Hoping For Maturity And Truth - Disappointed
HOPING FOR MATURITY
At last Tuesday's city council meeting we got a taste of what the next eight months are going to be like. We saw Mayor Eric Bever act like a petulant punk, barking back at many speakers who had tried to address grievances before the council, trying to "correct the record" when some of those "records" were made when he was in one of his many "days off" - when he stayed home instead of fulfilling the responsibilities of his office. Since he has not matured over the past dozen years I see no reason to believe he will grow up between now and when he, thankfully, leaves office following the November election.
HOPING FOR TRUTH
Worse, though, were the prevarications of Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer.
Time after time he used his bully pulpit to present fabrications and flat out lies to the audience and viewers at home. The falsehoods were sprinkled throughout the evening, but the most memorable was his mischaracterization of what happened in Santa Ana.
LIED ABOUT SANTA ANA
Righeimer characterized the recent agreement between the Santa Ana government and the Orange County Fire Authority to provide fire and emergency medical service to that city as a "takeover" by the OCFA. He amplified that lie by saying it was just like the OCFA tried to do with Costa Mesa! You could almost see his nose growing as he spewed those words.
HERE'S THE TRUTH
First, as is chronicled in the Orange County Register article about the contract, HE
RE, the OCFA did not "take over" Santa Ana. At the request of the City they made an offer to provide fire service to the city and it was accepted. According to the reports, it will save Santa Ana millions of dollars each year with no reduction in services. Both sides, including the rank and file firefighters of the SAFD apparently are happy with the deal.
WE INVITED THE OCFA IN
In our case, in an effort to
provide an "expert" assessment of Costa Mesa's fire operations, the Costa Mesa Firefighters Association approached the city with an offer to pay for the OCFA to come in, do an assessment and make a bid to take over the fire and emergency medical responsibilities for our city. If the City chose to accept the proposal it would reimburse the CMFA half the cost.
COUNCIL HEARD, AND IGNORED, THE OCFA PROPOSAL
Upon hearing the OCFA proposal - twice, over a period of months - the cou
ncil chose to just ignore it and pass up the millions of dollars in annual savings, so the Costa Mesa Fire Department continued to operate as usual, except with fewer people because this council refused to let the staff recruit new firefighters until they agreed to a second pension tier. So, in order to provide coverage at the levels necessary, thousands of hours of overtime have been logged by firefighters and fire leadership.
HE'S THE REASON FOR THE OVERTIME
Righeim
er, at one point in the last meeting, gritted his teeth, ranted again about "$300,000 firefighters" and spouted that he wasn't going to have anymore overtime. Of course, he has NO control over that issue. He, and his political agenda, is the reason overtime is being worked. He'll try to deny it, but he'll be lying when he does.
PASSING UP MILLIONS IN SAVINGS
The City could have chosen to accept the OCFA's proposal and, even though most firefighters would take a pay cut, they were willing to do so. The proposal would have saved millions of dollars each year, depending on which of the three choices the City preferred. Instead, Righeimer has chosen to wait until the CMFA contract comes up in 2014 and try to eviscerate that organization at that time.
THE LIES LINGER...
I just can't let Righeimer's lies go by without comment. If the folks at home heard his rant they might believe him - a huge mistake on their part. Because nobody is allowed to refute his comments in real time, those lies just linger in the air like gas passed in an elevator, pretending to be truth. You can get the real truth at the Costa Mesa Firefighter's Association web site at www.cmfd.com.
LEAVING YOU WITH A SMILE
As we close this entry I'm going to leave you with an interesting, short, 3 minute video clip. Resident Terry Koken provided us with another memorable little ditty - one that will certainly make you chuckle.
At last Tuesday's city council meeting we got a taste of what the next eight months are going to be like. We saw Mayor Eric Bever act like a petulant punk, barking back at many speakers who had tried to address grievances before the council, trying to "correct the record" when some of those "records" were made when he was in one of his many "days off" - when he stayed home instead of fulfilling the responsibilities of his office. Since he has not matured over the past dozen years I see no reason to believe he will grow up between now and when he, thankfully, leaves office following the November election.HOPING FOR TRUTH
Worse, though, were the prevarications of Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer.
