While The Cat's Away...
Well, did you miss me? I know you must have, because some of you have gotten into mischief while I was gone on my short - much too short - respite. I tried to keep track of you by reviewing and posting your comments on my last two entries, but even I was amazed that you managed to submit over 80 comments on my last two posts!
SO MUCH VENOM, SO LITTLE SPACE...And, I tried to follow along with "all things Costa Mesa" by reading the Daily Pilot online and found that a few of you had so much venom in your systems that even dumping on my blog didn't satisfy you, so you soiled some pretty good commentaries on the pages of the Pilot, too.
STEALING CAMPAIGN SIGNS
I noted while I was away and upon my return that the morons who think it's very funny to steal and deface political signs were very busy last week. So busy that, apparently, Police Chief Tom Gazsi found it necessary to email every candidate with the following message:
CHIEF GAZSI'S MESSAGE
The City has received several reports of
the theft of political signs and banners from private property. The
City and Police Department take allegations of theft seriously. The
Police Department is receiving information relative to these cases and is
investigating leads as possible. Should you witness a theft, please
get the most accurate information possible, including a full description
of persons and vehicles to include license plate numbers. If you have
any information or witness a potential theft of political signs or
banners, you should contact the Police Department immediately at (714)
754-5252. Generally, these types of cases are reported over the phone
or through our on-line reporting system. While you may do that, please
know that we have been dispatching officers to receive information
related to these cases and will continue to do so. Our field personnel
have been briefed on the thefts and will continue to patrol check areas
for similar incidents.
Thank you,
Tom Gazsi
Tom Gazsi
Chief of Police
Costa Mesa Police Department
99 Fair Drive/Costa Mesa/CA 92626
(714) 754-5117
tgazsi@costamesaca.gov
Thank you,
Tom Gazsi
Tom Gazsi
Chief of Police
Costa Mesa Police Department
99 Fair Drive/Costa Mesa/CA 92626
(714) 754-5117
tgazsi@costamesaca.gov
As kind of an exclamation point to this problem, resident Phil Morello submitted a letter to the editor of the Daily Pilot, HERE, that moaned about having political signs removed from his property - 38 of them! While I DO NOT condone the theft or defacing of ANY political signs, if Morello - the President of the Costa Mesa Republican Assembly and a frothing mouthpiece for the OC GOP and sycophant of the current city council majority - lived across the street from me and I was forced to endure 38 political signs staring at me from his lawn for the best part of two months, I'd be contacting Code Enforcement about resolving that blight! If any of you readers are pilfering or damaging political signs PLEASE STOP DOING IT! Please stop acting like pre-pubescent knuckleheads, for goodness sake!
By the way, an interesting sidebar to the particular Mailbag segment that included Morello's letter is the fact that one of the other letters published with his was signed by someone calling himself "Phil Lesh". Turns out that, based on some complaints, the editors tried to verify the author's identity and were unable to do so, so they yanked the letter from the online version. Sounds like that sieve got just a little tighter - a good thing, in my opinion.
Jim Righeimer's Charter got a lot of play on the pages of the Daily Pilot, too. My pal, Chuck Cassity, penned a commentary praising the document, HERE; the League of Women Voters produced a carefully-crafted letter opposing it, HERE, and the folks at Costa Mesans For Responsible Government (CM4RG) published a document titled "16 Different Red Flags With The Proposed Charter", HERE, that lays out in clear, unambiguous language why THIS PARTICULAR charter is a bad idea for our city at this time.
Somebody named Timothy Sesler, who purports to be an attorney and lives in Costa Mesa, gave us his best impression of the late Rodney King's "can't we all just get along" message with a commentary in the Daily Pilot, HERE. I don't know this person but recently his name has appeared throughout the comment threads on Daily Pilot articles and commentaries. Based on those I can say with confidence that he is squarely in the camp of the current council majority.
And, retired Costa Mesa Police Lieutenant Clay Epperson found it necessary to rebut the falsehoods and criticisms published earlier by Planning Commission Chairman and council candidate Colin McCarthy - setting the record straight, HERE. It's really too bad that such a correction was necessary, but McCarthy has demonstrated that he's never bothered by playing fast and loose with the facts, requiring folks who care about the truth to correct him.
Another interesting part of that commentary was the comment thread that has evolved. It includes critical remarks from councilman Steve Mensinger and his lapdog, Jim Fitzpatrick - apparently now publishing both as himself AND "Costa Mesa Taxpayer", since he's been handed the presidency of the Costa Mesa Taxpayer's Association - the local shill organization for the OC GOP. In fact, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Mensinger and Fitzpatrick seem to have become a regular tag-team on the blog comments lately.
