Turmoil in Pilot territory is not just news, it's the way of life. Cases
in point:
* An upcoming vote on $110 million in school bonds, to be paid for by
people who hardly ever like to pay for anything public.
* A justifiably controversial proposed hotel at the Dunes that will have
more rooms than all of Newport when my wife and I came to town 36 years
ago.
* A gaggle of down-coast residents seemingly ready to tell Newport Beach
to take its annexation and stuff it.
* The resounding success of Measure F (for foul?), thus an even larger
and noisier Orange County International looming on the northern frontier.
* A thing called Greenlight that's going on the ballot because enough is
finally enough. That's what happens when citizens get mad as hell and
aren't going to take it anymore.
What fun! What splendid battles! What column fodder!
But how frustrating to be in an upper-balcony seat a thousand miles away,
instead of reporting from ringside.
So it's time, I think, to hang up the old quill.
Ten years of tilting at windmills is a long stretch. I've had a wonderful
time and I think most readers have, too.
Writing a column for the Daily Pilot gave me the opportunity to flap my
lips, so to speak, on scores of issues. More important, I had the
privilege of coming to know some categorically wonderful people.
There's the environmental flock, the people who for decades have been
defending the bay, the marshes and the beaches from unspeakable assaults.
I can't mention them all, but I must make public my admiration and
affection for such crusaders as Frank Robinson, Jack and Nancy Skinner,
Bob and Susan Skinner Caustin, Jean Watt and all the Stop Polluting Our
Newport folk. Without the likes of them, you, dear reader, would be
paddleless on a slow-moving stream.
I love women, and especially the Women in Leadership and the League of
Women Voters. I've tangled with many a politician -- still do, but my
dear friend Evelyn Hart is as straight a shooter as there ever was. And
as lovely a human. Likewise the man who will always be Mr. Mayor to me,
Clarence Turner.
I know that a number of Daily Pilot readers have a genuine love-hate
relationship with this newspaper. Forget about it. The fact that gripes
from tree-huggers and the pave-Back Bay crowd run nicely even indicates
this newspaper is doing its job.
When I came to the Pilot 10 years ago, it was a pretty weird place. There
was a mysterious ownership group that included Henry Kissinger; a
publisher fresh from one of the large Chicago papers; a young editor not
