While You're Waiting... Other Election News

THINGS TO CONTEMPLATE
Since we have another seventeen hours or so until we get another tally from the Registrar of Voters, HERE,  here's some things to consider involving this year's election.

LAGUNA WOODS
First, if you think that 21 vote margin between Jim Righeimer and Jay Humphrey is close, consider the race for the second seat available in Laguna Woods. (See below)  In this one Rae C. Tso leads Carol A. Moore by one (1) vote!  Yikes!

THE PEOPLE SPEAK - AGAIN!
Back here in good old Costa Mesa, the two ballot measures of local significance are Measure O - the bastard child of soundly-defeated Measure V from two years ago - and Measure P, the unnecessary, insignificant advisory measure about the I-405 toll lanes.  Measure O suffered even a more severe beating at the ballot box than Measure V.  It is getting crushed with more than 63% of the voters saying not only NO, but HECK NO! - or words to that effect.

USELESS MEASURE "P" RESULTS

Measure P - the ego boost for Mayor Jim Righeimer - was supposed to provide overwhelming support for the Costa Mesa City Council's unanimous vote to oppose toll lanes on the I-405 Freeway from Costa Mesa to the Orange County/Los Angeles County line in Seal Beach.  However, somebody on the city staff botched the ballot language, placing two questions when there should have been only one.  The result must be considered "inconclusive" - the kindest way possible to explain the result.  I suspect Righeimer thought he'd get something like an 80% plurality, which he could wave under the noses of the officials making the decision on the toll lanes to demonstrate overwhelming public opposition.  Instead, because of the screw-up on the ballot we have a 54.5% - 45.5% result.  AND,  sources tell me it cost us more than $12,000 to put it on the ballot and probably at least that much to publish and distribute three (3) explanatory fliers to the voters attempting to mitigate the gaffe.  Incidentally, no other member of the so-called "corriedor cities" chose to place such a measure on the ballot.  Only down here in "Ego Central" was it done - badly!

JUST BE CHILLIN', CHIL'N
So, dear neighbors, let's all just chill out a little and wait for the next batch of numbers from the ROV Wednesday afternoon.  I'll write about it when the numbers are released.

Righeimer Stretches Lead Over Humphrey to 112

THE NUMBERS FROM 5:00 P.M., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH
OK, here's how it looks now.  If you want to check the Registrar of Voters site, click HERE.

COSTA MESA CITY COUNCIL

Jay Humphrey lost ground to Righeimer significantly in today's tallying.  He now trails the mayor by 112 votes.  Katrina Foley continues to hold a commanding lead and each of the other candidates picked up a few votes, too.  Foley gained 479 votes.  Righeimer gained 435.  Humphrey gained only 341 during today's counting.  Lee Ramos picked up 305.  Tony Capitelli gained only 89.  Al Melone gained 84.  Rita Simpson gained 80 and Chris Bunyan picked up only 52, to continue to bring up the rear.

NUMBERS GAME
If you combine the votes cast for Foley and Humphrey you get 12,893.  If you combine those cast for Righeimer and Ramos you get you get 9,893.  Those numbers are not significant, but interesting to observe. 

MORE THAN 100,000 VOTES LEFT, COUNTY-WIDE
According to the ROV website, there remains 106,513 votes left to count.  All the vote-by-mail ballots have been counted.  There remains 38,513 provisional ballots to count and 62208 vote-by-mail ballots returned at the polls are uncounted at this time.  The last guess by Neal Kelley, the Registrar of Voters, made was that the count would be complete by November 14th.  So, we have a week and a half of agony left with lots of votes remaining to be counted.

MEASURE "O" - THE BOGUS CHARTER
No change to speak of in the Measure "O" race.  It is still being soundly thrashed.  Not surprised.  So far, 14,616 votes have been tallied in this race.

MEASURE P - THE I-405 TOLL LANE ADVISORY
No change to speak of in the insignificant, irrelevant and unusable information from the Measure P tally.  So far, 14,814 votes have been counted in this race.

HOW DO WE EXPLAIN THAT?
One of the interesting aspects of the Costa Mesa races is that virtually all other cities around us, throughout the county and state AND nationally, MY Republican Party has made major inroads.  That makes me smile.  Not in good old Costa Mesa, though.  Here, the party apparatus - "managed" by Righeimer's version of Scott Baugh's mantra - is a miserable failure!  All the candidates associated with the Riganistas in local races, except Shawn Dewane for the Orange County Water District seat he already held and possibly Righeimer, didn't just fail, but failed in epic style!  How do we explain that?

DRAGGING THEM DOWN...

One might assume that Righeimer and his second attempt at a Charter actually became an anchor around the necks of his pals.  Now, if that trend in the council race can just be reversed...  Next report in 23 hours, 22 minutes or so.

