First Council Meeting For New Group Tuesday

HERE WE GO WITH A NEW COUNCIL
The agenda for the first City Council meeting of the new era has been published and has some very interesting items on it.

CLOSED SESSION MOVED TO THE END
This meeting will apparently have the closed session at the tail end of the regular meeting to allow new council member Sandra Genis to fully participate in the deliberations.  I'm led to believe this is a one-time change.

THE SWEARING-IN

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:00 in council chambers at City Hall.  You can read the entire agenda HERE.  It will begin with Public Comments, Council Members Reports, Comments and Suggestions then will address the resolution validating the recent General Election.  You can read that staff report HERE.  The council members elected - Sandra Genis, Steve Mensinger and Gary Monahan - will be sworn in and seated.  Somewhere along the line the new mayor and mayor pro tem will be elected and a break will be taken to juggle the chairs on the dais and have a short reception for the winners in the election.  I don't expect the scheduled items on the agenda to begin until around 7:00, and then it will likely be the Public Hearing item, below.

HATCH, THEN CONSENT CALENDAR
Following the report from Tom Hatch, City Chief Executive Officer, the council will consider the Consent Calendar - a long one this time around.  There are seventeen (17) individual items on the agenda, several of which will likely be pulled for separate discussion.

JONES DAY CHARGES
For example, Warrant #2449, HERE,  might get pulled for a discussion of the charge from Jones Day - the expensive law firm handling the OCEA lawsuit - for over $69,000.  So far they've been paid well over $1 million on that bogus lawsuit, and that doesn't include charges from our contract law firm, Jones and Mayer, for their part in the suit.

19TH STREET BRIDGE DELETION

Item #6, the deletion of the 19th Street Bridge, may generate some discussion.  The staff recommendation is to receive and file - no action is required.  The staff report is HERE.

DONATED SENIOR TRANSPORTATION BUS
Item #8 is the proposed acceptance of a donated bus to be used for Senior transportation, HERE.

REHABING RED HILL
Item #11 deals with the acquisition of $922,000 in funding to rehabilitate Red Hill Avenue, widely considered the arterial roadway in the worst condition within the city.  The staff report is HERE.

SPIFFING UP HARBOR BLVD. AND 17TH STREET
Item #13 deals with $1 million in grant funding to beautify Harbor Blvd. and enhance the streetscape on 17th Street.  That staff report is HERE.

STORM DRAINS
Item #14 is for engineering services of $69,745 for work on Industrial Way and Storm Drain Improvements, HERE.

DESIGNING FAIRVIEW PARK TRAILS
Item #15 is an engineering contract for #160,387 for design of Fairview Park Multipurpose Trails, HERE.

BRENTWOOD PARK
Item #16 is design services for Brentwood Park in the amount of $95,605, HERE.

DEPUTY CITY CLERK
Item #17, the final item on the Consent Calendar, is a request for the authorization of a new position, Deputy City Clerk, HERE, to formalize the position that Christine Cordon had been doing before her recent promotion to a position in Public Affairs.

SUCCESSOR AGENCY
The council will then change dresses and become the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency and consider one item, the independent accounts report, HERE.

CLOSURE OF ANCHOR TRAILER PARK REPORT

Next on the agenda is one Public Hearing, which I suspect might be moved to the head of the line since council policy calls for public hearings to begin at 7:00 or as close to that hour as is possible.  This item, if approved, will require the owner of  Anchor Trailer Port Mobilehome Park to implement a "Closure Impact Report".  You can read most of the staff report HERE, but several pages are missing.  Hopefully, that will be remedied on Monday so we can actually read and understand the report.

JANUARY 1, 2013 COUNCIL MEETING

There is no Old Business scheduled, but there are a couple VERY interesting items under New Business.  The first is a discussion of rescheduling or canceling the City Council meeting that would normally fall on Tuesday, January1, 2013.  Options presented are to move it to January 8th or cancel it altogether.


RESCINDING LAYOFF NOTICES
The second New Business item is the recision of layoff notices and rejection of all remaining bids for services.  You can read that staff report HERE.  The recommendation to the council by staff at the beginning of the staff report reads as follows:

1. Authorize the CEO to rescind the remaining lay off notices; 

2. In lieu of outsourcing not providing extensive relief on City pension challenges, direct
the CEO to prepare and present a plan to address the underfunded pension and
retiree medical liabilities at the mid year budget review in February 2013. 

