Mr. Smith And The Homeless Task Force

SMITH'S PARTING SHOT AT THE HOMELESS
Columnist Steve Smith, apparently reeled back in from the bowels of the Saturday Real Estate section of the Daily Pilot for another full-run column today, provides us with his perspective of the homeless problem in Costa Mesa, HERE. His perspective comes from having been the Chairman of the Costa Mesa Homeless Task Force, a position he held for three of its four meetings until he resigned to, as he tells us, stay home with his family.

INTERESTING STUFF
I have attended half of the task force's four meetings, including the most recent one this evening at the Emergency Operations Center of the Costa Mesa Police Department. Each of those meetings was enlightening.

SMITH BARKED, BERRY BAILED
At the first one I attended - the second of this series - Smith, as Chair, heard a report from then-Vice Chair Judi Berry about information she and her team gleaned from business owners near Lions Park. When she was finished Smith, arbitrarily and without consultation with other members of the Task Force, told her she and her team had to go back out into the community and re-canvass the businesses to gather more information. Berry resigned from the Task Force within a day or two. It was clear to me that Smith was going to have trouble building consensus with such a diverse group if he decided he was going to be the final arbiter of any of the decisions. At the next meeting Jeff Mathews was selected as Vice Chair.

MATHEWS ELECTED CHAIR - EVENTUALLY
This afternoon the first order of business was to select a new Chairman to replace Smith. Unfortunately, Mathews - who would have been expected to run the meeting and handle the election, was late. He finally showed up and was promptly elected Chair by the Task Force members.

GOOD PRESENTATIONS AND EXCELLENT QUESTIONS
I watched the presentations by members of the Task Force and heard the excellent questions posed by many members of the public in attendance. There were around 40 people in the room. After two hours the decision was made to cut-short the presentation by the legal team because there had been so many good questions that the meeting was running long. They will pick it up where they left off in July.

LITTLE PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE
It became clear to me as I sat there observing the proceedings that not much progress has been made since the last meeting I attended two months ago. Certainly, with the leadership of the group in flux, it's hard to keep a focus on the direction this group has taken. The sub-committees that had been formed appeared to have done little on their own since the previous meetings.

SAY, WHAT?
In his last paragraph Smith says, "... the kids are safe at Lions Park.", a peculiar statement to make when part of his column recounted the recent event of a child being hit and injured by a homeless man who threw a ball. And, it certainly does not jibe with the comments made this evening by young mothers who have recently been accosted at Lions Park as they tried to use the facility with their children and others in attendance with their own first-person stories.

BETTER WITHOUT HIM
Once again, Smith demonstrates to us that he's living in some kind of alternate universe - like the one he used to write about in which his family lived in a television-free environment. Whatever the issue is that took Smith away from the Homeless Task Force, I hope it does not involve anything serious with a family member. I do think the Task Force will be better without him.

AN IMPOSSIBLE JOB
I'm left with the feeling that this Task Force is faced with an impossible job. Based on the briefing presented by the Task Force legal team, the legal roadblocks that are in place today seem destined to hamper any serious attempt to fix this problem. And, with a diminishing police force, the chances for serious and aggressive law enforcement activities around Lions Park shrinks by the day. This will be another consequence of the decisions of the Costa Mesa City Council to gut the CMPD. I found myself thinking this probably should be called the Hopeless Task Force - that's how it seemed tonight.

Homeless Task Force On Track

BEAT ME TO THE PUNCH
In an earlier post I, tongue-in-cheek, suggested that I should swing past Lions Park and invite some of the homeless folks that hang out there to the meeting of the Costa Mesa Homeless Task Force last night. Silly me.. that base had already been covered.


HOMELESS IN ATTENDANCE
When I arrived at the Neighborhood Community Center around 5:15 the Adams Room already had a couple dozen visitors, including at least a dozen homeless or former homeless people. Several of them used the opportunity to speak in the Public Comments segment of the program - relating poignant, personal stories of their time as a homeless person and their individual journeys back from that difficult spot in their lives.

AROUND 80 PEOPLE SHOWED UP
I'm not going to try to give you a word-for-word summation of the evening, but will give you my impressions. I was surprised at the size of the crowd last night. The Task Force members alone accounted for around 25 people. Interested community members and homeless and former homeless folks numbers at least another 50, and included a couple of very interested Newport Beach Police Officers, auditing the activities of our task force.

