Mailbag: Increase in prostitution arrests raises fair questions

On June 15, a commentary was written by Mayor Steve Mensinger demeaning a resident who spoke in City Council in the public comments forum.

This alone should be deemed behavior unbecoming of an elected representative. Yet he furthered this unbecoming action with an attempt at discrediting this resident as a “critic” for simply asking questions.

The council majority has made the “pimps and prostitutes” accusation as a basis for redevelopment so often that the statistics should have proven interesting. Instead, the three years of bemoaning by the council is not substantiated by its own records!

This resident presented facts from the city’s own website, which lists prostitution arrests for the year 2014 as 11, for the year 2015 as one, and the first four months of 2016 as 69.

The focus of the clean-up is focused on the Costa Mesa Motor Inn, which is to be closed down for high-end apartments. The huge spike in January, February, March and April, 2016, with 69 arrests, an increase of 500% in the first four months, is shocking.

What conclusion are the residents supposed to draw? Has there been no enforcement in previous years, or is this location is now being targeted by a special task force, or are the statements by the council majority not based on factual data?

None of these scenarios verify the “pimps and prostitutes” cry of previous years and cannot be supported by data. By keeping information from the public, it makes it difficult to draw any conclusions based on true data and facts.

This speaker made no statement about the motels, other than presenting the data. She asked for information to be provided via the public information system. As that speaker, I expect our elected officials to base their statements on facts and data and not complain about residents. Stopping the flow of information is not only against the law, it is counterproductive for the city.

Transparency is touted by our current council majority, yet when residents attempt to secure information, it is like wading through sludge, with them making it difficult and sometimes just obstructive. The mayor and mayor pro tem complain about the number of public information requests, yet the refusal to comply with requests causes several additional requests to be submitted.

I expect an apology from the mayor for the misrepresentation of my comments at the June 7 council meeting. I was speaker 14. Please listen for yourself.

Mary Spadoni
Costa Mesa

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Mermaid story was silly

What a silly story about some very silly people. This whole cosplay thing, a word invented so such people don’t have to admit that they are really playing dress-up, reeks of arrested adolescence. They readily admit that they have to “escape” adult life and get in touch with their inner-child.

Anyway, I am a live-and-let-live person, and really don’t care what they do, but I have to say if they are going to “identify” as mermaids and demand their own separate restroom facilities, that’s where I will draw the line!

Randy Stratton
Costa Mesa