3. Authorize the CEO to enter into negotiations with representatives of the Costa Mesa City Employees’ Association (CMCEA) to discuss innovative methods and techniques that will both ensure continued quality services to the public and produce long term financial savings to the City;

4. Authorize the CEO to initially focus the discussions with CMCEA on Jail Services, Street Sweeping Services, Parks and Landscape Maintenance Services, Graphic Design Services and Payroll Services with the CEO administratively implementing the changes without any layoffs to full-time personnel; and

5. Reject all bids for the remaining outsourcing services where the City Council has yet to provide direction.

Personally, I'm going to be VERY interested to see how the discussion of this particular item goes.  It will come at the end of the meeting and we all know that most councils don't do their best work late in the evening.

CITY ATTORNEY AND CLOSED SESSION
At that point we will hear a report from the City Attorney, then the council will adjourn to Closed Session to consider two items involving anticipated or present litigation.

Final Election Numbers

AT LAST
Well, the votes have been counted, and counted, and counted, Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley has certified the election and that fat chick has finally sung.  All that is left is for the Costa Mesa City Council to pass a resolution accepting the vote count in the city council race before the chairs are shuffled next Tuesday evening and Sandy Genis replaces the lamest of lame duck council members, Eric Bever.

 THE CERTIFIED RESULTS

 To absolutely nobody's surprise, Rohrabacher crushed Ron Varasteh.  Did he actually spend ANY money on his campaign?  I mean beyond what he paid his wife...

 Despite missing some prime campaigning time due near the end of the race to a personal family tragedy, Bob Rush still managed to convince 43.4% of the voters in this race that he was the better choice than the candidate anointed by the OC GOP.  This result should make Scott Baugh and his pals more than a little nervous.

 155 votes separated Gary Monahan and John Stephens and a completely different mindset by a majority on the council.  We'll see if the "kinder, gentler" Jim Righeimer uses the power of the majority with an even hand or if he continues down the path he's followed for the past two years.  We'll never know the actual impact the presence of Al Melone and James Rader had on the results, but it's pretty darn frustrating when you realize that Rader wanted off the ballot as soon as he filed.  How his 2,449 votes would have been distributed is fodder for much speculation.

 My biggest smiles are reserved for this particular result.  Having Jim Righeimer's Charter go down to such a resounding defeat tells me that sometimes the voters do actually listen.  Of course, he is now attempting to spin this crushing defeat to mean that people DO want a charter, just not that one.  We'll see how that plays out over the next few weeks, likely beginning with the council meeting on December 4th.

 We learned from this race that the attempt by the OC GOP to take over every elected body in Costa Mesa has failed, big time.  The win by Jim Ferryman and Art Perry over OC GOP darlings Don Harper and Jeff Mathews is good news for the rate-payers of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District.

 I have mixed feelings about these races.  I'm OK that Jim Fisler defeated Dan Worthington.  I'm giddy that Fred Bockmiller ground Eric Bever into the turf.  I'm disappointed that Righeimer protege' Ethan Temianka outspent Trudy Ohlig-Hall to oust her from the seat she's held for decades.  I wonder just how focused young Ethan will be on this job since he's apparently expanding his business operations to Arizona.

 This result is good news for the folks at Coast Community College District and those it serves.

This was a curious race, with the City of Newport Beach asking the voters to pass a large bucket of changes to its charter - 38 in all - all at one time. 

BACK TO BUSINESS

So, folks, it's over for a couple years.  Time to put our noses to the old grindstone and get on with the business of the city. The Primary Election for the 2014 cycle is eighteen months away.  It seems likely that Jim Righeimer will try to jam another version of a charter down our throats on that ballot again.  I hope the folks that might be involved in a new charter effort will push back on that, and design a timetable to get the charter - I'm STILL not convinced we need one - onto the General Election ballot two years from now.

WE'LL SEE...

I'm willing to give Righeimer the benefit of the doubt (BIG DOUBT!) for the time being and see if he is sincere with what appears to be a new spirit of cooperation as described in the Orange County Register HERE.  We'll know soon...

