Emergency Charter Meeting Tomorrow *(Amended)
DUARTE CALLS EMERGENCY CHARTER MEETINGContract City Attorney Tom Duarte has requested an Emergency City Council meeting, tomorrow, Thursday, August 9, 2012 at 3:30 in City Council Chambers to make what is described as "minor changes in ballot description enumeration of powers document.
STAFF REPORT
You can read the staff report for the July 31st meeting at which the vote was taken to place Jim Righeimer's Charter on the November 6th ballot HERE.
You can read Exhibit A, Ballot Description, Summary and Enumeration of Powers, HERE. This is the section that apparently will receive "minor clean up changes".
*THE ACTUAL EXHIBIT
You can read the actual staff report, issued late this afternoon, which shows the modifications, HERE. This is a HUGE problem, since the arguments for and against this bogus scheme have already been submitted. The deadline for their submission to the Registrar of Voters is the same time listed below. That means the opponents of Jim Righeimer's Charter may not have enough time to evaluate and, if necessary, modify their argument opposing this thing.
DEADLINE IS FRIDAY
The drop dead date for submission of all Charter- related documents is Friday, August 10th at 5:00. The City has already submitted the necessary paperwork, but will have to include the modifications as a result of this meeting promptly.
WHAT'S BEHIND THIS?I'm VERY curious about this "emergency" meeting. I wonder what sleight of hand may be at play here, after all the arguements have been submitted? Will these changes result in material changes that will affect the arguments as presented? How sad, indeed, that this council has made us so distrustful of their actions that I even think about that!
Labels: Charter City, Jim Righeimer, Tom Duarte
posted by The Pot Stirrer at 8/08/2012 01:38:00 PM
14 Comments:
Another News Flash - it's sunny in Southern California, and the City Council is making 'minor' changes to the Charter wording the DAY BEFORE it's supposed to be wrapped up.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the change doesn't reflect any comments from the community itself.
And I get questioned about why I don't trust the City Council. That's rich...
Note - no 'lack of facts or substantiated accusations' were used in this comment.
What does "clean up" mean? Even after a second chance, they couldn't make this pig fly?
VOTE NO TO THIS NON-FLYING PIG!!
maybe they will spell out more clearly what the "property" is in the prohibition of property sales. That is all that stood out except I thought the removal of CEO or Atty was going to change from a needed 3 votes to 4. Maybe that is still there, just not on your link.
Attachment 2 is the smoking gun, Geoff.
In Attachment 2, the majority deleted the phrase "and no-bid contracts permitted in certain cases for municipal" in regards to public works projects.
The majority did this AFTER the ballot argument against the charter was written.
This may be off topic but I noticed the flag at city hall was not flying at half staff.
The President ordered flags at public buildings, military installations and vessels etc. to be flown at half staff until the 10th. In honor of the Wisconsin shooting victims.
Maybe Righeimer and Mensinger disobeyed the order because the victims may have been democrats or union members?
Minor changes my left foot! This is substantive. The councilmen's proposed charter isn’t changing, it still allows for no-bid contracts. It's only the "Impartial" Ballot Summary that’s changing. It’s only a blatant attempt to limit public awareness of one of the proposed charter’s major land mines, is all. It has every appearance of an after the fact, direct reaction to the ballot argument against the charter.
How many people will read the whole charter document? Of those that do how many will realize it’s not the provisions enumerated that are the biggest danger, it’s what the charter doesn’t say where the greatest danger lies. How many will look at a short, carefully word-smithed, supposedly impartial ballot summary prepared by a supposedly objective attorney, and say, oh, that’s what it’s all about? No, this isn’t minor; it’s a major attempt at manipulation of public perception of this deeply flawed document.
Be there at 3:30, if you can come, please come.
Robin Leffler
President
Costa Mesans for Responsible Government
Instead of clarifying that the no-bid provision applies to purchasing as well as public works contracts, the proposed change makes it less obvious that it even applied to public works contracts.
The award-winning "transparency" is turning from translucent toward opaque.
And the Daily Pilot couldn't be bothered with doing an article about this, at least not on the website (just walking out to get my paper now). These guys are sneaky sons of guns...
OK, it's in the Pilot - buried back on Page 7 in the briefs. Not even deemed important enough for the first brief (which gets the headline). Apparently, coyotes are more important than the governance of the city, and that's coming from someone who lost a cat to a coyote last year.
Will Geoff, If anyone had paid attention all the citizens of Costa Mesa needed to do would be to put together their own proposal/ballot measure that if at any point in time a charter is to be put in place the charter must first go through these steps; then list the steps ( ABC 123 ).... and let the four have their charter.
How could these four fight against Ballot measure that clarifies every step of the way. It would be very simple to have a ballot measure that would have the proper way of putting together a charter and have a mandatory citzen group assist the sitting Council.
Ah, the value of hindsight! ;-) Even those of us who HAVE been paying attention were blind-sided by Righeimer's Charter issue, and by then it was too late to do what you suggest to head off his scheme.
Facts, I'm happy to oblige you. in a post to the previous article you asked that I back up my claim about parkland with facts, well, we've moved on here so it's a little off topic, but I am glad to answer.
Oh yes, parks are in danger! And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
This just points up why the charter is so dangerous. We are losing protections not mentioned in the charter, simply because they are not added back in as basic protections. They are myriad.
Regarding parks:
Under state law, if cities lease out public land, like parks, for up to 99 years, they must
1. provide for periodic review of the lease
2. adopt the lease by ordinance, which means it is referendable
3. they must have offically noticed public hearings with notices published in the newspaper and mailed to nearby residents
4. They must find that the lessee will bring the best return to the city based on competitive bids held in accordance with other stuff in the codes, including a requirement for a notice inviting bids in the newspaper.
Here's the sneaky charter part: Charter cities only need to do #1. They don't have to do 2,3, or 4
It's not what's IN the charter, it's all the land mines they didn't talk about!!!
Happy to provide facts
It's what we do.
Robin Leffler
and the CM4RG research crew
Can we vote today?
"Local Control" (a myth)- why are you in such a hurry to vote today? Worried about the truth? Afraid once everyone knows what is really going on, your council and their charter will go down in flames?
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