Mansoor Majority Creates Gang Haven
I'm still reeling from watching the City Council meeting Tuesday night. After many hours of watching and cogitating I've had an epiphany. Here's what happened:
CMPD PLAN GUTTED
In their deliberations on the Gang Initiative last night, the Allan Mansoor-led City Council majority chose to send our law enforcement officers into the battle blindfolded, with one arm tied behind their backs. They chose to approve only the enforcement element of this plan. Despite the specific, unequivocal statements by the Chief of Police, Christopher Shawkey and his strong right arm, Captain Ron Smith, that the intervention/prevention element was critical to the success of the program and despite the fact that it had been funded in the last budget session, the majority vetoed that segment.
TRUANCY ORDINANCE DISCARDED
Additionally, although several residents, including some students, rose to speak against the Truancy Ordinance and the police department recommended that element be referred to a subsequent study session so it could be thoroughly vetted before a decision was made, the majority ignored the recommendation, thereby pitching it into the trash can. I wasn't surprised about that, since both Mansoor and Bever had written publicly in the Daily Pilot indicating their displeasure with such a plan. Instead of taking the opportunity to hear more testimony on the subject by staff and residents they ignored that idea and chucked the whole thing. Their minds were already made up.
SHAWKEY, SMITH, GARLAND REJECTED
I listened as Chief Shawkey and Captain Smith presented their case to the council and answered questions posed by individual members for clarification. It didn't take long to see that Mansoor and Bever were opposed to the intervention segment. When Jane Garland, author of a recent Daily Pilot commentary and school district employee in charge of Project ASK, stepped up at the request of Katrina Foley to correct mischaracterizations by perpetually ignorant resident Mike Berry and to answer questions for the council about the interface between the district and the CMPD, it was clear that Mansoor and Bever view her as an antagonist, not a partner in the resolution of our common problem. I hoped Wendy Leece would understand the importance of the intervention segment, particularly when the chief and one of his top men stated emphatically that they felt it was essential to the success of their plans to eradicate gangs from our city. She didn't. When the votes were finally cast and only the enforcement element was passed I kind of just rocked back in my chair in disbelief.
TOP COP REBUFFED
This is the third straight police chief a Mansoor-led majority has rebuffed emphatically. Two years ago they rejected then-Chief John Hensley's ideas on the immigration screener scheme. A year ago Mansoor jumped the gun on the reward issue when Chief Staveley was on board and now Chief Shawkey has some idea of why he's the third Police Chief in the City of Costa Mesa in two years. This council majority, led by our young jailer/mayor, has no respect for the opinion of their highly skilled senior law enforcement leaders. Their idea of enlightened law enforcement is simply getting a bigger stick and swinging it harder and more often. Bever apparently is trying to right wrongs he experienced as a youth in a gang-infested neighborhood. You could see the bile boiling as he spoke about it.
THE MOMENT OF TRUTH: MANSOOR MAJORITY WANTS GANGS!
As I sat here mulling over tonight's events a light went on. I've finally figured it out! Mansoor and his cronies don't really want to resolve the gang issue! They don't want to follow the advice of their top cops and include an element in their plan that can actually get to the root of the problem and nip the gang problem in the bud. They want this problem to persist because it gives them the wedge issue they need to expunge every Latino from this city! If you "fix" the problem through education and intervention that means that many young Latinos will be saved from a life as gangsters and will thrive in our city. That is precisely what Mansoor, Bever, Leece and their yapping cadre of followers do not want. They want the Latinos out and the gang issue can be the tool they use to accomplish that. They want more gang crime, because it will make the remainder of our citizens fearful and more susceptible to their plans for the ouster of the Latinos.
COPS SEE EXIT SIGN
In my opinion, this is a very sad day for our city. The elected majority on the council seem determined to grind this city into the dust with their arrogant "I-know-best" attitude. I give Shawkey two years, max, before he realizes that his position is one of supreme futility and he bails out. I sure hope he didn't buy a house yet. With this action tonight, by virtually spitting in the eye of our top cops, the Mansoor-led majority has insured the on-going departure of experienced cops from the CMPD. What honest, hard-working career officer will want to work in this city - where the marching orders are given by a bunch of racists?
