revenue.

Lisa Sharlin Klein

Huntington Beach

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Integrity key for public officials

Regarding “FPPC probes project vote,” March 17:

Why is it that when confronted with evidence of wrongdoing, public officials invariably claim it was just an honest “mistake”? Aside from deliberate malfeasance, doesn’t that imply careless or unaware behavior on the part of the officeholder?

Their second line of defense is to blame their campaign staff. Doesn’t having sloppy or incompetent handling of campaign affairs betray a lack of oversight or judgment on the part of an elected or appointed official?

Shouldn’t we hold public officials or candidates seeking to represent us to higher standards than just apologizing for their errors, especially if they warrant being investigated? We should consider this in choosing our public officials in the future.

Tim Geddes

Huntington Beach

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CPR could be a life-saver

Enough complaining about the details of Community Promoted Restoration for the Mesa! Send your comments to the Department of Fish and Game already!

Instead, let’s give a cheer for the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, which has stepped forward voluntarily to restore and manage the mesa portion of the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve under DFG’s direction. Their volunteer efforts in research, planning, grant-seeking and plain hard labor are to be commended and are a great example of our community members getting involved. Their time, skills and work are invaluable and irreplaceable, because in these very difficult budget times, there is no state money.

I attended their town hall meeting and appreciated their continuing excellent presentations on the restoration plan and the opportunity to ask questions. Thank you, Land Trust, for all your work!.

Grace H. Winchell

Huntington Beach