Letters to the Editor: June 3, 2010

Beach restoration

What a travesty for Seal Beach to win an award for beach restoration.

This seems based on hauling sand for the beach east of the pier.

At the same time the city allows its hired help to destroy the sand dunes west of the pier by joy riding their vehicles over them; all on city time, of course. I notice the Coastal Commission did not participate in this award, but politicians seeking reelection did.

Then Councilman Vic Grgas proposed extending the groin by the pier which studies indicated would avoid the necessity of yearly sand hauling.  In politics, common sense is eschewed.

Bruce Stark

Seal Beach

Re: present coyote threat

It has been suggested that the best way to protect our pets and our children from the ever-present danger of being attacked by wild coyotes in our neighborhoods is to implement the following program at once.

1. Advertise a program of elimination so no resident will be ignorant of the warning.

2. Establish an agency to eliminate the coyote threat.  One possibility would be to assign the responsibility to local police.

3. The agents will make a comprehensive study of the area to determine where coyotes or physical evidence of their presence is witnessed, including coyote nesting areas.

4. Prepare small portions of fresh meat containing a strong poison.

5. Publicize the planned distribution of these baits in endangered areas after nightfall, specifying exact locations, with an accurate record of the time and exact location where each morsel is deposited so every resident can keep children and pets inside during the period of peril.

6. Before dawn of the same night, remove every item of bait that remains in place, keeping an accurate record of which baits remain, and which ones are missing.

Although this plan will invariably elicit a negative response from a few bleeding hearts who love coyotes more than our small children … it is not a trivial threat we are facing.

Therefore, since trapping and relocation are ineffective, for the sake of our pets and our small children, let’s urge our officials to initiate this remedy immediately before another pet … or worse, one of our small children … is killed to feed a coyote.

Patrick Coffee

Seal Beach

Wall of Valor

Being back on the Los Alamitos High School campus for the first time since I graduated in 1995 for the Wall of Valor unveiling ceremony was a profound experience.

As the students walked by me, I tried to imagine what I was thinking about while I walked those same corridors 15 years earlier.

Whatever it was I was thinking about then was not the same thing that Megan Boyd is thinking about.  Megan’s project recognizes the service others in the community have given and continue to provide to the defense of our country.

Conceiving and creating the Wall of Valor was a remarkable action taken by a remarkable young woman.

If the Wall of Valor had been there when I was a student, I hope passing by it daily would have given me an appreciation for those who serve as I hope it will for students today and for generations to come.

I would like to thank Megan, her parents, her family, the Los Alamitos High School principal and all those who made her project a reality.  Thank you for appreciating our service.

SSG Samuel Yudin

Seal Beach

Rossmoor and Sheriffs

This is in response to your recent article on the May 11 report to the RCSD Board on Public Safety in Rossmoor.

That report did not highlight the improvement in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department response times for “Priority One” calls (immediate danger of injury or crime in progress) which are 3 minutes and 17 seconds for “Dispatched to On scene” and 5 minutes and 38 seconds for “Received call to On scene” for 2009.

These times have greatly improved since the Local Area Formation Commission Municipal Service Review report in 2005 when the times were 7-8 minutes or longer.

The report did not highlight that the Sheriff’s  Department lieutenant in charge of this area has made quarterly reports to RCSD in person for the past three years.

They have shown there has been a dramatic decrease in total crimes from 638 in 2007, 328 in 2008, and 261 in 2009.  One category of crimes, “larceny/theft” (unlocked cars/garages) has increased.

All other categories have decreased.

The Sheriff’s Department for the last four years has assigned one officer (24/7) to Rossmoor and one officer to Sunset Beach.

A canine unit supplements this coverage when called.

If either area needs another officer because of a high priority situation, the unit from the other area is called.  This occurs rarely in Rossmoor.

Also, during shift change, which occurs about 3-4 p.m. and 3-4 a.m., sometimes there is a brief absence of an officer in the area, but other officers in nearby communities are called, and sometimes two patrol cars can be seen at Rush Park or the Sergeant may be patrolling.

Finally, another  aspect of “police service” is that the CHP occasionally patrols the streets in Rossmoor and they may give out citations to traffic law violators or respond to traffic accidents since they have primary responsibility for these  situations in unincorporated county territories.

It is important to note that if an emergency occurs on the street or in the home, the residential “land-line” phone should be used rather than the cell phone to expedite the transmission of the call and hasten the response.

Rossmoor residents should be extremely satisfied, as I am, with the current police service from the Sheriff’s Department and CHP.

Joel Rattner

Rossmoor

Policing gaps in Rossmoor

This post is to comment on the May 11 Sun Newspaper article reporting gaps in law enforcement here in Rossmoor.

Nowhere in the article does it state who was responsible for conducting this report, what source paid to have this report done and what prompted the necessity of it.

The information in this article did not seem to say much of anything.

What would really be relevant would be an article reporting specific cases where priority response times were an issue in our area.

This falls right in with the speculation of all the dire consequences Rossmoor would suffer if we did not incorporate.

Is this vague police response time article a segue into this arena again?

I would love to see a follow up article stating specifically how our community has suffered since we voted, with over 70 percent majority, not to incorporate.

Amy Loe

Rossmoor

We want coyotes to eat our rabbits

Here at Top of the World (Laguna Beach), we are desperate for coyotes.

Rabbits run amuck here night and day and gather in groups on the roads and in full view of the homeowners.

My husband says he doesn’t know what happened to the coyotes. There are no longer any coyote howls, which we used to hear every night.

We live across the street from a mountain side and in the thick of the California scrub and not in an urban jungle.

Maybe you can relocate Roosmoor’s coyotes?

Pat. T.

Laguna Beach