Community Commentary -- Paul James Baldwin

Quality of life issues affect us all, and affect some of us in

different ways. Take the two issues of traffic and water quality. Traffic

affects all of us every day as soon as we leave the house. However, water

quality affects mostly those of us who live near or on the water, and

those of us who swim in it.

I remember the debate many years ago about whether to rebuild the Back

Bay bridge on Coast Highway. There were opponents in the community to

building the new bridge, and I believe Allan Beek was a very active

opponent at the time.

His argument at the time was that if the new bridge was built, then

more people would use it and just increase traffic. His slow-growth

rationale was let the traffic congestion and the bottleneck on Coast

Highway get terrible and it might be a deterrent to more people using it.

I hope Beek now can appreciate how the rebuilt bridge has benefited the

traffic flow through Newport Beach, resulting in a better quality of life

here than if the bridge wasn’t redone. I believe that the past can give

us valuable lessons for the future.

As far as Newport Beach retaining that small-town beach city

atmosphere, well I must say, in general, give it up. It’s gone, and it’s

not coming back.

When I was attending Newport Elementary School back in the ‘60s, the

population of Newport Beach was 5,400 and Irvine Ranch was a ranch and

Fashion Island was cottontail rabbit land. Well, things have changed and

will continue to change, so get used to it.

Having said that, we do have some small-town and quaint areas we

should treasure, preserve and restore. Balboa Island and Corona del Mar

have been faring well, but Balboa Peninsula sure needs more attention and

resources put to it. And how about West Newport? Let’s pay some more

attention to this end of town and focus on its strengths, like surfing

and the surfers.

Now living on Newport Harbor and being a boater and a bodysurfer (when

the water is warm enough), water quality is probably a little more

important to me than maybe someone else. This is another difficult issue

to get a realistic handle on. If we listened to and believed all the

disinformation from the Irvine Ranch Water District, we would all be

swimming in treated toilet waste and walking across an algae-clogged and

-caked harbor.

We residents of Newport Beach are lucky to have a gadfly such as

Robert Caustin and his Defend the Bay looking out for all of us, and

looking over the shoulders of the water district.

Whether it is Beek or Caustin getting involved because of their

convictions, getting involved is right, regardless if they are right or

wrong. Here are two people who instead of just complaining about things

are trying to do something about them. Kudos to both of them.

* PAUL JAMES BALDWIN is a longtime Newport Beach resident whose

commentaries will appear occasionally.