11:30 Numbers Righeimer Leapfrogs Humphrey

OH, MY!
Well, who knows what to expect now?  With all 70 precincts reported, it looks like it's going to come down to the provisional ballots and others to decide the Costa Mesa Council race.  Katrina Foley is handily ahead, but Mayor Jim Righeimer and former councilman Jay Humphrey are playing an interesting game of leapfrog.  Righeimer leads Humphrey by 21 votes? Lee Ramos is well off the pace.


SAYING NO TO "O"
It looks like Measure O, Righeimer's latest attempt to change city government by imposing a Charter on it, has gone down in flames once again!

A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!
Measure P, the useless measure that has cost the taxpayers thousands to place on the ballot and more thousands to try to repair the damage caused by the misleading language, appears to have produced an inconclusive result.  Nobody is going to wave a 53.6% - 46.4% in front of the governor and tell him "The People" have spoken!  What a gaffe!

SPECIAL DISTRICTS
It looks like the incumbents - Mike Scheafer, Bob Ooten and Arlene Schafer -  will hold their seats on the Costa Mesa Sanitary District Board, as will Jim Atkinson on the Mesa Water District Board.  Shawn Dewane has soundly trounced Wendy Leece in the race for his seat on the Orange County Water District Board.

OOPS!
I forgot... writer Honeyman pointed out I messed up my 10:30 entry... sorry about that... haste makes waste...  One more update coming after midnight, then I'm heading to bed.

And, Finally, The Charter And Ethics...

THINGS TO CONSIDER
Tuesday many of you will go to the polls, sample ballot clutched tightly in your hands so you can remember all those decisions you made at your dining room table on the important issues to be considered by the electorate, and step up to cast your ballot.

IMPORTANT ISSUES
There are many important issues facing the voters on this one, even though it's a mid-term election.  In Costa Mesa there are two that require your careful contemplation - the election of two council members and Measure "O" - the Charter.

IGNORING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE...
I've written many times about Measure "O", which I've described as the bastard child of Mayor Jim Righeimer's Charter, the flawed and failed Measure "V" from two years ago.  You will recall that the cardboard voting booths had barely been deconstructed and stored away before Righeimer demanded that a Charter be considered again this year.  He cobbled together a weak process - hand-picking the committee that was stacked with folks he knew would re-create his document and perpetuate his myopic vision of how our city should be governed.  Former council candidate John Stephens (he lost to Gary Monahan by 155 votes two years ago) provided an excellent reconstruction of the process in a Daily Pilot commentary HERE last August.

TOO MUCH POWER

Without beating this dead horse further, Measure "O" is a bad document, flawed in so many ways, but the worst part is the fact that sections 104 and 806 provide unfettered power to the city council.  Short of breaking state or federal law, under the Charter contained in Measure "O" it can do whatever it wishes, whenever it chooses.  That is much too low a bar for the governance of our city.  Vote NO on Measure "O".

 
TAKE BACK OUR CITY!

The other reason I'm writing this tonight is to remind you that it is critical to the future of this city that it be returned into the hands of the residents and voters.  It is currently in a stranglehold imposed by developers through a developer-friendly council majority headed by Jim Righeimer and the lock-step lemmings of the Orange County Republican Party, whose leader, Scott Baugh, has declared our city "Ground Zero" in their ongoing attempt to smash public employee organizations.

READ WHAT I'VE WRITTEN BEFORE

I've written extensively on this blog, HERE, and simultaneously in the Daily Pilot, HERE, about why you should NOT vote for Righeimer, and select Katrina Foley and Jay Humphrey instead.  I've described Righeimer as a carpetbagging political opportunist who has attempted to use the electorate of Costa Mesa to impose his warped values that have been soundly rejected elsewhere.  I've described him as a man who abhors rules - unless he makes them himself, and even then he applies them unevenly.  His attempt to layoff half the so-called "miscellaneous employees" three years ago is the perfect example of that behavior, but certainly not the only one.  Read my other essays, linked above.

UNETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Tonight, probably my final post before you cast your ballot, I want to remind you that he recently rejected an Ethics Policy - an issue that was also rejected by his hand-picked Charter Committee during their year-long deliberations.  Shortly after midnight on May 7th of this year, at the tail end of a City Council meeting that began more than six hours earlier, he rejected even the concept of an Ethics Policy.  You can read the staff report HERE, the language of the proposed Administrative Regulation that would have bound employees, HERE, and the actual language of the proposed Ethics Policy, HERE.  At the end the council, on a 4-1 vote (Wendy Leece voted NO) voted to simply "receive and file" the staff report and not be bothered with such an inconvenience.  I wrote about it HERE.  In that entry I provided you with this paragraph to sum up my thoughts on the event:

*****
IT'S "HIS WAY" OR...
The meeting ended with us knowing a lot more about Mayor Jim Righeimer.  We know that the rules don't apply to him, and that he won't approve any attempt to make rules that he has to follow - the Ethics Policy, for example.  I read the policy and the modified version handed out at the meeting.  It wasn't quite ready for prime time yet, but it would only take a little tweaking to make it work - some process issues needed to be clarified.  So, dear readers, know that your mayor - the guy with hands firmly on the steering wheel of your city - simply isn't going to be bothered by ethical issues.  He's going to do things HIS way, whether you like it or not - and he's got the votes to do exactly that.  Six months from now you have a chance to change that situation.
***** 

HE IS UNWORTHY...

Well, that "six months" mentioned above is NOW!  The fact that Jim Righeimer is unwilling to be bound by ethical conduct as a member of your City Council should make every one of you carefully consider your vote Tuesday.  He is a man unworthy of your trust and certainly not your vote.  If you wish to watch that segment of the May 6/7, 2014 meeting click HERE.

PLEASE VOTE...

Please find your way to the polls Tuesday and vote to return mature, responsible, ethical leadership to our city.  Vote to take Costa Mesa back from outside interests - developers who will defile our city with high-density vertical developments then go on their merry way and politicians with no skin in our game, willing to use Costa Mesa as a Petri Dish for their experimentation.

FOR MATURE, RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP

A Little Light Reading For You

THE HOME STRETCH!
OK.. we're rounding the turn and heading for home.  Just a couple more days and all this rancor and rhetoric will be over.... HA!  Believe that one?  Nah, neither do I.

JUST A COUPLE DAYS LEFT
But, the election will be in the can a little over 46 hours from now and we anticipate at least some moderation of the dialogue, even though the actual, final results may not be available to us until sometime Friday.  Neal Kelley and his crew of stalwarts do a great job at the Registrar's office, so I'm keeping a positive thought.

SOME LIGHT READING
So, in case you've been snoozing for the past couple months, I decided to provide you with a little reading material this evening.  Here you will find more than a few links to help you with your decisions in Costa Mesa - decisions that will affect the future for the next four years and beyond.

NO ON "O" AND RIGHEIMER MUST GO!
Before I give you that list, understand that I feel Mayor Jim Righeimer is BAD for our city so my votes went for Katrina Foley and Jay Humphrey for city council and I voted NO on Measure O.  And, not that it makes any difference, I voted YES on Measure P - the inconsequential advisory vote with the confusing ballot language.

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE
And now the list.  I've included discussions on both sides of issues for your consideration.

CITY COUNCIL RACE
 My commentary in the Daily Pilot on Righeimer, 10/21/14

My expanded version from this blog, 10/20/14

Jay Humphrey Daily Pilot commentary about trustworthiness, 10/20/14

"Jim Righeimer Is A Big, Fat Liar", 10/23/14

Katrina Foley Daily Pilot commentary about Righeimer and Public Safety, 10/28/14 

My observations of La Femme Wonkita - Numbers With A Vengeance, 10/30/14 

And The Campaign Paper Blizzard Continues... 10/30/14

Criminalizing Political Speech, 10/15/14

Tamar Goldmann Daily Pilot commentary, 10/31/14, Foley, Humphrey stronger than Bunyan 

Of Fecal Receptacles And A Campaign In Flames, 10/8/14  

Eric Bever Daily Pilot commentary on unions paying for political mail, 10/22/14

Kathleen and Christian Eric on Changes, 10/21/14 

Mailbag (w/Susan Shaw) refuting Bever, 10/29/14

Mailbag with various letters, 10/31/14

MEASURE "O"
Devin Lucas' Daily Pilot commentary on Measure O as a vote against unions
 
Bob Graham Daily Pilot commentary on Charter autonomy, 10/23/14

Bill Gilbert Daily Pilot commentary on Fairview Park, 10/28/14

Charles Mooney Daily Pilot commentary Charter would concentrate power, 10/28/14

Diana Gardiner Daily Pilot commentary city would be harmed by Charter, 10/29/14 

Overkill on Measure "O", 11/1/14

ENJOY!
There you go... you're on your own.  Remember, there's nothing at stake except the future of this city.

THANKS, AGAIN...
And, before I forget, I do want to thank those folks at Costa Mesa First who shocked me by placing ads in the Daily Pilot this weekend publicizing this blog.  As I said before, I knew nothing about it until after the fact and was as surprised as anyone when I saw that first one on Friday.  Then, the same ad appeared on Saturday and Sunday!  Thanks, again...