How Cox ‘Represented the City Well’

* Mayor Clarence J. Turner and Councilwoman Janice A. Debay of Newport Beach think Councilman John C. Cox Jr. “represented the city well” on the Transportation Corridor Agency. Residents of Corona del Mar disagree.

You decide.

1. Cox approved of and supported the location of a toll booth that will effectively diminish the purpose of the bypass road (Newport Coast) that protects Corona del Mar from excessive traffic.

2. During the years he was on the TCA and this booth was planned, he made no attempt to bring to the attention of the city the location of the booth and its devastating effect.

3. His purpose, he said, and one of which he was “justifiably proud,” was to sell the bonds for the toll road, and evidently, any means justified the end. Obviously, the more toll booths, the more revenue, the easier to sell the bonds. 4. So now, another road will try, at our expense, to undo what simple, honest, open planning would have made unnecessary in the first place.

And no one knows, and no study can prove, that motorists will use it instead of the straight roads they are used to.

Councilwoman Debay supported the toll booth and justified her position by reasoning that “the existence of the toll booth could have been discovered among the thousands of pages” of the (environmental impact report).

This is similar to the reasoning that finding buried in the federal budget an item listing ashtrays for $700 means it’s a good idea to spend $700 for an ashtray because it is right in the budget.

Doesn’t something seem to be wrong, when our “watchdog” allows a magnificent new road--built as a mitigating measure to route traffic around Corona del Mar--to be lessened in effectiveness to serve as a “bypass,” by changing it into a “pay-to-use road.”

And our own representative doesn’t come openly to the people and tell them what he has done. Of course he didn’t tell us; because it would have been “remove it now and find another way to sell your bonds.”

JEAN MORRIS

Corona del Mar