INTOLERANCE CREATES GHOST TOWN
Without a change of direction this city is doomed to be known as a bastion of intolerance. Soon few people will wish to enter our town because the leadership has intentionally permitted it to become a dangerous locale. More bright, young families will seek homes and educational opportunities for their children elsewhere, leaving behind those of us who are too old, too poor or trapped by an equity imbalance to seek greener pastures. Thank you, Allan Mansoor, Eric Bever and Wendy Leece, for greasing the skids of this city. Your legacy will be the demise of this town.
Labels: Gangs, intolerance, Mansoor
posted by The Pot Stirrer at 4/18/2007 12:06:00 AM
21 Comments:
Will you ever publish the other article you had prepared in case the curfew had passed? The one where you call the elected majority, Nazis?
If the police chief and his top man propose something are we to just "go along"? Perhaps there is a compelling argument against it. LA went along with special order 40 and look what happened to that city. Oh yeah, good illegals can now be victimized and report it but good legals have to put up with all the crap that comes from illegals in large numbers. Mansoor wants gangs...hmmm...that is quite a stretch. Oh, he is also a cop and has a different opinion from our cops. Somewhere, a cop is wrong. Yes, Garlich was rejected, again. After the voters said no twice to him maybe our council majority is siding with the voters? And who would have thought our cops, with no time to deal with illegals, had time to deal with truants?
notfoolya, in my earlier post I said I was willing to hear the argument for the curfew. It never happened. Unlike some of you lockstep Mansoorites, I'm willing to listen to other view, then voice an opinion.
zenofobe, in the past couple years Mansoor has ignored the best professional opinions of three chiefs who, between them represented nearly 90 years of law enforcement leadership experience. Do you really believe he, a lowly, marginally-educated jailer with no command experience, has a grasp on the issues sufficiently to make those calls? I sure don't! He continues to demonstrate that he just doesn't have the intellectual horsepower to deal with this job. He's just a small man on a power trip.
Much like my comments about Millard, even though you may occasionally agree on their proposed course of action, their twisted underlying motivation so taints them that you feel dirty for being on the same page.
I have not been a supporter of the curfew idea, but I am willing to discuss it with credible individuals and give them an opportunity to change my opinion.
I never see that happen with Bever and Mansoor however and I will fall out of my chair in shock if Leece every votes on anything contrary to Mansoor, so I don't even consider her as anything other than a puppet of the mayor's.
The Majority M. O. is to decide first and justify later. Learn, understand, deliberate are never parts of their process. That is not leadership; that is immaturity. We have seen it innumerable times in the past and I predict we will continue to see it until this council changes.
Geoff – how do you extrapolate all of this posting from the action of not handing over 65K to be mismanaged by the NMUSD along with the other 8.2 million dollars they already have to mismanage for interventions? If you rely on quotes and experts views inserted into a document without counter arguments then you bought the bull. For every “expert” saying intervention works, just as many “experts” will contradict.
I believe in our new chief, I met with him for 2 hours and was very impressed. I feel he will have a long and productive tenure (here is where you comment about the majority running him out of town). I agree with the mayor on the point that NMUSD has 8.3 million, has began an intervention program, and need to offer some metrics showing the city how they are doing and how the cities dollars will tangibly increase what they are doing. Until that time, and we will wait forever since NMUSD will not air this dirty laundry of waste, they get not a single penny. I must say I disagree with the majority on the curfew issue. I believe it gives our PD a tool to use, when applicable, to pressure not only the parents and kids into complying with truancy, but also the NMUSD into enforcing their current rules. I believe the NMUSD will not want curfew stats from CMPD in the Daily Pilot so they will take the appropriate actions to control this at the root. Unfortunately, for our town our NMUSD is a failure and needs a light shined on its failures.
I invite you all to visit Itchingpost.com for another view of this issue. Once again, Byron manages to capture the essence if an issue, slide the knife in just right and give it just the slightest twist to make sure it's in there good and solid.
Except he does not know what ASK stands for...
Andrew...
So while we sail on the mayor's tack that the district must prove itself (a course of action that you don't seem to have much confidence in where results are concern), the gang element in this city persists. Sure, we'll bust the guys and gals that are gangbanging(which means someone is injured, dead or doped up), but they'll just be replaced by their siblings who, according to Dr. Bever, are doomed to gangdom.