Time after time he used his bully pulpit to present fabrications and flat out lies to the audience and viewers at home. The falsehoods were sprinkled throughout the evening, but the most memorable was his mischaracterization of what happened in Santa Ana.LIED ABOUT SANTA ANA
Righeimer characterized the recent agreement between the Santa Ana government and the Orange County Fire Authority to provide fire and emergency medical service to that city as a "takeover" by the OCFA. He amplified that lie by saying it was just like the OCFA tried to do with Costa Mesa! You could almost see his nose growing as he spewed those words.HERE'S THE TRUTH
First, as is chronicled in the Orange County Register article about the contract, HE
RE, the OCFA did not "take over" Santa Ana. At the request of the City they made an offer to provide fire service to the city and it was accepted. According to the reports, it will save Santa Ana millions of dollars each year with no reduction in services. Both sides, including the rank and file firefighters of the SAFD apparently are happy with the deal.WE INVITED THE OCFA IN
In our case, in an effort to
provide an "expert" assessment of Costa Mesa's fire operations, the Costa Mesa Firefighters Association approached the city with an offer to pay for the OCFA to come in, do an assessment and make a bid to take over the fire and emergency medical responsibilities for our city. If the City chose to accept the proposal it would reimburse the CMFA half the cost.COUNCIL HEARD, AND IGNORED, THE OCFA PROPOSAL
Upon hearing the OCFA proposal - twice, over a period of months - the cou
ncil chose to just ignore it and pass up the millions of dollars in annual savings, so the Costa Mesa Fire Department continued to operate as usual, except with fewer people because this council refused to let the staff recruit new firefighters until they agreed to a second pension tier. So, in order to provide coverage at the levels necessary, thousands of hours of overtime have been logged by firefighters and fire leadership.HE'S THE REASON FOR THE OVERTIME
Righeim
er, at one point in the last meeting, gritted his teeth, ranted again about "$300,000 firefighters" and spouted that he wasn't going to have anymore overtime. Of course, he has NO control over that issue. He, and his political agenda, is the reason overtime is being worked. He'll try to deny it, but he'll be lying when he does.PASSING UP MILLIONS IN SAVINGS
The City could have chosen to accept the OCFA's proposal and, even though most firefighters would take a pay cut, they were willing to do so. The proposal would have saved millions of dollars each year, depending on which of the three choices the City preferred. Instead, Righeimer has chosen to wait until the CMFA contract comes up in 2014 and try to eviscerate that organization at that time.
THE LIES LINGER...
I just can't let Righeimer's lies go by without comment. If the folks at home heard his rant they might believe him - a huge mistake on their part. Because nobody is allowed to refute his comments in real time, those lies just linger in the air like gas passed in an elevator, pretending to be truth. You can get the real truth at the Costa Mesa Firefighter's Association web site at www.cmfd.com.LEAVING YOU WITH A SMILE
As we close this entry I'm going to leave you with an interesting, short, 3 minute video clip. Resident Terry Koken provided us with another memorable little ditty - one that will certainly make you chuckle.
Labels: CMFA, Eric Bever, Jim Righeimer, OCFA
posted by The Pot Stirrer at 4/04/2012 11:54:00 PM
22 Comments:
Thank you Geoff for shedding light on the lies. November.
Geoff,
"Punk" is truly the right word. It's ironic that the gang that calls our employees thugs seem to be comprised of the biggest thugs* in town. They're taking this right out of the extremist play book- Riggy's twin Rush says it every 30 seconds.
* Thug: from Hindi thag thief, from Sanskrit sthaga scoundrel, from sthagati to conceal
When will Fred Flintstone, ehh, I mean Jim Righeimer, leave our town?
Something I had to bring up. When Mr. Mensinger said that Ms. Leece started stuttering in her presentation, he disparaged her personally. When Ms. Leece asked that he stop, the Mayor let it go.
I said it yesterday and I'll say it today. We are in for a long nine months. Vigilance never takes a day off.
If you play kokens piece backward it clearly states "Paul is the walrus"
If you turn yippie on his tummy, there's a tat on his butt that says, "Propery of jimbo."
"When Mr. Mensinger said that Ms. Leece started stuttering in her presentation, he disparaged her personally." - Dang, that's pretty cold, that's like kicking a person out of a wheelchair and laughing at them for not getting up. My grandma stutters, it's a medical thing, Steve should grow up and not be a little kid making fun of those that are different or have problems.
OMG!!! Terry is a RIOT!
Thanks for the clip Geoff!
I am a former employee who chose to jump off the sinking ship. Life is just too short to live in such misery. Going to work was like going to a concentration camp. We were (and my friends still are) angry with the councilmen, but too scared to do anything in fear we might lose our job.
It's sad when I think back to when I was working at city hall. Why in the world was I scared to fight against the councilmen who were agressively working on firing me anyways? Thank the good lord for Helen and OCEA for fighting for us.
After a year of being gone, I see nothing has changed. Rig the Pig is still up to no-good and Beaver is still a joke.
How on earth did one man ruin such a great city? CM used to be one of the elite police departments and it's now a joke. I recently attended training with the CMPD crew and I have never seen such misery.
It should be of no surprise to anyone to hear that Piggy has it out for CMPD because of the kNOw pigheimer trailer. It should also be of no surprise to anyone to hear that he wants to punish the firemen and is waiting for their contract to expire to punish them. That's why he wasted the time of the entire OCFA staff when they gave a professional presentation months ago. CMFA also agreed to take cuts on top of saving the city millions!