Next-To-Last Count Tonight

TOMORROW SHOULD BE THE DAY...
It's very likely that the count tonight as provided by the Registrar Of Voters is the next-to-last count of this election.  County-wide there remain only 100 ballots to be tallied.  Today Sandra Genis gained another 42 votes, which leaves her at 15,978, and 1,779 votes ahead of Steve Mensinger.  The more they count the further she moves ahead of him.  Mensinger had 14,199 votes and is 257 ahead of Gary Monahan.  In the all-important race for the third spot Monahan is now 153 votes ahead of John Stephens.  Colin McCarthy is 239 votes behind Stephens and Harold Weitzberg lags behind McCarthy by 1,752 votes.  Al Melone and James Rader trail the field.

THANKSGIVING IS THE GOAL
Neal Kelly, the Orange County Registrar of Voters, told us his goal was to be finished with the counting by Thanksgiving.  It certainly looks like he'll meet that goal with only 100 ballots remaining.

TONIGHT'S NUMBERS

The End Is Really Near

MONDAY'S NUMBERS POSTED
The Registrar of Voters updated the numbers today shortly after 5:00.  He has promised to have all votes counted by Thanksgiving, so there can't be too many left.  The gross county-wide numbers indicate just over 13,000 ballots remaining to be tallied, so we can assume he's going to make his goal.

NO CHANGE IN POSITIONS
In the all-important Costa Mesa City Council race nothing much has changed.  Both top vote-getter Sandra Genis and second place Steve Mensinger picked up another 17 votes.  Genis now has 15,936 and leads Mensinger by 1,776.  He leads third place Gary Monohan by 256 and Monahan gained another vote on John Stephens and now leads him by 150 votes.

CURRENT NUMBERS

Sunday Update - Trends Are The Same

FINALLY...
Geez, I can't slip away for a nice quiet, but rainy, weekend without the wheels coming off!  Technical glitches prevented me from posting updates on the local election results since late last week.  However, the trends did not change and, as a result, John Stephens has apparently conceded the critical third spot on the dais to Gary Monahan according to the article in the Daily Pilot, HERE.  Stephens has gradually lost ground to Monahan for the past few days and the gap between them is now 149 votes.  That, of course, means that Monahan  will rejoin Jim Righeimer and Steve Mensinger to form a 3-person majority - not a good thing for the city, in my view.

 ROV'S STILL COUNTING...
The good folks at the Registrar of Voters office continued to work long and hard to complete their task as quickly and accurately as possible.  The results shown below were posted Sunday and we will continue to see new results until every vote is counted.  There cannot be many left, but we won't really know until we see that "Final Count" at the top of the page.

POSITIONS REMAIN THE SAME
Sandra Genis continues as the top vote-getter, followed by Mensinger, nearly 1,800 votes behind.  He leads Monahan by just over 250 votes.  Stephens trails him by 149 and is ahead of Colin McCarthy by more than 350 votes.  Check out the nice story on Genis' return to the dais by Bradley Zint in the Daily Pilot, HERE.

THE MAJORITY DID NOT VOTE FOR RIGHEIMER'S PALS
As the vote tallying continues I think it's instructive to note that 53% of the votes cast in the Costa Mesa City Council race were NOT for the so-called "3Ms".  Combine that with the fact that Genis was, by far, the highest vote-getter, Stephens came within a whisker of ousting 14-year councilman Monahan and Jim Righeimer's Charter went down in flames by an overwhelming margin and it will be hard for Righeimer and his cronies to claim any kind of "mandate" as a result of this election. 

MESSAGE TO BAUGH - "STAY OUT OF COSTA MESA!"
And, when you fold in the abysmal performance of the OC GOP's chosen ones in the special district races - only Righeimer protege' Ethan Temianka was successful in defeating Trudy Ohlig-Hall - it looks like the Costa Mesa electorate has made it clear that they don't much care for their city being used as some kind of experiment for social change.  After they - Baugh's OC GOP mob - turned their back on Fred Bockmiller in the Mesa Consolidated Water District District 1 race and endorsed lame duck (and lame brain) Mayor Eric Bever, who was then crushed like a cockroach by Bockmiller, the message was clear.  And, when incumbents Jim Ferryman and Art Perry handily brushed aside the challenge by the OC GOP's hand-picked challengers Don Harper and Jeff Mathews in the Costa Mesa Sanitary District races like a couple flakes of dandruff on a dark blue coat, it became LOUD and CLEAR... butt the heck out of Costa Mesa!  More on that when all the ballots have been counted.

CURRENT NUMBERS