You can pull up weeds (enforcement) all you want, but until you do something to the soil to prevent it (prevention-intervention), they'll just keep comin' back
"Except he doesn't know what ASK stands for..."
Andy...an accurate observation, but irrelevant to the conversation. Nonetheless, I corrected the error.
Your pal, Byron
I nearly lost my dinner last night thanks to Wendy Leece's invocation to NMUSD's teachers to get involved in gang intervention.
Is Wendy unaware of how crazy a teacher's school day has become?
Thanks to No Child Left Behind, the pressure to teach to the test and not to the students is mind-boggling.
Secondly, thanks to horrendous class sizes (the Calif average is 29 students; the national is 17. If Mansoor wants facts and figures, he doesn't need to go far.) how would a teacher with so many kids in the room deal effectively with "intervention?" Classroom management has morphed into crowd control.
Thirdly, NMUSD pays its teachers a really LOW salary compared to other districts in the OC. Add more to their job description? I don't think so.
Wendy Leece needs to get a clue...and a backbone.
All – I do believe intervention does have its place; I just do not want the city to fund something with an agency as laxed and irresponsible as NMUSD. I believe a comprehensive approach, like that of the immigration, is necessary, but we need to have enforcement first. Weed out the worst of the worst then begin the rest, only after proving to the residences of CM that the city (all agencies) are serious and we have measurable results. All of you that believe this single aspect of the plan is so important need only look north to our neighbor Los Angeles. The past 30 years the city has handicapped it police in fighting gangs with a variety of ordinances and policy restrictions, at the same time selling the “intervention” as the means to eradicate the gangs from its youth. Read the stats now (today) and see that this model has lead LA to be the gang violence capital of the US, if not the world. If CM shows itself to be a zero tolerance city of gangs, gangs will not want to stay. This is an inherent fact, gangs do not like being pursued, they will, when pressured, move on. If it is less attractive to be holed up in a city that is consistently on top of every move you make, they will relocate.
Byron to counter your weed theory, the Chief and his staff say our gang problem is NOT “generational”. Meaning it is not being passed along. If so, how would intervention then be a positive? I think this question is in need of answering by the “experts”, or at least a redefining of the problem statement.
Byron – your miss use of the acronym is relevant. By the way, you’re welcome… First, you like to nit-pick everyone else’s words so it was fair game. Second, and most relevant, is your first definition of ASL (After School Kids) sounds similar to AYSO or midnight basketball program or something similar. ASK (Advocates Supporting Kids) sounds an awful lot like an intervention program with people (advocates) working with kids and supporting them in their challenges. Maybe I am nitpicking now??
I read the gang report prepared by the Police Dept., and I find it very, very troubling that no mention was made of the fact that our gang problem is predominantly Latino. Facts are facts, folks, and ignoring the identity of the gangs is really disappointing. Without getting behind the root cause of gangs in Costa Mesa, the CMPD report claims to have a solution?
The CMPD has a robust gang detail and is in the best position to decide how to tackle it. I do think that the Council should have excised the truancy ordinance and adopted the rest of the plan. If the $65k NMUSD give-away didn't work, don't renew it.
Where is the realistic examination of the root cause of our gang problem? We are virtually a coastal city in one of the very best parts of the country. We have a thriving economy and a beautiful location - and 7 Latino criminal street gangs. Why is that? Could it be disenfranchisement? Could it be illegal immigrant gang members staking out turf? Could it be the result of neighborhood neglect, poverty, lack of hope, and terrible living conditions? I don't know. But it seems obvious that there is a correlation when the gang activity is centered in areas that are also the least prosperous in our community.
Its not racist to address the reality of our gang problem. Even Chief Bratton falls victim to the paralysis of political correctness - in an interview about gangs in LA, he repeatedly refused to answer and avoided every question about the correlation between illegal immigration and gang activity. LA also has special order 40, prohibiting police from asking about immigration status, even though LA is the headquarters of MS-13!! LAPD brass and the LA City COuncil is so paralyzed by political correctness that they endanger their own citizens and provide haven for one of the deadliest (Latino) gangs in the world! It must have been quite a wake-up call when federal immigration checks were finally routinely conducted in LA jails, and it was revealed that the number of illegal immigrant gang members was staggering in scope.
