Mansoor Panders At Tonight's Meeting

LIGHT AGENDA FOR TONIGHT'S COUNCIL MEETING
Tonight's Costa Mesa City Council meeting seems to be on the bland side based on the agenda available as I write this. One big item still missing is the staff report for Old Business #1, a discussion of budget adjustments for the Administrative Services group. City Manager Allan Roeder promised, in a placeholder memo, that the report would be available first thing Monday morning... it wasn't. UPDATE: The staff report is finally available and it sounds bleak. Recreation programs may take a major hit, including the Downtown Community Pool, city-sponsored Youth Sports Programs, ROCKS and Teens After-School Program and the Balearic Community Center. The council meeting begins at 6:00 p.m.

MANSOOR PANDERING
At the end of the open session, under New Business #4, is an item proposed by lame duck Mayor Allan Mansoor that is political pandering of the absolute worst kind. In his proposal he suggests a resolution, "recognizing a Day of Remembrance of June 19th for Overseas Vietnamese Veterans of the Republic of South Vietnam."

TIMING IS PURE POLITICS
Now, I have no problem at all recognizing the contributions and the terrible loss felt by the Vietnamese folks during the Vietnam War. (Some call it a conflict. With over 58,000 American dead, it was a war, period!) Millions of Vietnamese people lost their lives in the war. However, the fact that Mansoor's proposing this during a hotly-contested election campaign against Phu Nguyen for the 68th Assembly seat being vacated by Van Tran just reeks! I expect he will get unanimous approval from his colleagues on the dais.

FIRST THE FLAG, NOW THE FIGHTERS
Some may recall that on June 16, 2009, Mansoor proposed another resolution aimed directly at the Vietnamese people - a resolution recognizing the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam as the official flag of the Vietnamese people overseas.

ORDER ON THE BALLOT
Speaking of the election, the Secretary of State released the formula for determining the order on the ballot. In the case of the Costa Mesa City Council election, the ballot will look like this:
Jim Righeimer
Wendy Leece
Susan Lester
Chad Petschl
Chris McEvoy

I'll post the other races in another entry later.

CANDIDATE FORUM WEDNESDAY
A reminder... Wednesday, August 18th, Mesa Verde Community, Inc. will be hosting the first city council candidate forum at 6:30 p.m. at the Mesa Verde United Methodist Church, 1701 W. Baker Street, Costa Mesa. Four of the five candidates will be in attendance - newcomer Chad Petschl will not attend. Costa Mesa TV will be there to tape it for future viewing. Again, here's the map to the location.