Times and Mayor Faulted After Revelation

* Re “Newport Mayor’s Former Life on the Run,” May 25:

Did the story of Newport Beach Mayor John E. Noyes really merit a spot on the front page?

It was obvious that the purpose of the story was an attempt to give the mayor a taste of his own medicine because the mayor has gone after political corruption and crime during his tenure.

The mayor has already paid the price for taking his daughters from what he gathered was a dangerous situation more than two decades ago by paying more than half a million dollars to his ex-wife in civil litigation.

Must he still be personally persecuted Les Miserables style for his past? Surely, there is front-page news that could benefit the public more than the family story of a city mayor who is not even going up for reelection again.

GUS L. PADILLA

Anaheim

* I found the story to be very upsetting. To think that this man and politician (I use both of these terms loosely) believes that he is above the law and could run from his past is unbelievable.

His life has been a lie. I wonder where he’ll go from here.

As a leader in the community it is his responsibility to uphold the law and exercise strong ethics. As a father it is his sole duty.

Mayor John E. Noyes has cheated the community by making himself out to be a model citizen. He has cheated his children out of a life of knowing and loving their mother and her family.

Even if Noyes didn’t love his ex-wife, it wasn’t his decision to make when he removed his children. They are now adults and will find it difficult to turn to a woman they don’t know. I’d like to suggest that they run, not walk, back into her arms.

Noyes has shown us and his family that in his mind it is wealth versus the not so wealthy.

I am appalled that Noyes believes that just because he provided the girls with an affluent address and travel that they are guaranteed emotional stability and happiness.

Noyes is dead wrong to think that other parents fighting for the custody of children will understand his actions.

Good parents go to court, not to ski resorts.

M.J. CALLAHAN

Arcadia

* I am sickened by the heartless actions of Newport Beach Mayor John E. Noyes.

His is one of the worst examples of human cruelty, one that inflicts not a moment’s agony on another individual but an entire lifetime.

And what a hypocrite. Running for office on a law-and-order platform and promising to reduce crime in the city. He should have worked on reducing crime in his own family.

I hope one day his daughters will see him for the shameless man that he is.

JOHN DAVEY

Newport Beach

* It is clear that The Times tried to destroy Mayor John E. Noyes and his family with the disproportionate front-page article.

What is unclear is who were the instigators in this attack: his ex-wife and/or his political enemies in Newport Beach.

At the end, the only hero in this unnecessary article is Noyes and his family, or what The Times tried to leave behind of them after the destructive article.

HECTOR ACEVES

Anaheim

* We have an elected official who steals his children, then allows them to think their mother is out of their lives through no fault of his own.

Then he turns himself into someone else. Isn’t that against the law? Or can we all have a couple of driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers?

BARBARA J. GARCIA

Buena Park