What's sad is, Pigheimer's evil games has a price. He's already cost one life at city hall and is publicy ruining another's all over the media.
When will enough be enough? When will employees and residents of the city stand united and fight to rid of the councilmen?
It is my hope that this election that someone does something great. Contrary to the lies this council wants you to believe, there are many employees who live and work in the city. I say, quit your city job that you're going to lose anyway and run for council. It will be the best thing you've ever done.
Thanks for such a great blog Geoff and keep up the good work!
This City will have several more lawsuits when all is said and done. The bullies and non-verbal threats along with demonizing from the City Council and part-time consultants is taking it's toll on staff. Documentation has been given to attorneys and these bozos (Mensinger, Riggy, Bever, Tom Hatch, Duarte) will all be out of a jobs soon.
Love Terry's comments and songs! He is beyond clever in making a point with humor and wit. He should have his own show and maybe could have a positive influence on our city, and beyond.
CMPD is a joke? That is total BS. Before uttering crap like that, provide some details.
Geoff - time to stop this nonsense and think for yourself.
You claim that Righeimer is the cause of the CMFD OT. Take just 10 minutes, review the 2011 compensation report and see for yourself that is complete BS.
CMFD OT in 2011 was $3.5 million, $300k higher than the extremely high 2008 - which a poster on the Daily Pilot commentary by Capt. Vasin named CMFA_President said was due to massive OT related to the summer wildfires. CM was reimbursed for that OT and even made a profit of $700k.
I don't recall a spate of wildfires that CMFD responded to in 2011.
The department is down 9 firefighters - so by your logic, each of those 9 unfilled positions would have been filled by firefighters with total compensation of $389,800 EACH.
Time to take off the blinders, Geoff, and start advocating for what is best for Costa Mesa residents. Simply regurgitating talking points - from either side - doesn't help anybody.
The Bever Is just using what little power he has now, because his time is almost up and all he'll be is a washed up local scumbag politician, and speaking of scumbags where are the chances that the phone dropping chest-bumper is going to run for election? You are who you keep company with Steve-O , and you might want to distance yourself a little more from Riggys and his antics if you want a shot at this Council.
"When Mr. Mensinger said that Ms. Leece started stuttering in her presentation, he disparaged her personally. When Ms. Leece asked that he stop, the Mayor let it go." As a person who stutters I don't know if I am offended more by Mr. Mensinger or Mike H. I have thought I would like to speak before the council but since I would be disparaged by both side I guess I will shut up.
Sue
Stevie isn't smart enough to be a good council member. He should just come back up here and farm. Then when he gets angry he can plow a little extra. You know- take it out on the land instead of other people.
As far as Mr. Messinger goes. . .He's an ***hole. Ms. Leece is the only one on the board that has an once of honor. King Jim and his lacky wonder boy, stevie are just grandstanding for name recog. so they can move on to some higher office. Unfortunatley, they will have left our fair city in ruin as they move on. I wonder how they sleep at night.
As for the beaver, at least he's making some eye contact now instead of hiding behind his paper pile :)
hey, take off the blinders--how do you feel about paying OT to back-fill a position that was open because a CMFD Captain was serving our Country in Afghanistan? What are your thoughts about that?
Mensinger is a rude hothead moron, when he has to actually campaign it's going to be very entertaining. People will see who or what he actually is and they aren't going to like what they see.
The phone dropping chest-bumper has already started his ground work for a platform--it's going to be the great " STOP THE FLOODING" campaign. If this is all he has to go with, he's going to be in trouble, because the few if any people that care about the great flooding of 2012 will need a little more to go with before they cast a vote for him.
We all know he's in Riggys back pocket and the all the damage and harm that these guys have done will not be forgotten in Nov. He needs to start making a positive name for himself and start thinking about the things that might get him elected for a first time and not just handed the seat.
Blinders needs an enema,
Way to represent, buddy. Geoff said Riggy is to blame for the OT, did Riggy send the CMFD Capt. to Afghanistan?
Nice Straw Man "Stay on topic". The point is/was not that Riggy sent him to Afghanistan, it's that he was there and his spot had to be back filled. If I'm not mistaken, I think the PD has an officer deployed there now, and there have others who did deploy and have since returned.
Sounds like a bunch of greedy thugs to me, right? Glad you missed the point. When those guys are gone, someone has to back fill those shifts. It oesnt matter who deployed them.
In a round of about way Riggy is responsible for the fire dept OT. He has ordered the CEO not to hire anybody until the fire dept. changes all sorts of things in the contract. From the Daily Pilot articles it looks like the fire dept is trying to work with the City, but certain members on the Council have straight out said that they don't want to work with them and would rather wait until the contract is over.Great way to run a City.
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