If the past couple weeks are any indication, the next five are going to be VERY interesting. This week the candidates are required to provide the City Clerk with their most recent financial information, which will certainly make for some interesting reading. I wouldn't be surprised if someone is caught red-handed stealing campaign signs. And, in the middle of it all, we have a couple more opportunities to hear about the issues. The much-anticipated Feet To The Fire debate of Jim Righeimer's Charter between Mister-Cut-And-Paste himself - Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer and former councilwoman Katrina Foley will take place in two weeks, on Monday, October 15th. And, the final candidate forum - hosted by the Eastside Costa Mesa Neighbors Group - is scheduled for later that week, on Thursday, October 18th. Both events will take place at the Neighborhood Community Center, 1845 Park Avenue (Lions Park). Don't worry - I'll remind you as those dates get closer.
I brought you a little post-vacation gift, too. This little six-second video clip is dedicated to our own "3 A'M'igos" - Gary, Colin and Steve - who pretend they're running individual campaigns, but their messages are virtually identical and their names are defiling the landscape as a trio on signs and banners all over town. Enjoy...
IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING...
And, in case you were curious about how I'm going to vote, I'm NOT going to vote for anyone with a surname that begins with an "M". Nope, I'm going to grab that ballot and vote for the first three names under "Costa Mesa City Council" - John Stephens, Harold Weitzberg and Sandra Genis - 1-2-3 - then I'm going to slide right on down and VOTE NO ON "V". Simple...
1-2-3 and NO on V!
Labels: Charter City, Clay Epperson, Colin McCarthy, Gary Monahan, Harold Weitzberg, Jim Fitzpatrick, Jim Righeimer, John Stephens, Katrina Foley, Phil Morello, Sandra Genis, Steve Mensinger
posted by The Pot Stirrer at 10/01/2012 01:49:00 AM
22 Comments:
Welcome Back Geoff!!! Thank you for your latest summary of the recent events.
We did miss you, but managed to keep ourselves entertained.
Hope you had a nice, however brief, time off.
Orange County Register endorsed Measure V today! Great development. Even the union hacks who littered our streets this weekend with illegal "No on V" signs, can't stop that piece of wonderful news!
Marty/Barry wrote:
"Orange County Register endorsed Measure V today..."
And in other news, Marty wrote more crap in his hate blog, and John Canalis busted the neanderthal's "Phil Lesh" scam.
Register endorsement is useless- everyone knows it shills for ocgop. The people of Costa Mesa will defeat Napoleon and his henchmen.
I will also be voting for Costa Mesa SWaG. Stephens, Weitzberg and Genis.
Honesty and integrity count. The other guys seem to say one thing and do the opposite often.
Example at the Feet to the Fire Forum where Mensinger went into some diatribe about civility and then turned around and condescendingly told Stephens he needed to spend more time in Costa Mesa. John Stephens agree or disagree with him he is involved in the community.
But Mensinger's civility didn't stop there as he also once again condescendingly told Genis she needed to come to council meetings and pay more attention to what is going on. There isn't a person around who pays more attention to the council meetings and it's happening than Sandy Genis.
I guess Mensinger's idea of civility is ridicule and condescending actions. The guy is a pretend sheriff and a phony all the way around.
OCR endorsing the extreme OCGOP faction. SHOCKER!
Well Barry there are a lot of regular good republicans who don't support Righeimer's charter.
The charter like the US Constitution needs to be created and vetted in a committee.
I laugh every time I read Fitzpatrick claiming the Declaration of Independence was written by one person. Fitzy needs to go back to school. The comparison should be to the Consitution not the Declaration of Independence. That's just too funny and show complete ignorance.
I would also like to add that understanding Fitzpatrick has regarding the Declaration of Independence is also faulty. I sure hope his kids aren't being home schooled.
IN COSTA MESA,ITS NOT: IS A CHARTER NEEDED, ITS “THIS” CHARTER IS NOT NEEDED
Its clear the GOP puppets that are running for the Costa Mesa City Council are going to every length to use lies, rhetoric and the newspaper commentaries to push their agendas and the proposed charter. They try to convince the public that Costa Mesa needs to run itself and be controlled by a group of five and not follow state laws. But that is not the first thing that needs to be discussed. Debating over a charter should actually be done , NORMALLY. The problem is these inmates want to run the asylum. Its the agenda of the GOP and one Jim Righeimer that wrote the charter. Better yet, he cut-and-pasted it. Using only parts of other charters that gives him and his other minions ultimate power. This charter, as written, puts no caps on contracts, has no review of bids, and makes it very difficult to see if there are any “back-door” deals for services.
