Letters to the Editor

Editor:

A flyer is being put on door knobs in our community that is scaring residents (by asserting that) Seal Beach is trying to change zoning in LW to make way for low income housing.

The Seal Beach City Council candidate’s flyer states that the RV Lot or area once occupied by the Mini Farm, as well as common areas, could be chosen for this low-income housing. Several of my neighbors in District 5 have expressed fear and asked if I think this is really true. Definitely, this is not true. There will be no low-income housing in Leisure World. Period. None of us would let them take a senior community that is safe and geared for citizens of our age.

Our city has been faced with this situation for more than a dozen years. Not once did it try and take Leisure World property or imply it would. Please make sure you vote for the candidate who is giving accurate information to you and our community. If you have a question, call city officials about this low-income housing issue.

Gail Levitt Mutual 4 Editor’s Note: According to the City of Seal Beach, every eight years, the State of California requires the city to update its Housing Element, identifying sites where housing development can occur. For the current update, the city must designate locations for about 1,500 units. This is accomplished by identifying numerous “housing opportunity sites” throughout the community. Leisure World was designated as one of these opportunity sites. Though the state mandates that the city identify housing opportunity sites and implement zoning that allows for residential development, it does not mandate the property be developed. It is the property owner’s choice whether to build housing. Any property owner wishing to build must present a development application to the city.

Without a certified Housing Element, the city will lose millions of dollars in grant funds, including those that fund the bathroom renovations and shuttle programs in Leisure World. The state may also impose substantial fines, and eliminate the city’s ability to issue building permits or make land use decisions. Editor: The half page ad paid by the LW Republican Club (Sept. 29) was offensive and promotes the lies of the right wing agenda. Why is this type of advertisement permitted in our community paper?

To set the record straight, the DMC does not promote “wokeism,” CRT, sterilization, paying for abortions, censorship, fraudulent voting, spying on the average citizen, promoting open borders, allowing violent criminals to “walk free,” packing the courts or defunding the police.

I believe in freedom of speech, but blatant lies are unacceptable.

Maureen Ashley Mutual 2 Editor:

I opened the weekly newspaper (Sept. 29) for Leisure World this morning, and several pages in, I was greeted by a half page ad, that while it was paid for, I feel should never have been published. It was full of egregious lies, misinformation and hate. Yes, we are a country of freedom of speech but there is a fine line between what this ad promoted and actual freedom of speech.

It is a very sad day indeed when one specific group can spew this kind of vitriol and have it represented as part of a bona fide club in Leisure World.

Carol Zeigler Mutual 3 Editor:

The Republican Club’s ad that appeared in the Sept. 29 issue of LW Weekly was replete with the lies, fear-mongering and hate-filled ignorance I’ve come to expect from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and their god Donald Trump. It both saddens and infuriates me to realize that these despicable tactics have become the norm for Republicans everywhere, including Leisure World.

Phyllis Spencer Mutual 8 Editor:

The Republican Club quoted Arthur C. Brooks, president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, arguing that “fairness and compassion are values shared by both Democrats and Republicans” (Sept. 29).

It is the basis upon which politics can be fairly conducted.

It is quite sad when this dictum is totally ignored by members of one party. I refer to the half page ad, also in the Sept. 29 paper, paid for by the Republican Club. By urging readers to vote Republican it goes to some length accusing the opposing party (Democrats) of wanting to attack children by sterilization, paying for abortion of the fetus up to birth, eliminating the Electoral College, opening the borders wide, allowing criminals to walk free., etc., etc.

The strangest accusation is that Exec Order 14067, which asks the Federal Government (the treasury) to study electronic (Bitcoin-like) activity now being engaged in by many banks worldwide. (I looked it up). But the ad accuses this effort as “surveilling (spying) on U.S. citizens.” Pretty ridiculous!

I hope that most Leisure World citizens reject the mean spirit totally uncalled for by this ad.

H. Garten Mutual 14 Editor:

The ad on page 14 of the Sept. 29 issue was appalling. Doesn’t the LW News vet the ads it receives for honesty, veracity and misleading information?

“Indoctrinate our children”? “Redefine gender and sexualize young children”?

