The city can’t cry foul now
The Beacon’s front page on March 8 headlined “Aguirre, McMillin clash over NTC contract.” Is anyone surprised?
It is a little late to disclose the negative results of the contract. The city spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants “” obviously, this contract was not in the city’s best interests and flawed so that McMillin benefited.
Who is at fault? McMillin? Sadly, perhaps they were better negotiators.
Doesn’t the city have a history of poor financial decisions and performance? This is the disaster that was waiting to happen for years. No concerned resident groups ever got an ear on their issues. The city can’t cry foul now.
I have lived for 22 years a block away from the Laning entrance to NTC. I could not believe what the city did to assure a pristine NTC redevelopment while destroying the neighboring communities, traffic flow and businesses. Aguirre should spend his time on all the other lawsuits that involve the city. The recovery of $9.6 million he alleges McMillin overcharged the city is chump change after legal fees.
Shouldn’t he concentrate on the $1 billion-plus pension deficit? Where are the city’s priorities? The city certainly doesn’t need more negative media reports.
It’s all politics. While councilmen are being fined for unethical campaign funds, Mayor Jerry Sanders is endorsing Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, of Arizona. Doesn’t Sanders have anything else to do? Who is trying to avoid bankruptcy? What a sorry state of affairs.
Art Wright, Point Loma

The Beacon illuminates peninsula issues
Over the past several weeks, The Beacon has been illuminating our tragedy of the commons. Not only is there the ongoing failure to support independent small businesses (“Going, going, gone,” Feb. 18), but there’s an upscaling to the notion of affordability in regards to housing (“Residents warn of loophole to 30-foot coastal height limit,” Feb. 22). Large developers are allegedly bilking the public (“Aguirre, McMillin clash over NTC contract,” March 8), and nowhere in the planning process, regarding individual projects, does the issue of community character come up (“Controversial home expansion near Dog Beach is approved,” March 8).
Seniors, surfers, students and striving artists have been forced to abandon our beach town as condo conversions and individuals armed with property rights do the social engineering of a warfare state. Our civic culture and community leaders have turned a blind eye to what the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith called “the disparity between private affluence and public squalor” as our privatized, free market political system gives us more of the same-old same-old.
So thanks to The Beacon for shining a light on what our good people have to navigate through. I bid you fair skies and following seas!
Danny Morales, Ocean Beach