Lets actually look and who is asking for the keys to the city. It’s a group of council members that have tossed the city in chaos. Cut services to bare minimums, (except for their staff and that of CEO Hatch). Hired numerous consultants with unlimited funds. Hired multiple law firms, again with no cap spending. Created budget short falls, not once but twice, to push their agendas. They went against their own consultants on staffing levels and then had the audacity to attack the police officers for holding the “city hostage” because crime levels have risen dramatically. They’ve lied on the Dias about city employees and attacked the fire department about their unwillingness to come to the table and negotiate, when the truth was the city’s fire group had months of meetings with city paid negotiators. (city paying $450/hr by the way) and in fact offered SEVERAL financial contracts. Giving the city every single thing they asked for and sacrificing more pay and benefits then ANY FIRE DEPARTMENT IN THE STATE. And the response from this council and city was always a big fat NO. Even after a deal was finally done, saving the city millions of dollars, what was Mr. Jim Righeimer’s response the day after, on his favorite radio talk show…… I am going to grind up the rest of their contract in 2014. But its not just the way they treat the city’s employees, or how they use millions of city funds to push their agendas. It’s the way they treat the public. Nearly every meeting they interrupt, insult, and belittle public speakers that ask and in fact beg them to do the right thing. Asking them to stop shooting from the hip first, before actually looking at a situation. I lost count of how many times Mr. Righeimer has pounded his chest and said , “I will do what I want”, or pointed at staff and said “you WILL do….”. Always remember, Jim Righeimer is a politician. He only came to this city months before the election. He talks and lies a lot. He has never met a microphone, radio station, or TV camera he didn’t like. I seem to recall another leader that lived by the motto of, “ Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it”, and we all know who that is.
When its time to actually debate a charter for Costa Mesa, we can have a healthy discussion. We can debate how a many “charter cities” have filed bankruptcy because of its leaders abusing their powers with over-spending (ie San Bernardino and Stockton). We can actually debate the need for this charter when Costa Mesa city employees have shown they are willing to bend over backwards to help in every way financially, AND ALWAYS HAVE. We can debate many things, but first things first. It’s not should there be a charter, it's can we trust this council with the power of THIS CHARTER. That is a resounding NO.
If you want an eye-opener, watch Bill Moyers & Company's latest installment on ALEC and see that our city (and countless other cities, counties and states) is being manipulated by a huge lobbying machine called ALEC (alec.org) which masquerades as an educational fund. Go to alecexposed.org, look to the left margin and see the hot topics. It looks like a two-year summary of life in Costa Mesa. I think Costa Mesa should be for and governed by Costa Mesans.
Well said, Eric. I hope you send that to press.
Eric is totally wrong on the charter. Foley will be schooled along with the rest of you when Riggy gets her head spinning and that liberal smirk wiped off her face at the so called debate. pretty uneven match but if she is dumb enough to do it for the publicity it's her own fault. sort of like how we talked her out of her council seat with praises of how good she would be at school board. LOL, what a simpleton.
Phil Morello did not have all those signs on his lawn Geoff. Others were out of sight behind a front courtyard wall. Five on his lawn, the rest from behind the wall out of sight.
But if you want to endure some sign blight, Charles Mooney is the KING, ten signs, redundant signs at that, grace his yard.
As for calling code enforcement: it works. I have had many Genis and Weitzberg signs removed from public areas on Monday's and Tuesdays. They are supposed to be gone by six pm Sunday. I start my list at a little after six and post to city website form. Most are gone by Monday afternoon. More difficult are the ones on private businesses that are legal all the time. However, I know many of the business owners and when I call them and say there are weitzberg signs and now perry signs on their business they remove them. Home depot, target, etc. have trashed them for me. I am trying to contact about 8 other property owners who i dont personally know to get signs removed from there. This is the way to do it . Legally. Not stealing. just following the law. btw, weitzberg is the worst at illegal sings, i mean signs, the homeless guy is the worst at sings, usually two together. guess he can't find friends to take them.
Jim, I mean "Bebe" is so full of crapl.
Hey Jim, you said the 3Ms were gonna whoop our guys at the FTF. What happened? Sure looked like they got their asses handed to them.
I can't wait to see Righeimer get his handed to him also.
Hey Jim...whatever happened to the outcome of the investigator that was targeting Riggy? No resolution, just like the truck incident and the brick incident. Wanna guess why?