I know very well that not all gang members are illegal immigrants. I also know that 300 gang members out of a 30,000 member Latino community proves conclusively that the vast majority of the Latino population in CM is against gang activity, regardless of race.
I also know that a police department that doesn't mention any of the societal, cultural, economic, or racial aspects of the gang problem it proposes to solve has either not done its homework, or is being inappropriately politically correct.
Andy...
Welcome to the nitpickers club. I've been looking for a vice president. Interested?
Your pal, Byron
Rob – once again you deliver the death blow and chop the head off the snake...err whatever that means. But your right and validate my point, no RCA, no metrics to support a claim, no nada in this gang initiative to stat how an interventionist will help and who it will target. Tough on crime provides us with data, interventionist do not.
Byron, ill join the club when you respond to the meaty questions or statements I pose, not my benign attempt at humor.
Dear Mr. Dickson,
“We are nearly a coastal city”
I have yet to understand the context of that sentiment frequently espoused by Millard and now you. What does proximity to the coast have to do with anything? Take a look at Long Beach. They have a much greater stretch of coast than most, commercial and pleasure craft harbors and a ridiculous gang problem. Would you rather we be a Long Beach?
Let’s drop the pretense here. You want Costa Mesa to be Newport Beach. I would like to be the adopted son of Bill Gates. Guess what, neither of us is even close to our wish. Move to Newport Beach for heavens sake and be done with it already.
We have developed over several decades into the community we are based on prior direction set by city leaders and residents decades ago. We can zone the low rent district out of Costa Mesa over the next several decades. Remove the commercial and industrial properties and turn into a suburb of Newport Beach or we can have our own identity and be our own city. I prefer the latter. That is the community I CHOSE to move into in 1976! Did I know about gang problems then? No, I knew about a little community with affordable housing for myself and my compatriots. I could have just as easily ended up in Mission Viejo. But as fate (and apparently your bad luck) would have it, I ended up here and decided to stay, get married, go to work, buy a house become successful (by my measure), start a family, raise my kids, enroll them in their neighborhood school and be a functioning part of this community.
Do we have a gang problem? Yes, all of the US has a gang problem. Is it unique to Costa Mesa? Apparently not if you read the OC Register. Of those arrested recently in a firearms discharge incident, at least one of those involved came from your shining example of bucolic suburbia Newport Beach. Hmm. Why is Newport harboring Gang members? “Wednesday night, police arrested a boy, 17, who they believe is the shooter while he was approaching his Newport Beach home.” http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1663382.php
But let’s jump down the back of the school district. Let’s make them the villain here. Sure, it can’t be you! You can not be part of the problem by supporting enforcement only activities. No you can’t be part of the problem by electing conservative “Law and Order” leaders that can’t see reality through their thick xenophobic glasses! Let’s put those ineffective board members back on NMUSD for another 30 years! That’s the conservative approach. The voters of this city have gotten what they deserve; a city council that has an immature leadership corps that refuses to listen to their own experts on how to effectively reduce and manage the gang problem in Costa Mesa. These wet behind the ears would be politicos are going to do more harm than good because they have been engaging in sound-bite politics and have no idea how to be effective community leaders. But oh, how they can spit out those invectives! Oh, how they can point the finger!
Now Mansoor gives us a lesson in parenting! How many kids does he have again? Oh, never mind, I forget he doesn’t need experience to speak from, he just needs his sound-bite playbook! In today’s Daily Pilot he gives us the following pearls of wisdom:
http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007/04/21/politics/dpt-shootreax21.txt
But Mayor Allan Mansoor, who voted against the intervention specialist, said it's parents and teachers who need to make sure kids stay out of gangs.
"In my personal opinion, it boils down to having a strong, two-parent family that really spends time with their kids," Mansoor said. "I understand there are hardships where single parents are doing the best they can. I'm just talking about what I believe is the best-case scenario for a child."
BRILLIANT! Now we have a gang expert, a sociology expert and a parenting expert as a Mayor! How lucky can we get?
