Wassup In Costa Mesa?

MARATHON PREAMBLE
Last night, as anticipated, the Costa Mesa City Council held another marathon meeting - I missed my prediction of a 1:00 a.m. closing time by five minutes!

GOOD STUFF HAPPENIN'...
So, my observations of the meeting will follow in at least one more - maybe more than that - entry.  Right now I wanted to give you a peek at the slides presented by Dane Bora during his Costa Mesa Minute segment.  Each of these reflect an upcoming, or current, event happening in our city.  More info on the meat of the meeting to follow later today.

Another Minute About The "Costa Mesa Minute"

SO FAR, SO GOOD
One day in and I'm REALLY liking this Costa Mesa Minute link over there on the right side of this page! It actually worked for the second day in a row.

HOMELESS TASK FORCE WORKSHOP TOMORROW
For example, today dapper Dane Bora tells us about the Homeless Task Force workshop being held at the Police Department Emergency Operations Center (EOC) tomorrow, Saturday, from 9:00 a.m. until noon. Now I don't have to write about that event, except to say that anyone seriously interested in what our city may end up doing about the homeless issue will probably find this community workshop a valuable resource.

BANNING RANCH THURSDAY
He also mentions the joint City Council, Planning Commission and Parks and Recreation Commission session planned for next Thursday, October 20th - also at the EOC from 4:30 -6:00 p.m. - in which major players in the Banning Ranch issue will make presentations. This is a HUGE issue for our city because of the impact ANY development will have on our Westside. It also resurrected the controversy about a bridge across the Santa Ana River at 19th Street. I'll write more about Banning Ranch later, but Dane's little blurb here today will get you thinking more about it right now. I suspect that EOC is going to be a very cozy place next Thursday afternoon.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
I'm interested in what you think of this Costa Mesa Minute feature. Will you use it? Does it provide you with information you can use? Are you having any trouble viewing it? I ask that one because the first time I ran it this morning it buffered a couple times before completing the run. I checked it a second time and it ran straight through. I suspect it's a problem of my computer trying to do too many things at once - darn overachieving machine! Anyhow, let me know what you think.

SMILES GUARANTEED
Because we all deserve a little chuckle now and then, and, in light of Dane's mention of the Dog Agility Competition at the Dog Park at TeWinkle Park this weekend, I thought I'd leave you with something that will almost certainly brighten your day. My sweet and patient wife - a serious ballroom dancer - sent me this link of a Golden Retriever doing the Merengue. I challenge you to watch it and NOT smile. Have a great weekend. Click HERE for the dancing dog.

Costa Mesa Minute Link

COSTA MESA MINUTE NOW AVAILABLE HERE
In a Press Release this afternoon, Interim Communication Director Bill Lobdell announced the availability of a link to provide the Costa Mesa Minute directly on my home page. Assuming this feature continues to work, each morning you should be able to view this snippet of "what's going on in the city" as presented by Dane Bora and Christine Cordon.

This is just one more reason to make this site your first stop in the morning, so, just slide your cursor over to the right side of my home page and click on the start button and enjoy.

Costa Mesa Minute

MORE TRANSPARENCY
Interim Communications Director Bill Lobdell announced the creation of The Costa Mesa Minute - a brief, daily video presentation to be presented each weekday morning shortly after 8 a.m.



BORA TO HOST MOST
Video Production Coordinator Dane Bora will be the primary anchor of these very short - 2 to 3 minutes - video clips which will announce recent news snippets or advise us of things to come. You can view the first three by clicking on these links:

9/23/11

9/26/11

9/27/11

EXCELLENT TOOLS
I think these efforts are just one more excellent tool to communicate with the public and to respond to recent questions at council meetings in a very timely fashion. You'll find a link on the city web site.