Why is Jimmy stalking citizens? Shouldn't he be out seeking better work instead? Does Kathy know about and support this kind of thing?
jw: think the PI incident was fake? If so, you are an idiot. The DA takes his time to study. No one may be arrested, maybe someone will. Either way, it was real, all evidence shows that. They actually have a tape recording of it in case you missed it. And some video tape. And eyewitnesses at Riggy's house. Is that not enough for you? You disbelieve this but think we are merging water and san with City is a fact? lol, Perry is paranoid about losing free golf outings and conferences with steak dinners for doing nothing. It was sweet,now he went to the dark side and is gone just like Arlene got taken out. Handed two major issues to opponents. Pity the fool.
I just watched the program on ALEC. It takes one's breath away.
Seems to me that anyone who wants America to remain a republic -- that is, a nation owned and operated by the public, not corporations -- would also be surprised at the massive accomplishments of ALEC, done in secret, and done over the past 40 years.
The Bill Moyers program can be watched on your computer at http://billmoyers.com/segment/united-states-of-alec/.
The full transcript is available on the same page, too, in case you want to speed read it. (If you have the time, the video of ALEC members speaking in unguarded times is quite revealing.)
Phil Lesh is the drummer for the Grateful Dead.
I’ve posted here about this before. Before I go off on one of my pet peeves, I adamantly say city politics should be non-partisan. Party membership is not and should never be a litmus test for fitness for City Council office. You have to look at the heart and attitude of the person toward Costa Mesa.
Now, I have to vent: It really bothers me when some posters say it’s the GOP doing this, it’s the OCGOP that. Please Stop saying it that way. It’s one faction of the GOP. The OC Central Committee is currently mainly (but not completely) in the hands of that faction. They do not represent all of us at all. To say so is insulting to many Costa Mesa Republicans who are not Baaaaugh sheep.
Geoff West is about as GOP as you can get, Wendy Leece is a person of incredible integrity and to the right of me, which is hard to be. Put Sandy Genis in a debate any day against Jim Righeimer about who is more closely aligned with traditional GOP values and why, and she’d win.
Lots of City employees are Republican, you insult them when you paint the council majority’s ambition driven agendas and old-fashioned petty power politics as typical of the GOP.
Okay, I’m stepping off this soapbox now. Please understand you do a lot of fine people a disservice when you generalize like that.
deadhead said...
"Phil Lesh is the drummer for the Grateful Dead."
Actually he's the bass player. Hart and Kreutzman are the drummers. No worries, it's been a long time..
In any event, the Pilot busted Mill-tard's use of Lesh's name to write hate.
Be careful Costa Mesa citizens!
Jimmy the Underemployed Sign Stalker is watching you! Riggy speaks, the bootlicker does what he's told. Sad that he puts a whiny creep before his wife and kids.
robin, what gop are you talking about? sandy and geoff are part of it? never heard of it. there is a state party platform. read it. if against, you are not gop. independent probably a better word. gop is intensely partisan. saying west "as gop as u can get" is absurd. why do all the gop people i know disagree with him? and i know hundreds, meet with them regularly. none consider geoff gop. nor you. we feel u claim that since our city is so pro gop u want the votes. the sheeple will not let that happen. frogs lose.sheep win. baughhh!trolls, puppets, bootlickers win. u think this city is made up of greg ridge types? hardly. are weitzberg and stephens as gop as u can get too? who does the gop think the gop'ers are? check the endorsements.
Robin and ocgopfan, the comment above I saw clearly separated Republicans from the extreme faction of the OCGOP.
I agree this should non partisan but it's very hard to not point out the power grab and by who.
ocgopfan shows entirely what is wrong with the extreme faction. He shows the same mentality and ideas as the Costa Mesa Racist does. You either agree 100 percent with his racism or you are not only a bad Caucasian you are an enemy of white people.
It's the same with ocgopfan, you are an enemy of the extreme OCGOP faction and therefor not a republican and an enemy to them.
What the extreme OCGOP doesn't get is that it is they who are in the minority in this country. Thye may have some sick control here in OC but The GOP party is also more national than OC and the OCGOP extreme faction doesn't get to say who is or isn't a republican. Oh they try but they can't change my party affiliation.
Jim, you sound a little testy. *tsk* *tsk* Had a few today, have you?
So, if the plan to stack the boards isn't happening, either Don Harper is lying or you are. Which is it?
P.S. Why hide under the woman's name? Its very telling...we all know its you.
Jk. You and Geoff West have this all figured out. Perhaps you are one in the same? We are waiting for Nov 6 so we can have a good laugh.
JK. Do you realize Fitzy is not running for anything?
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