Brumbaugh, Shaw & Galitski Depart

COMMISSION MAJORITY BOOTED
Tonight is the final Parks and Recreation Commission for three of it's members, Chairman Mike Brumbaugh, Vice-Chair Terry Shaw and former Chair Kurt Galitski. Despite each of them requesting to be returned to the commission, the new City Council decided to push them aside and appoint new players.

SCHAFER TO RECEIVE AWARD
At the meeting tonight beginning at 6:00 p.m. in City Council chambers the commission will address some fairly important issues. They'll begin, however, by bestowing the Chairperson's Award on long-time community activist Arlene Schafer. We only hope they corrected the spelling of her surname on the award because it's misspelled on the agenda report.

INCREASED FEES
The commission will then tackle fee increase issues - the Aquatics Program and Instructional Class Fees. None of these will be popular, but they are a direct result of our dismal budget dilemma and are apparently necessary in order to save many of the programs.

MORE MEATY ISSUES
Following a couple tree removal requests they will address Rest and Renovation Periods for Utility Fields at Costa Mesa High School and Estancia High School; the Athletic Field Use and Allocation Policy and the Recreation on Campus for Kids (ROCKS) After School Program Fee.

COULD BE CONTROVERSIAL
It seems to me this outgoing majority on the commission will have some pretty tough decisions for their last meeting - some of which might evoke heated comments by residents. We'll see.

THANKS
We here at A Bubbling Cauldron want to join the community in thanking Brumbaugh, Shaw and Galitski for their service to the city. The new members will be sworn-in next week so they can begin receiving materials for the next meeting, which is not until March.

Applicants & Moorlach, The Bellwether?

APPLICANT COUNT AS OF TODAY
As of mid-day today, Monday, the count for applicants for positions in Costa Mesa city government stands as follows:

City Council applicants - 2

Planning Commission applicants - 7

Parks & Recreation Commission applicants - 5

INFORMATION AVAILABLE FRIDAY EVENING
No names are yet available and won't be until the deadline, 5:00 Friday, December 17th, passes. At that time the city will promptly scan them and enter them on the city web site and issue a press release announcing those applicants that have made the deadline. I'm assured there will be no "Righeimerization" this time - acceptance of applications after the deadline.

PLANNING TERMS
As a reminder, the terms of Planning Commissioners Jim Fitzpatrick and Sam Clark expire in February, 2011 and those of Colin McCarthy and Steve Mensinger expire in February, 2013. Still no word on whether Fitzpatrick will be permitted to sit on the Planning Commission and the Sanitary District Board. We've been advised that the city has a legal opinion that his participation does not jeopardize the validity of actions taken by the Planning Commission.

PARKS & RECREATION TERMS
Parks & Recreations Commissioners Kurt Galitski, Mike Brumbaugh and Terry Shaw expire in February 2011 and those of Jeff Mathews and Kim Pederson expire in February, 2013.

MOORLACH'S PENSION MANIFESTO
Orange County Supervisor, and Costa Mesa resident, John Moorlach has provided us with his view of the current pension crisis in a op/ed piece in the Orange County Register. You can read it HERE. Is Moorlach a bellwether on this issue? I think you'll find his treatise fascinating and may, as I did, wonder how in the heck we could pull off such draconian reductions in municipal government and still remain viable as an entity.

PENSION PARLOR GAME
I particularly enjoyed his little after dinner game, Hare and Tortoise, in which the strategy is to go backward to move forward.

THIS IS THE BEGINNING...
Friends, this is how it begins. Once the new council member to replace Katrina Foley is hand-picked and seated early in January and the council hears the mid-year budget update on January 11th, you can fully expect Righeimer and his crew begin their move to dismantle employee contracts under the threat of layoffs and/or bankruptcy. The worst part of this may be the fact that the steady hand of Allan Roeder will not be around.