ARRGGHH!
First, much as it chagrins me to admit it, it looks like the Chairman of the Task Force, PR flack and Daily Pilot columnist Steve Smith, is doing a good job. He managed the meeting with gusto and, along with Facilitator Larry Haynes of Vanguard University and Mercy House, kept the agenda moving right along.

BROWN ACT FOR DUMMIES
Christian Bettenhausen, one of our contract attorneys from Jones & Mayer, gave a brief workshop on the Brown Act as it applies to the Task Force.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES
Murial Ullman, Elena Gerli and Lt. Robert Sharpnack of the CMPD each gave reports on current and ongoing actions regarding community outreach and law enforcement.

THE ENFORCEMENT NUMBERS
Costa Mesa intern Bijan Mazarji provided a 3-year law enforcement overview of the Lions Park area, comparing it to the broader community. Lions Park is located in enforcement area #1, which appeared to be basically zip code 92627. While crime is down in that area for the period of the study, calls for service in the Lions Park area is up. In his PowerPoint presentation Mazarji told us that calls for service in the Lions Park and Vicinity have steadily increased since 2008. Some of that is due to the added emphasis by police command to focus more on that area.

In 2010, 96% of the calls for service in Lions Park were attributed to the chronically homeless, up from 76% in 2008.

2008-1010 the cost of service in the Lions Park Vicinity increased from 3% to 4% of Area 1 costs.

Costa Mesa Fire also showed an increase in calls and costs responding to calls for the chronically homeless.

Those costs - using a formula with assumptions about certain elements - indicated that total police and fire costs for responding to issues with chronically homeless was less than $70,000 for 2010.

HOMELESS PROFILE
Karen McGlinn provided a profile of a "homeless person" - a staggering composite of maladjusted, mistreated and just plain unlucky individuals, many of whom she has come into contact with at SOS.

FAITH-BASED EFFORTS
Becks Heyhoe of The Churches Consortium, Russ Carter of Saddleback Church and Phil Eyskens, the new pastor of Lighthouse Church, gave presentations of Faith-based perspectives and combating homelessness. Carter may have summed it up best when he observed that the homeless need an advocate - someone to hear their individual stories who can then help then navigate through the various resources available to them.

POLITICIANS NO-SHOWS
I thought it was interesting that sub-committee chairmen Colin McCarthy and Jeff Mathews were no-shows. I suspect McCarthy is much too busy making up polling numbers and throwing red meat to the masses from his perch as President of the Costa Mesa Taxpayer's Association to find time to fulfill his responsibilities to the Task Force. According to another member of his sub-committee, they had not even met since the first Task Force meeting a month ago.

BUSINESS SURVEY
The perky Judi Berry did represent Mathews' sub-committee, though, with a report of an un-scientific survey she and her team conducted of businesses around the Lions Park/Westside. It was anecdotal, not fact-based, and, while interesting, Chair Smith pushed back, looking for more information. At that point member Cambria Briggs chimed in with the observation that they didn't really need to "study" the homeless problem - we know there is one or they - the Task Force - wouldn't be there. She suggested spending the time and energy on finding solutions, instead.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT...
The next meeting is scheduled for May 18th in Conference Room 1A at City Hall. I can tell you that if a third of the people that attended this meeting show up then that conference room will not hold them.

WE KNOW THE PROBLEM
Based on my visit to this meeting and listening to all the interesting testimonies and staff reports, I think Russ Carter and Cambria Briggs may be on the right track. We know we have a "homeless" problem in Costa Mesa. The nature of that problem has been well-chronicled by city staffers and residents, alike. We know that young mothers are afraid to use Lions Park - and probably a few other parks, but those numbers were not available last night. We know all of that. We know each homeless person has an individual story about how they reached this point in their lives and, most likely, it will take an individual, specialized effort to help them out of this situation. We know that.

RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE
We know that there are faith-based resources available to some of the homeless - testimonies last night told of many successes from those organizations. We know that many of the homeless folks need help finding a job so they can afford housing. Some of them need medical and dental care to facilitate their job searches. We know that.

RE-OPEN THE JOB CENTER
Here's my suggestion. I think The City should immediately locate and either lease or buy one of the many vacant buildings in the Westside and re-open the Job Center. The old Job Center served this community well for almost 2 decades and filled a critical need when it was created. Since it was closed the job-seekers have not vanished, they've just gone back to soliciting work at the same old haunts. We need the Job Center back.

