Waiting For Tuesday...

WAITING FOR TUESDAY NIGHT
This campaign just cannot end soon enough for me.  In my four decades of living in Costa Mesa I do not recall such a rancorous time.  I'm sure much of it has to do with the politicizing of local, non-partisan races by Scott Baugh and the Orange County Republican Party - my party, darn it!  Ever since the chronically inept Chris Steel managed to get himself elected a decade ago after failing to convince the electorate nine times previously - certain members of the self-named "Improvers" take credit for Steel's success via "bullet voting" - and then the presence of Allan Mansoor on the council for eight years, where illegal aliens became his platform and caused him to be embraced by the most radical far-right elements in our region.  He was sweet-talked - and directed - by the leadership of the OC GOP and things have just gotten worse.  It was during this era when Baugh first mentioned that Costa Mesa was going to be "ground zero" for reform.

THE REASON FOR RANCOR
The flames of discontent were fanned by the arrival in our town of Jim Righeimer back in 2006.  He was Congressman Dana Rohrabacher's campaign minion and, between them, helped get Mansoor re-elected to his second term.  In exchange for that "help" Mansoor promptly appointed Righeimer to the Planning Commission, even though he had not filed an application within the filing deadline.  In doing so Mansoor turned his back - three times - on his friend and loyal foot soldier, Westside resident Paul Bunney.


FIGHTING OLD "ENEMIES"
That appointment, and the column he wrote for several months for the Daily Pilot, gave him a strong foothold in Costa Mesa politics and it looked like he might sweep to victory - his first political victory - when he ran for City Council in 2008.  Fortunately, that was not the case, so he just ruminated on the Planning Commission and ran again two years ago.  Righeimer had his own "enemies" waiting for him - the members of organized labor within our city government.  His hatred of "unions" is decades old and well-chronicled and the tactics he used the second time he ran played off those hatreds - the manipulation of the police association being his biggest move.  Through what certainly looked like staged events he tried to make the members of the Costa Mesa Police Department look like thugs and bullies and, unfortunately, members of the police association fell into that trap.  They actively campaigned against him, including the use of an anti-Righeimer sign on a trailer that they hauled around town.  That backfired and Righeimer was elected two years ago as the highest vote-getter - a truly sad day for our city.
 

ORCHESTRATED APPOINTMENT
Once in office he moved at lightning speed.  He orchestrated the appointment of his pal and business associate, Steve Mensinger, to the seat vacated by Katrina Foley when she successfully ran for a seat on the Newport-Mesa Unified School Board.  Mensinger had convinced Foley that she would be more valuable to the community in that position than on the City Council - and she fell for it.

SUPER-MAJORITY
The story of what has happened since Righeimer and Mensinger joined the infantile Eric Bever and stayed-too-long-at-the-dance Gary Monahan in a super majority on the council.  A plot was hatched to get back at "the unions" by issuing layoff notices to half the staff - St. Patrick's Day of 2011 was when that ill-conceived scheme was launched and is infamous in City history because young maintenance worker, Huy Pham, leaped from the roof of City Hall.  That tragedy was compounded by the callousness of Monahan - mayor at the time - when he chose to remain at his bar in his kilt and sell beer to his patrons instead of attending to business at City Hall on the worst day in it's history.

COSTLY AND INEPT SCHEME
The outsourcing scheme was hastily-contrived and ineptly implemented - the council failed to follow it's own rules - so following many months of turmoil and law suits, they started over.  The lawsuit is still pending and has cost the taxpayers of this city more than $1 million and counting.  And, Righeimer became the face of our municipal turmoil, appearing virtually everywhere decrying our fiscal condition and the influence of "the unions" on our government.
 
JIM RIGHEIMER'S CHARTER
At the end of his first year in office Righeimer sprung an even more disastrous surprise on the residents of this city when he announced his plan to convert Costa Mesa from a General Law city - which it had been since it's incorporation almost 60 years ago - into a Charter City, citing the need to join "the big boys" and wrest control of our city from the clutches of the politicians in Sacramento.  And, as is his style, he chose to go off again half-cocked.  To this date he has not given us good reasons why converting to a Charter City is necessary - except to facilitate his own personal political agenda.
 

