October 2006

ON A MISSION
In response to your almost-hit piece on Mission Beach [“Low Tide” by Thomas K. Arnold, Front Pages, August]:

Can Mission Beach be made safer? Let’s start with the churches that feed the homeless every evening in two park areas (maybe more). It is really helpful to get 20 to 30 homeless together each evening. What could be more “Christian” than to do that to your neighbors? Apparently there is no place to do that near the La Jolla churches they represent. Funny how that works.

A little dinner, a few drugs, a little rest, and it is 3 a.m.—time to search Mission Beach for anything left out by the unknowing populace. Maybe a gate left open, a garage. But they need to get there right away, as the regular thieves are already working the area. Why would that be? Maybe because there are no police available to patrol the area.

We have police, but they are too busy working the gangs at Belmont Park. Even twice the number of police could be busy at Belmont Park.

Will it ever change? Yes, change is on the way. Your article mentioned $2.5 million condos. Beachfront homes are up to $7 million. Do you think people paying $25,000 to $100,000 a year in property taxes will listen to excuses for lack of police presence? No—they will demand service. About time.

One day soon there will be police protection, no public drinking of alcohol, no out-of-control parties, no dogs fouling the beaches—just a beautiful place for families to enjoy and relax.

I should live so long.

TOM WHITING
MISSION BEACH

JUST THE FACTS
The reason the Mission Beach crime rate remains high—and in fact, is rising—is quite simple. Unlike virtually every other beach community in Southern California, you can consume alcohol on the beach in San Diego.

Unfortunately for residents, Mission Beach has the “perfect storm” of conditions. This small community of about 7,000 has a lot of beach, both ocean side and bay side; scads of college kids practicing how to drink; lots of free parking; bus service every few minutes; an amusement park; and plenty of bars and liquor stores. On Sundays, the gangs arrive, get fortified with liquid courage and act tough along the boardwalk and in the parking lots. Meanwhile, teenagers get their beer from students over 21. It’s quite a scene, and early-morning walkers get to confront a beach strewn with alcohol-related trash.

Despite efforts by police to control the situation, it persists. Our crime rate is one of the very highest in San Diego—much higher than in Pacific Beach or Ocean Beach—and went up during the past fiscal year, while their crime rates went down, somewhat.

This is why, on August 9, our town council voted 65 to 4 to petition the city council to prohibit drinking on the sand in our community, as La Jolla Shores did a decade ago when that community demanded it.

Although politics and the clout of the alcohol industry will undoubtedly make it tough, it’s really this simple: Get the booze off the beach, and we gain control of our community. Wish us luck!

BILL BRADSHAW
BOARD MEMBER
MISSION BEACH TOWN COUNCIL

NO GOOD DEED GOES...
I might have laughed at Tom Blair’s item about the Chargers’ charity work if it hadn’t been so insensitive [I on San Diego, August]. So what if the Chargers quietly serve food [to the homeless] once a week as a group? There are so many people who make a mere fraction of the money the lowest paid player makes—and these people volunteer their time with no fanfare or a chance of ever being discovered by your magazine. I know, because I work for a nonprofit with around 500 volunteers who save us well over a million a year. These are people from all walks of life—and levels of affluence.

Blair mentions how the rich are getting richer, and talks about how San Diego will have nearly twice as many millionaires within the next five years. But he fails to mention how many more will fall below the poverty level and will not be able to afford to live here anymore.

From wikipedia.org: “About 10.6 percent of families and 14.6 percent of the population were below the poverty line, including 20 percent of those under age 18 and 7.6 percent of those age 65 or over.” This was in late 2005, and “The median income for a household in the city was $45,733, and the median income for a family was $53,060.”

And from your own magazine in early 2006 (and remember, interest rates have increased since February): “The San Diego Association of Governments estimates that 172,000 local employees, or 13 percent of the workforce, earn less than $8.35 an hour.”

“San Diego County’s high housing prices, coupled with its relatively low wages, make it the third least affordable major metropolitan area in the country” (National Association of Home Builders, 2006).

