Irvine Residents

On Nov. 3, Irvine residents voted to directly elect their mayor. Backers of the initiative, called Measure E, campaigned on the platform that residents in a city the size of Irvine, which has a population exceeding 90,000, should choose their mayor directly. Traditionally the council has decided once a year who will hold the mayor's post. Also on Nov. 3, J. Tillman Williams was elected mayor of Garden Grove by a narrow 18 vote margin.

Raymond Watson, the architect and community planner who steered the development of Orange County's signature master-planned city of Irvine and briefly ran Walt Disney Productions during one of its most tumultuous periods, has died. He was 86. Watson died Saturday at his longtime home in Newport Beach from complications of Parkinson's disease, his family said. A carpenter's son, Watson was born in Seattle in 1926 and raised by his grandmother in what he described as a rootless childhood in Oakland, sometimes in boardinghouses.

Why should Irvine residents vote "No" on Measure B? The answer is simple, the consequences profound. Village 38 is a poorly planned development that will damage the quality of life in Irvine without providing any substantial benefit to the city or its current residents. Despite the million-dollar disinformation campaign waged by the Irvine Co. and its hired political consultants, Measure B is neither about the wisdom of the Master Plan nor the intention of the 1988 Open Space Agreement.

The Rev. Louis Sheldon, the Anaheim anti-gay activist, and other people who do not live in Irvine are helping to organize and direct the campaign to deny homosexuals protection under Irvine's controversial human rights ordinance, critics charged Friday. Calling the involvement of Sheldon and the others an intrusion into the city's affairs, City Councilwoman Paula Werner expressed concern over outsiders becoming active in issues that she said should be decided solely by residents of Irvine.

In the battle over open space, when a developer wins, he's won. When an environmental group wins, it simply means the battle has been put on hold until some future time when there is a chance to fight over the land again. This is the case of Quail Hill in Irvine, a parcel used by migrating Canada geese and other wildlife. As your recent article (March 26) pointed out, Irvine residents have twice voted to preserve Quail Hill, in perpetuity. Alas, in politics, this phrase really seems to mean "for a little while."