SELF-SERVING CUT AND PASTE JOB
Instead of presenting this idea in a council study session, where all the elected officials of our city and the senior staff would have a chance to discuss it, he first directed the City Attorney, Tom Duarte, to return at the next meeting with a plan to make the change.  Then, he cobbled together his own Charter by cutting and pasting pieces of other city's charters into a short, nine-page document that fell far short of any reasonable document that was intended to become our "constitution".  It lacked sufficient safeguards against abuse and corruption and did include some of his decades-old pet projects - his "paycheck protection" scheme, for example.  He tried to rush his charter before the voters on the June primary ballot - apparently assuming a contested Republican presidential primary would bring out more folks sympathetic to his scheme.  Unfortunately for him, a clerical error botched that scheme - there are some who consider it divine intervention - when the paperwork necessary to place his charter on the ballot missed a deadline.  Then-City Clerk Julie Folcik eventually became a sacrificial lamb and lost her job.  Then, frustrated with that loss, Righeimer tried an end-run by attempting to call a special meeting to have his charter placed on a special ballot - contiguous with the June primary but not managed by the Registrar of Voters.  When I noticed that the meeting had been improperly noticed and advised CEO Tom Hatch and Duarte of the fact and that it would almost certainly be challenged in court, the meeting was canceled and Righeimer targeted the November ballot instead.
 

LITTLE TIME FOR INPUT
In both cases - before the Primary and General Elections - there was barely time to hold the minimum number of public hearings on Jim Righeimer's Charter required by state law.  In the meetings prior to the Primary dozens of residents spoke to the issue - most against - and a couple hundred suggestions were hastily-prepared and presented to the council for inclusion in.  Most were discarded out of hand and those few that were adopted were of little consequence.  It quickly became clear that Righeimer was NOT going to permit tinkering with his document.
 
A LIGHTNING ROD
During this campaign season Jim Righeimer's Charter became a major lightning rod.  Residents chose sides and began a virtual war on this issue.  It was debated by Righeimer and Foley in a circus-like Feet To The Fire Forum attended by hundreds of residents and was also the subject of a 90 minute radio debate between councilwoman Wendy Leece and retired former city planning executive and current community activist Perry Valantine on one side and Righeimer and Planning Commissioner Rob Dickson on the other.

 POLARIZATION OF THE COMMUNITY
The community has become polarized around this issue and the candidates for city council this time around.  Followers of Righeimer's scheme - which I have described as a takeover of our municipal government by the leadership of the Orange County Republican Party - put forth Monahan, Mensinger and Planning Commission Chairman Colin McCarthy - the so-called "3Ms" - who have run as a slate.  Opposing candidates came forth and, although not intentionally teamed by their individual campaigns, former mayor Sandra Genis, lawyer John Stephens and businessman Harold Weitzberg have been linked together as an opposing trio.  Two other candidates appear on the ballot - Al Melone, a faint-hearted candidate who seems to side with the 3 Ms - and James Rader, who realized one day too late that he'd made a mistake and has not campaigned at all.
 

OUTSIDE MONEY
Our mailboxes have been jammed with mailers paid for by individual campaigns and outside sources, too.  Organized labor has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Anti charter - Measure V - campaign.  The OC GOP has dumped thousands into the campaigns in favor of V and the 3 Ms, as has a political group formed by developers.  And, worse than all that outside money, many of the messages that have been jammed down our throats are flat-out lies.  That's a real shame, since the most egregious of them have come late in the game with almost now time to counter them

DAILY PILOT SUMMARY
The Daily Pilot, in it's Sunday edition, has published a fairly comprehensive article about this campaign season.  You can read it HERE.  It's worth the time it will take you.

POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION FIGHTS BACK
On the back page of Saturday's Daily Pilot the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association paid for a full page advertisement rejecting many of the bogus claims that have appeared in our mailboxes over the past couple days.  The ad looks like this:

It categorically refutes the claim that members of the Costa Mesa Police Department had filed a false police report against any council member, and specifically not Jim Righeimer.

It affirmed the fact that the Police Association is willing and ready to negotiate with the city over pension issues despite false claims to the contrary.