Let’s just ignore (as Mr. Gore might put it) the inconvenient truth of family life in 2007 and the economics of living in Orange County.
By spouting off about the school districts lack of accountability and providing support to Mansoor’s myopic and ill conceived notions of the world, you provide him and his puppets with the moral support to charting the ruinous course they are on. If you want change, then demand that the Mayor and his majority start listening to their experts and following their advice. Otherwise you have dime store psychologists in charge of a vibrant and dynamic community. That sounds like trouble to me!
Andrew,
A comprehensive approach is indeed needed, and your points about NMUSD accountability and past performance are dead on. If you think about that $8.3 million in intervention funds given to NMUSD, and apply the apparent fact that CM gangs are not generational, that means that NMUSD has $27,600 in funds to intervene with EACH gang member in CM! If you only count the active ones, that is $55,300 for EACH gang member. When you factor in the fact that many of the active ones are adults, you see that NMUSD has up to $83,000 in federal funds for EACH gang member to deal with Costa Mesa's gang problem!
Of course the accounting doesn't work that way, but it is important to keep the massive amount of federal intervention funds given to NMUSD in perspective. Arguably, on a per gang member basis, NMUSD has more intervention money than Los Angeles! What in the heck are they doing with it?
No one knows, because Costa Mesa is too busy arguing about the whole Return to Reason vs. Improver horsepoop! Politics has paralyzed Costa Mesa.
We have the council majority actually believing that the same parents who have ignored their kids are going to magically become model parents and anti-gang specialists, heck - they'll even register as Republicans or voluntarily deport themselves if here illegally!
On the other hand, we have the police department, which, in a spasm of political correctness, issued a report which spectacularly failed to talk about the nature of our gang problem. They did do a shout out to the white supremacists, because we all know that they are the true problem in Costa Mesa (and CMPD knew that there wouldn't be any political blow-back from them.)
Why the heck is it so tough to just SPEAK OPENLY about these issues? How refreshing would that be? Can you imagine Mansoor and Epperson sitting down, cop to cop, and just speaking their minds honestly? What a huge step that would be!
Too bad it will never happen...
Dear DVS,
I'm honestly surprised by your post. Have you been reading any of mine? I am NOT a Millard supporter, quite the opposite! My “We are nearly a coastal city”
comment was entirely about the fact that we share a border and a school district with Newport Beach - which magically has NO gang problem! I am a product of NMUSD, I grew up in Newport, and I proudly prefer Costa Mesa and its lack of stuck-up pretension for my home of 15 years. I plan to stay, and will continue to do what I can to contribute to the debate. I sincerely thank you for doing so as well. We are neighbors, and I think we can find common ground.
Long Beach is not an appropriate comparison at all. HB and NB - those are appropriate comparisons.
Once again, and resectfully, I think you have let your bias show, it is quite evident by the fact that you have no idea where I am coming from and are assuming that I have some pretense, as you apparently do. That is fine - this is a blog, and you are anonymous. I am not sure what your bias is, so I can only assume.
I use my real name and have posted extensively about my COMPLETE opposition to the removal of the industrial and commercial properties on the Westside. I have also written extensively about my COMPLETE opposition to removal of the "slums" or low rent districts by the City. I COMPLETELY support private property owners over City eminent domain or interference. I have posted extensivley about my complete opposition to turning the Westside inrto Newport Coast.
Have you been paying attention, or did you forget all that because my anti-gang arguments (anti-Latino in your mind?) have apparently identified me to you as a Mansoor/Millard/Bever acolyte? I don't know your mind, but your post certainly paints it that way!
Curious that you say I don't support intervention, when I stated that I thought the $65K should have been given to NMUSD in this same comment string.
I will hazard a guess, and I may be wrong, so please allow me the luxury of making just a few assumptions about you, as you went to town on me! My guess is that you are offended by my accurate characterization of Costa Mesa's gang problem as Latino in nature.
If I am wrong, I apologize, but I honestly can't see any other reason. Is your bias pro-Latino? Pefectly fine if it is, and again, just an assumption based on your post.
Why would you assume that I prefer that you had chosen Mission Viejo? I don't know you! I respect your participation on this and other blogs - every voice that pitches in on the issues that impact OUR city is vital.
