Another Important Meeting Canceled

FAIRVIEW PARK CITIZENS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING CANCELED
Today the City of Costa Mesa announced that the Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee meeting, scheduled for next Wednesday, February 3, 2015, has been canceled.  There seems to be a lot of that going on these days.

STAFF REPORTS NOT FINISHED
It is my understanding, following consultation with City Communications Director Bill Lobdell, that the meeting was canceled because the staff reports requested by the Committee dealing with field use of part of the Southeast Quadrant are not yet complete.  I'm not surprised - this is approaching the end of the road and the staff reports in question will likely be hotly discussed during the next meeting, so they need to be thorough and accurate.

SO FAR, NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGES
For going on two years this committee has been plowing through the various ideas for each of the four quadrants of the park that they conjured in the early days of this assignment, with virtually no significant changes to the park to show for their efforts.  That's not necessarily bad, since most residents who speak at these meetings and correspond with the committee overwhelmingly favor retaining the park in as natural a state as possible.  And, that certainly does not mean that they've not been working hard on this process - they have.  I've attended most of the meetings and have seen the drama unfold.

NEED A NEW CHAIRMAN
The Chairman, Dr. Richard Mehren - who was instrumental in the City originally purchasing the park and was on the first such committee for fifteen years - angrily resigned in frustration at the end of the previous meeting in protest to what he described a "stacking" of the committee with pro-athletic field members.  It is presumed that Vice Chairman Steve Smith would conduct the next meeting, which would include selecting another person to act as Chairman.  That might be Smith, or it might be one of the other members.

ECKLES SLOT NOW VACANT, TOO
Member Brett Eckles was appointed to the Parks and Recreation Commission by the City Council last week, so his voting position on the Committee is also now vacant.  Dean Abernathy, the primary liaison from the Parks and Recreation Commission to the Committee, did not seek re-appointment to the Commission, so his slot on the Committee is also vacant.  We don't know whether Eckles would fill that slot, or alternate Bob Graham would just become the primary liaison.  He attends most of the meetings anyhow.

NO ACTION FOR A MONTH
The City seems to be twiddling its thumbs on this one.  I have seen no solicitation by the City for volunteers to replace Mehren and,now, Eckles.  Typically, there might be a month-long application period, but it could be shorter.  The City Council has not discussed this in an open session and it has not been part of a Closed Session agenda, either.  So, a month will have passed and NO action taken by the council on a replacement for Mehren.  The council could discuss it next Tuesday and, with a short fuse on the process, select from interested applicants at their second meeting of February.  We'll see.  In the meantime, the final deliberations by the Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee will be delayed.