“Sterilize (our children)”? “Pack the Supreme Court”? “Censor opposing views”? “Defund the police”? You can’t run such hyperbole without a disclaimer stating (at the very least) that such claims are only opinions, and cannot be verified or documented. Shame on the LWN for being a vehicle that will take such ads. Shame.

Mark Scott Mutual 1 Editor:

I am aware that the LW newspaper does not fact check a paid ad, but that paid ad by the Republicans was so full of misinformation and hate that I question why it was in our community paper (Sept. 29).

No one sterilizes children or casts multiple votes. The 2020 election was recounted and recounted, and all court case challenges were lost. It is time to understand that Trump lost. Trump’s legacy is that he is the only president to incite an insurrection and steal classified top secret documents.

Spewing hate by calling the other side socialists, while the right is banning the diary of Anne Frank and rewriting history and not teaching slavery or Jim Crow or the Holocaust in schools is the height of hypocrisy. If you love America, the Constitution and the rule of law, there is no other choice but to turn your back on MAGA ideas.

The right has banned abortions and is forcing 10-year-olds to have babies and mothers are dying; that is not prolife that is pro birth. Prolifers care about the mother and don’t want their children shot up in schools. Education and childcare get funded, all of which the Republicans voted against.

The right wants Social Security and Medicare to be dismantled. It wants to defund the FBI. It wants to choose for you who you can marry, what you can read and the God that you pray to. These are not the values that America was founded on.

Adrianne Rosenfeld Mutual 14 Editor:

I am again appalled and disappointed by the newspaper’s choice to give voice to the divisive actions and words put forth by the LW Republican Club’s ad. It also promoted the sale of the white crosses, that had political undertones.

Last week, it ran an ad (Sept. 29) that was offensive to me, and full of lies. This is not the forum in which to refute all the claims in the ad, but they’re misleading at best. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs, but this ad was divisive and does not encourage tolerance and inclusion. Part of your role is to be responsible about what information is put out there, encouraging unity, not this kind of thing that just makes the divide even wider. Put simply, it is damaging to our overall culture and adversely affects the way the outside world sees our community.

Lastly, it makes those of us who have other opinions feel like we aren’t welcome here. I love living here, with people of different faiths, backgrounds, races and colors. But, when I drive into the gates of my home, I cringe when I see the large political flags flying (I know they are “allowed,” but some of them are downright offensive), local political signs lined up and white crosses everywhere. To say nothing of the door hanger I found this morning, courtesy of the LW Republican Club.

Please do better.

Gina Kano Mutual 15 Editor:

As Democrats who live in Leisure World, we value getting along with our neighbors. The paid political advertisement by the Republican Club (Sept. 29) was duplitious and replete with inflammatory and scary language. It is an insult to think that they think residents of LW would believe such nonsense. It speaks more about those who wrote the advertisement than the Democrats. Do you think it is OK to defame and make false claims about one’s political opponent? As a citizen, it doesn’t matter who you are, a lie is a lie. This kind of language doesn’t bode well with anybody, whether you are a Republican or Democrat.

Ordie Kim, Mutual 7 Kathy Nadeau, Mutual 1 Editor:

Touché to Suzanne Dunwell for her excellent comments (Sept. 29) regarding the cancellation of battery drop-off. She presented a logical suggestion to remedy that, for I guarantee people will be throwing dead batteries into dumpsters.

Her last paragraph brings to mind the article by the GRF president that most seniors are not really on a fixed income (Sept. 22). How wrong. Many retired residents here on Social Security get a fixed check—no overtime, no bonuses. Yet, there are hikes almost weekly on each grocery item, hikes on gas prices daily and on our monthly utility bills. Orange County property is appreciating, so our property values are appreciating, thus our property taxes are going up. Our assessments here go up annually. Major considerations are the amount of a person’s salary upon retirement and how long have he or she has been retired. We are taxed on IRA withdrawals. Now, where is that approximate $150 the president says we have left?

The stripping away of amenities that make the retirement years easier—whether one is healthy and active, slowed from age, dealing with major chronic illnesses or perhaps in need of mobility aids—is not lost on us and does matter.

Lynn Alper Mutual 2