Former mayor, 91, dies

Few people have as much pride in their cities as Dominic “Dom” Raciti, an Italian immigrant and former mayor of Costa Mesa who recently died at the Laguna Hills nursing home where he was living. He was 91.

As a two-term councilman and mayor from 1976 to 1977, Raciti fought against running the 55 Freeway into downtown Costa Mesa and cautioned against allowing too many apartment buildings to go up in favor of houses.

“Nobody had a bigger heart for the city of Costa Mesa,” one of the city’s founding fathers, Bob Wilson, told the Pilot in 2002. “Everybody loved him. He had a nice personality and nice looks.”

In an almost two-hour taped interview in 1978 Raciti talked to local historian Mary Ellen Goddard about growing up in a small seashore town in southern Italy, moving with his family to New Jersey, then taking his wife and son out to California to open up a jewelry business. Dom’s father was a jeweler and Dom’s son, Bob, eventually took over his shop, making the family business span three generations.

“I did not finish school, per se, but I went to night school. I went to junior college also here at Orange Coast and have been at it in a manner that, in those days, was acceptable. If you were in business you didn’t have to go to school,” Raciti said.

Raciti met his wife, Teresa Marie, in New Jersey. Although the two grew up only 50 miles apart in Italy and their parents were friends, the two did not meet until they got to the States.

Raciti moved to Costa Mesa in 1957 after selling off a few jewelry shops he owned in New Jersey. He opened up the Raciti Jewelry Co. on Newport Boulevard and soon got involved with the local Lions Club and the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce — two organizations in which he was a prominent figure for many years.

“After a few years [in New Jersey], I decided to come to California. I say ‘I’ because my wife didn’t want to come at all. I said, ‘Why don’t we sell what we have and we will move to California.’ She said she couldn’t see it. We had a very nice business,” Raciti said.

The former mayor championed putting a marina on the Westside to make Costa Mesa a true coastal town, a proposal that never came to fruition.

He spoke proudly of the city, saying that it should be called “Golden Hill,” instead of its common designation “Goat Hill.”

“I think Costa Mesa is one of the most beautiful cities on Earth,” Raciti said.

Reporter ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].