SOUNDING OFF:

Costa Mesa resident, writer and gadfly M.H. Millard provided us with a view into his mind with his recent mailbag contribution (“Fix holes in city structure, not holes in the road,” Feb. 20).

For nearly a decade he has been leading the charge to dislocate and cause discomfort to the Latinos among us. His ideas of “change” in our city are anchored in changing the “complexion” of our residents.

He has been trying to institutionalize intolerance in our city, providing the song book for “improver” elected leaders and chiding them when they don’t toe his line.

There may be no better example of the pervasiveness of this institutionalized intolerance than the comments uttered by Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor at the City Council meeting on Feb. 19.

Following the brief presentation by a representative of the Orange County Human Relations Commission — a group that tracks hate crimes and provides tolerance training — which reported recent activities in our city, Mansoor used part of his “council member comments” time to state that he wasn’t interested in hearing any further reports from the commission. He wasn’t any happier when told by the city manager that, as a matter of practice, the commission speaks before all city councils each year to report hate crimes in each city.

For nearly a decade M. H. Millard has been the source of intolerant views in this city. He is an articulate, persuasive speaker who rants before the City Council and other official government bodies frequently. His local web log is widely read by many officials.

Millard has become an influential person in our city, a fact recognized by the Daily Pilot, which has named him one of its 103 most influential persons two years running. He has been an insidious activist, wheedling his way onto important committees — like the 3R Committee, where he used his influence to attempt to de-fund charities on the Westside. In 2006, when his activities on that committee became widely known, he resigned, not wanting to hamper Mansoor’s reelection campaign.

Millard’s prolific writings on far-right wing websites have been embraced by such notorious racists as David Duke, former Ku Klux Klan head, who publishes and praises Millard’s work on his website. The New Nation News site archives hundreds of his repugnant essays.

I wonder how many residents are comfortable knowing their elected leaders not only follow the drumbeat of intolerance as practiced by M. H. Millard, but seem eager to institutionalize the practice in our city. It’s as though they’ve become willing pawns in Millard’s plan to recreate our city into someplace found in the Deep South during the middle of the last century, when intolerance was a way of life. What a sad commentary this is about our city — that we would elect leaders so easily led by the intolerant among us.

One can only hope that most voters will see through the veil of Millard’s rhetoric, understand the motives and repudiate them. One way to demonstrate this is at the ballot box next November.

GEOFF WEST is a resident of Costa Mesa.