CALL IT A "RESOURCE CENTER"
As part of that Job Center - we'd probably call it a "Resource Center" - which was staffed by city employees to the tune of around $100,000 per year, space should be included for an Homeless Advocate's Office - a place where homeless folks could go to get help navigating through the maze of potential resources available to them via social service agencies and faith-based organizations.

NOT A FLOP HOUSE
I am NOT suggesting we create a flop house, where homeless folks could go to get "three hots and a cot". That kind of assistance already exists within the faith-based community. I'm also not suggesting we create a "magnet" for homeless folks. Let's face it - we already ARE a magnet for homeless folks or we wouldn't be having this discussion. The problem now is how to manage this situation.

LET THE FROTHING BEGIN
I recognize that my suggestion will cause many of the readers here to become apoplectic and some of you will rant about it not being the City's job to find work for people. Some quotes form Ebenezer Scrooge come to mind. However, the fact is that the Job Center worked and the additional fact is that we have a very serious problem of homelessness in our city. It is a public safety issue, for the homeless and other residents of our city. By creating this new center, including staffing with an advocate, immediate progress could be made to concentrate the job seekers at a venue where they could be matched with employers looking for casual labor and we would make an immediate impact on the homeless population of our city in a positive way - a good thing for us all.

NOW'S THE TIME, BUDGET-WISE
I know some will screech that we "can't afford" to do what I suggest. Well, we're in the midst of preparing our 2011-2012 municipal budget, so now's the time to think about it seriously. Probable reductions in the cost of calls for service in the Lions Park area alone will make this idea worth considering now. And, since our good friends in Newport Beach already recognize our problem - and since many of the users of the former Job Center were businesses and homeowners from Newport Beach - perhaps they might be willing to participate in some small way in the creation and staffing of the new Resource Center. It can't hurt to ask.

TIME FOR ACTION
We can have the Homeless Task Force continue to meet and study this issue until we know every individual homeless person's story by heart and we can quantify every municipal breath taken and dollar spent addressing the homeless issue, or we can all agree that they've done a good job of helping us focus on this issue, thank them for their fine work and move forward to get something positive done to solve the problem. In my view, the re-constitution of the Job Center as a Resource Center with a Homeless Advocate is the right step.

Homeless Task Force Launched

I DID NOT ATTEND
I confess... I did not attend the first meeting of the Costa Mesa Homeless Task Force held Wednesday evening at City Hall. I chose, instead, to stay home and tend to my sweet wife, who is under the weather. However, some reliable sources did attend and have reported some of the nuts and bolts of the meeting.

Warning: Second-hand knowledge coming at you...

NEARLY A FULL HOUSE
It's my understanding that Conference Room 1A was near capacity this evening - a good thing. No one mentioned whether any actual homeless folks were in attendance or not. You may recall that at a council meeting not too long ago when this whole idea was launched there was, in fact, a homeless fellow who spoke about what a wonderful place Costa Mesa is for the homeless - plenty of services, nice parks, etc. In fact, he told us he intentionally moved from Lake Elsinore to Costa Mesa for all the benefits.

SMITH AND BERRY LEAD THE EFFORT
I'm not privy to the actual flow of the agenda for this meeting, but I'm told that PR flack and Daily Pilot columnist (and nanny to us all for so many years) Steve Smith was elected Chairman of the Task Force and the irrepressible Judi Berry is Vice Chair. Among the "city" representatives present were Chief Executive Officer of the City, Tom Hatch, councilwoman Wendy Leece, Planning Commission Chairman Colin McCarthy, commissioner Ed Salcedo and our housing maven, Neighborhood Improvement Manager Muriel Ullman. Sorry if I missed others - my reports are sketchy.

SERVICE PROVIDERS IN ATTENDANCE
I also understand that several of the organizations who provide support for our homeless provided representation in the meeting, including Saddleback Church.

"SPIRITED" DISCUSSIONS
The meeting lasted a couple hours and included spirited discussions - no surprise there. If this issue was an easy one to resolve it would have been done a long, long time ago.