It verified that "Costa Mesa City Hall has confirmed that Costa Mesa's police officers are not the highest paid police force in the county" - refuting bogus claims made by a mailer paid for by Mensinger and McCarthy last week.

And, it affirmed that crime in Costa Mesa is up 17% and that police staffing levels are at their lowest in nearly 30 years.
 

COSTA MESANS FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
Additionally, this weekend members of the grassroots organization Costa Mesans For Responsible Government (CM4RG) have been walking neighborhoods distributing the following piece of campaign literature:

(Click to enlarge images)

ROBIN'S FULL LETTER
And, CM4RG President, Robin Leffler, submitted a letter to the editor at the Daily Pilot that did not make the cut - only a small snippet was included in the Pilot's compendium of comments published Saturday, HERE.  With her permission I have reproduced her entire letter for your information, below.

"Once again it’s election and sign-stealing season.  It’s wrong - period.  If someone thinks he is doing his side a favor by suppressing the other’s voice, then he doesn’t understand America, her freedoms and democracy.

This is  happening to both sides in this election: CM4RG paid for more than 500 signs that were either vandalized or stolen.  The weekend our opponents’ signs were vandalized, Mesa Verde Drive was stripped of “No on V” signs – repeatedly.  By Sunday night we lost 40 signs to “thugs” who would take them as soon as we put them up.

The true crime?  This pettiness is distracting people from the real issues.

Crime is up. Some candidates are making a bigger deal about the loss of signs (that were meant to be temporary) than about the 18% increase in property crime.  They’ve called no press conference railing about the thefts of Costa Mesa residents’ valuables and peace of mind and made no move to hire sufficient police and restore public safety.  They are not thinking of us.

Legal costs are skyrocketing.  Costa Mesa suffers from the “fire, ready, (maybe) aim” approach to outsourcing:  Had Council followed their City Attorney’s advice and taken some simple steps, we wouldn’t have legal bills nearing $2MM.  Recently they chose to appeal to the California Supreme Court rather than negotiate a solution.

The charter is dangerous, and the city council chose the antithesis of transparency to try to hide it.  During an emergency public hearing the council majority removed the words, “Allows no-bid contracts”, from the summary description that every voter will read, but never removed the language in charter section 401(c),  “Annually, the City Council shall set a value at which Municipal Public Works contracts shall be exempt from formal public bidding.”  No-bid contracts are still permitted.  At a recent debate, Mr. Righeimer said Government Code 1090 and the Political Reform Act limit this, but those are conflict-of-interest laws and have nothing to do with setting dollar limits or standards for no-bid contracts. 

I deplore sign stealing, but it’s a side story in the soap opera that has afflicted Costa Mesa for two years.  We are not voting on who steals the fewest signs.  We are voting on what is the best form of governance for Costa Mesa, and whether to elect council candidates who are firmly attached to passing a flawed charter or those who take a thoughtful, reasoned and inclusive approach to all things municipal."
 

SIGN VANDALISM
As I said before, this has been the worst campaign season in my memory.  Although campaign signs have historically - and almost traditionally - been subject to vandalism and theft in previous campaigns, this time around it seems to have been an epidemic - on both sides of the issues.  It became such an issue for some folks that one candidate actually hired a private investigator to skulk around our community, looking for people who might be removing or destroying signs.  As luck would have it, he did observe and videotape a person doing just that and, instead of reporting it to the police, the videotape was placed on YouTube, his name and the fact that he was a city employee was divulged - which certainly will hamper any kind of official investigation into the matter - and the Costa Mesa Taxpayer's Association actually placed an unrelated arrest record for the suspected individual on it's web site and Facebook page - which will further hamper legal action against him and, in fact, might subject that group and it's leadership to legal troubles of their own.
 

WORRIED ABOUT OUR FUTURE
Anyone who reads this blog has no doubt where I stand on the issues this time around.  I'll remind you with an image at the end.  I just hope that, regardless how this election turns out, that the residents can find some way to work together on issues that are important to our city with much less rancor than we've seen in the past.  I hope those in charge now realize that just flying off the handle with half-baked ideas without properly vetting them is bad for our city.  It doesn't have to be that way.  The residents of this city are not the enemies of council members, even though they've been treated as such for nearly two years.