If anyone has a pretense to drop, it is everyone in this city who is paralyzed by political correctness. We can't fight gangs unless we are honest about who the gang members are and why they cj=hoose to be gang members. If that isn't obvious to you, I don't know what else to say.
If juveniles are running around in criminal street gangs, their parents have failed. That is also a inconvenient truth. Maybe that is because the parents are struggling to make ends meet, or are raising their kids alone, or have to work and can't be supevising their kids. Maybe the parents were gang members. maybe they are just terrible parents who could care less. I don't know, and apparently, neither does the police department or NMUSD!
Regardless of the reasons, allowing their children to be criminal gang members IS a failure on their part. Maybe they need help, and we should figure out if we can help them. But until we get an honest assessment of what the root cause of the problem is, we can't even begin to help.
NMUSD has a HUGE target on it, as it should. It has $8.3 million in taxpayer money to deal with a problem that even the police say only involves 150 participants. If NMUSD fails to show results or account for the money, it too has failed.
No problem can get fixed without an honest discussion about the causes and the potential solutions. Our City Council and our school district are who we delegate responsibility to. If they can't do the job, they deserve criticism, accountability and replacement. That is the way life works.
I hope for an honest dialogue with you. I have read your posts and I sincerely believe that you care about Costa Mesa as much as I do.
Look around this site and the Daily Pilot, read my posts, and then get back to me if you so choose.
Thank you!
Yesterday while at a Pizza party with my seven year old, in Huntington Beach, the subject of trains was brought. I asked the six year old “have you ever been over to Fairview Park and seen the Train Station?” Not one but two of the HB mothers over hearing me said “ Its not safe in THAT part of town”.
GREAT!
Dear Mr. Dickson,
Fair call. I read your comment about “coastal city” and immediately saw the mask of Millard. Your prior posts do support out your objections to my characterizations of you personally.
To fill in some info you previously were left only able to surmise:
Yes, I have a decidedly latino bias, for an upper middle aged Polish, German, Irish (and some small percentage of probably a lot of other nationalities) male.
I was honestly unaware of the large percentage of latino residents in Costa Mesa from 1976 until about 1999. Yes, I was aware of the area around 17th and Placentia, but other than that it was not an issue I paid any attention to. Around 1999 my oldest son started school at Paularino. That is when I became aware of the significance of the number of latinos in our neighborhoods. That was my introduction to terms such as ESL, At Risk Youth, etc. I must admit that for a staunch Regan Republican I was amazed at how quickly I developed empathy for the students and their families. I volunteered at the school and met several parents, but not very many and only a couple of fathers. From those early experiences I developed my opinions of the school district’s challenges as well as the city’s. I continue to volunteer at school and community organizations and I am still depressed by the lack of participation of the large number of hispanic students’ parents. I am not casting blame, I just feel that many problems would start to resolve themselves with more participation of the entire community. A topic for another day though.
As to paralyzed by political correctness, well, I would say that I have a problem with any human being suffering characterizations that denigrates them as a person or a group, even Millard. As much as I despise his core beliefs, I respect his right to the same principles espoused by our founding fathers. Gangs are not a uniquely latino phenomena, as you are well aware. We have asian gangs, white supremacist gangs, hispanic gangs, who knows what else. Gangs do seem to be a product of low socio-economic groups and as it would so happen, the largest ethnicity in that category in Costa Mesa is hispanics. Does that make the gang problem a Hispanic problem? No. It makes it a gang problem. Our gang task force must just a vigorously devote time to the white supremacists gang that grew up here in Costa Mesa and spread to other communities as they must any other. When I sum all of that up in my mind, that equates to a gang problem that should not be pinned on the latinos anymore than the VA Tech shooting should be pinned on Koreans. There is nothing inherent to the latin cultures that would predispose their children to join gangs.
As to my anonymity, please send Geoff an email asking him to forward it to me. He has my email address. I will, in an email, explain to you why I post on Geoff and Byron’s blogs anonymously.
Let’s keep the conversations going. I really look forward to the upcoming political season!
Dear DVS,
I have been unable to reply, but will do so soon. Geoff knows my e-mail as well. I look forward to the exchange of ideas.
Thanks!
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