NEXT MEETING APRIL 20TH
It's my understanding that future meetings - which are open to the public - will be held at the Neighborhood Community Center at Lions Park on the third Wednesday of each month. Actually, that's a perfect venue because many of the folks we're trying to "solve" with this task force will be right outside the door, sleeping on the grass or, perhaps, using the restrooms in the Center for bathing in the sinks, or dozing in the library.

PLEASE EXPAND MY COVERAGE IF YOU WERE THERE
If you were in attendance and wish to expand or correct my report, please just fire away in the comments section. I want to hear from you.

6-MONTH "OUTSOURCING" NOTICES TO BE DELIVERED TODAY
In closing, I wonder if anyone else sees the terrible irony in the fact that in less than 24 hours after launching the Costa Mesa Homeless Task Force the city will issue 6-month "outsourcing" notices to 213 city employees. By the end of the day today all such notices will have been delivered. For some of those folks receiving the notices it is possible they may be viewing the "homeless" issue from a much more up-close-and-personal perspective before year's end. It's a very sad commentary on the elected leadership of this city that they put the cart before the horse on this issue and made their decision before ANY analysis had been done. They keep talking about running the city like a business, but if they'd pulled this kind of a stunt in a company their boss would have fired them for incompetence.

Just When You Thought Things Had Calmed Down...

UH-OH...
What I thought might be a fairly short, fairly smooth City Council meeting tonight in Costa Mesa may turn out to be a barn-burner if certain activists have their way.

FUN WITH THE CONSENT CALENDAR
On the Consent Calendar, near the beginning of the meeting, in which the council may simply vote all the items as a package, there are a couple that will certainly be pulled for separate discussion and vote.

LOSS OF TWO SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS
The first, Item 6, is a vote approving the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and The City on the reduction of two School Resource Officers - bringing the total down to 2. I suspect there may be some folks that will want to hear the logic of this decision. We'll see..



MEASURE "C" VOTE
Then, Item 7, which is a resolution declaring the result of the June 1, 2010 election... this item will affirm the passage of Measure "C". It's my understanding that members of several groups opposed to the sale of the Orange County Fair and Event Center will be in attendance to request this item be pulled for a separate vote. This one is going to be interesting because it may be alleged that Measure "C" is moot in light of the creation of a Joint Powers Authority to deal with the proposed lessee of the Fairgrounds following the sale. Some activists plan to show up in large numbers and demand an explanation. I wouldn't be surprised to see former mayor Sandra Genis stand and ask questions the council will be hard-pressed to answer.

SENIOR CENTER BOARD APPLICANTS
Late in the meeting, under New Business #1, the council will consider appointing up to three new members to the Costa Mesa Senior Center Board. There are five candidates listed in the staff report, all of which seem to bring certain strengths to the board, four from Costa Mesa and one from Newport Beach. You can read their applications and backgrounds HERE.

MANSOOR'S PAL, JUDI BERRY
Among the Costa Mesa applicants is the perky Judi Berry, a long-time Westside community activist and strong supporter of Mayor Allan Mansoor - she managed the finances for his campaigns. Her most recent high visibility bit of activism was her crusade, along with her husband, Mike, to restore dog feces collection bags in our local parks. As I've said before, every time I see a pile of dog doo in our parks I'll think of the Berrys.

NOT CREDENTIALS, HER MOTIVATION
Ms. Berry fancies herself a financial guru and has been omnipresent during budget discussions for the past several years. According to her application, she brings a strong financial management background for our consideration. I don't question Ms. Berry's credentials - but I wonder about her motivation.

ATTITUDE
In response to the question about why she wishes to serve on the Board she begins with this statement: "For several years I have been concerned about the "not so stellar" reputation that the Senior Center has with some of the seniors and others in the community. I believe that this can be changed by having a more sensitive and respectful board. I also believe that the finances of the center should be completely transparent. For example, for several years I made donations to the Senior Center. I stopped making these contributions when I could not get anyone to return my telephone calls. They did not even know what I was calling about, but could not be bothered to return my calls. I believe that this attitude can be changed by having some new people on the board."

A VENDETTA?
Now, I don't know how you interpret that statement, but it sure seems to me that she wants a position on the board so she can get even for perceived past rebuffs - not the most noble of motives, for sure. I'm not sure how effective Ms. Berry will be on the board, regardless of her credentials, when her motivation is revenge.