“Meanwhile, in the past six years the median household income in San Diego increased only 21 percent for a family of four” (The San Diego Union-Tribune, July 10, 2005).

In 2005: Housing affordability in San Diego County continued its downward slide in May, with only 9 percent of households able to afford a median-priced home, according to a report released by the California Association of Realtors.

Because of this, more and more of the working poor are leaving San Diego—good way to build up the percentage of affluent. Next time you wish to tell the truth about something, please tell the whole truth—the good, the bad and the ugly—or don’t say anything at all.

LISA SCHIFF
SAN DIEGO

COMPLETE SHAM
It is unfortunate Tom Basinski’s account of Marc Levine and Giuliana Bosco’s trail of deception was so incomplete [“Hook, Line and Sucker,” July]. How dare he use the word “sucker” to describe those of us duped by this terrible twosome? Dozens of people were also potential victims of their scam.

I only met Marc a couple of times, but he always was the stiff and awkward “partner,” silent in Giuliana’s presence. None of us ever quite believed they were a couple. Not only did Giuliana tell her many acquaintances she had a rare cancer diagnosis, but later that she was pregnant with Marc’s twins (which ended in miscarriage). They were getting divorced, which explained why she lived alone in her swanky downtown condo.

She was a high school student interested in law, when the older, handsome Marc began to pursue her, she told us. Yeah, right. She said she became obese from the steroids used for her treatment.

My own mother was dying of cancer, and Giuliana frequented her bedside, often commiserating about cancer treatment and what a rough life she had. It’s too bad you cannot quantify the emotional cost of their lies, nor can you go to jail for it.

Unfortunately, we educated professionals, whose only fault was simply trusting a pitiful woman, got conned as well.

Who is to say where they will surface after their jail terms are served? Beware! Mark and Giuliana will come to a town near you with a whole new story to tell.

JILL REVIVO
SAN DIEGO

The term “sucker” was employed by the headline writer, not author Basinski.—EDITOR

MAMA'S BOY
I am writing to you as the mother of Marc Levine to clarify the truth that was omitted from your article “Hook, Line & Sucker.”

Marc took money from his father, which was held in trust for him under his name. He also took out a second mortgage on his house to gather more funds to help the “cancer-stricken people” who supposedly needed financial support. He was gullible and believed what he was told. However, he didn’t keep a nickel of the money. He gave every penny to Giuliana Bosco, who spent it recklessly and not, as she fantasized, on relatives dying of cancer.

Marc was the greatest victim of the scam. He became financially stressed because of his naïve belief in Giuliana’s fabrications. And I know that she was reckless with the yarns she spun, because she also played on me. The phone calls that came through to me were from the imaginary gal who “was the most ill” and the mother who was dying, too.

The truth is that none of her family died; none had cancer; and no one had ever heard of mantle cell lymphoma except me, Marc’s mother. I was diagnosed at Johns Hopkins with this virile form of cancer in February 2003. Marc was very disturbed at learning of my illness, but Giuliana used it as a trap to bring in cash. The money all went to her—and to the merchants she supported. Marc did not win anything from this scam; to the contrary.

GHITA LEVINE KISSIN
ARNOLD, MARYLAND

The jury in Marc Levine’s felony trial found him guilty of all five counts of theft, fraud and financial elder abuse. Said Judge Gale Kaneshiro, who presided in the trial: “The jurors didn’t believe anything Mr. Levine said, and neither did I.”—EDITOR

QUEL DIFFÉRENCE?
In the profile of Mike Halloran in the August issue [Etc. by J. Maury Harris, Front Pages], Mike says his favorite motto or slogan is “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” which you say is Latin. I’ve been a student of French for many years, and it is, in fact, French, not Latin.

As an interesting aside, this expression, which translates as “Shamed be the person who thinks evil of it,” was imprinted on the dinner plates at the King’s Arms Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia, where I worked while in college.

ANASTASIA BERTA
PACIFIC BEACH

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