WESTSIDE ACTIVIST KATHLEEN ERIC
Also among the applicant pool for consideration is another long-time Westside activist, Kathleen Eric, who, with her husband Christian, have been involved in many efforts to affect positive change to their part of town. They are part of a cadre of activists who gave us Mansoor, Eric Bever, Wendy Leece and, of course, Chris Steel.

ANTI-MANAGEMENT BIAS?
Ms. Eric brings a different skill set for consideration than Ms. Berry, but when reading her application is seems clear that they share an anti-management attitude - a general displeasure with the way the Senior Center is managed - and want a seat at the Board table so they can "fix it".

HELP OR HINDER?
It seems to me that, because of their political connections with members of the City Council, both Ms. Berry and Ms. Eric are slam dunks for seats on the board. I find myself wondering if their presence at the table will actually improve the difficulties they perceive or will it only further exacerbate the turmoil caused by the interference of Wendy Leece in the day-to-day operations of the Senior Center over the past couple years and further erode the Center's fund raising capability? Sadly, I suspect the latter.

ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE DRAMA...
So, tune in for another chapter in the on-going drama that is our Costa Mesa City Council...

Target of the Day

ZEROING IN ON A THREAT
It certainly didn't take long for the "improvers" to decide just which candidate represents a threat to the stranglehold they have on the City Council.



SMITH PRAISES SNEEN
Tuesday Daily Pilot Columnist Steve Smith - with whom I've had more than my share of disagreements - published a commentary about the recent Candidate Forum in which he praised newcomer Bill Sneen.

MESA NORTH MOUTH ON THE ATTACK
Almost before the ink was dry and the newspaper hit our driveways in the wee hours, the Mesa North Mouth jumped into this issue with both rear cloven hooves. He issued his "#467" a several times today. In the first version he simply ridiculed Smith and Sneen. In the second version he added a snide Obama comment. In the third version - after a comment thread began to form on Smith's commentary - he made a little telephone call to Sneen, apparently to find out if he, Sneen, was a closet Return to Reasoner.

MISPLACED TRUST HURTS
Now, Bill Sneen is a neophyte in Costa Mesa politics or he would have known better than to take that telephone call. Anyone who has been paying close attention the past few years knows that the Mesa North Mouth has only ulterior motives in this kind of a situation. He sees a man with strong credentials who poses a real threat to his chosen slate of Monahan, Bever and Righeimer and is looking for ways to discredit him. It was like opening the door to a rabid pit bull.

GETTING HIS LUMPS
Sneen, gentleman that he is, apparently took the call on face value - big mistake - and paid the price in the form of yet another revised edition of good old #467, which further ridiculed him. Sometimes you just have to get some lumps to learn in politics.... Bill Sneen has a big goose egg on his cranium now - a lump he won't soon forget... and this is just the beginning!

CHARMING LITTLE PIT YORKIE
Oh, yes - that comment thread I mentioned above... Much of it was generated by the petite "improver", Judi Berry, the smart half of the Judi and Mike Berry duo that frequently speaks before the council. She went after Smith for his support of Sneen in her own little old Southern Belle way. What she conveniently forgot to mention to Smith's readers is that she is Eric Bever's campaign treasurer this year. So, in one venue you have the Mesa North Mouth, frothing all over himself trying to tear Sneen to shreds and in the other you have the Westside Pit Yorkie yapping away, also trying to discredit him.

I'M WAITING...
I don't know yet whether Bill Sneen deserves one of my votes in November. I do know that he's a pretty smart fella who appears to be trying to go about this campaign the right way - taking the high road. He's making the rounds of folks who play an important role in how this city runs and trying to learn from those who have been there before him. How quickly he gets up to speed on the important issues that face our city now and in the future, and what kind of solutions he sees for them, will help me make up my mind.

"IMPROVERS" WORRIED
One thing is very clear, though. The self-anointed "improvers" who hold this city firmly in their grip must really be worried about Bill Sneen. That fact, alone, is enough for me to give his candidacy serious consideration.

EXPECT DIRTY TRICKS
A word of warning to Sneen and all the other candidates running against the "improver" slate... I've learned from personal experience that dirty tricks are to be expected from this group. There are no "innocent" questions from this mob - they always have an agenda. As was the case two years ago, they will misrepresent the facts about their opponents and resort to flat out lies to achieve their goals. Perhaps one day I'll write about my experiences with them... it will make for fascinating reading.