Mickadeit Misses The Mark

FRANK'S CURIOUS FIRE DEPARTMENT STORY
This evening Orange County Register columnist, law student and good old boy Frank Mickadeit published a column titled, "Costa Mesa keeps its Fire Department", HERE. Now, old Frank is an interesting guy who writes some pretty good stuff and this one is OK as far as it goes, but he only tells part of the story. And it raises some interesting questions, too.

WHAT MOTIVATED MICKADEIT?
The motivation for this column, apparently, is the final agenda item for the Costa Mesa City Council meeting Tuesday, April 17th. You can read it HERE. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, the council apparently plans to rescind all the bogus layoff notices issued more than a year ago to the entire Costa Mesa Fire Department, sworn and non-sworn.

MAYBE, BUT...
He says, "The City Council is poised to rescind the notice of possible layoffs it had sent to 87 Fire Department employees. It has determined that keeping the jobs in-house will ultimately save money and provide more local control." Well, it LOOKS like the council is ready to rescind the layoffs based on the staff report, but how does Mickadeit know "that keeping the jobs in-house will ultimately save money and provide more local control."?

WHERE DID MICKADEIT GET HIS INFORMATION?
There have been NO public pronouncements to that effect. We do know that Interim Fire Chief Tom Arnold has been working hard on a plan that has not yet been presented to the City Council - certainly not in a public forum of any kind - that MIGHT accomplish some of those goals. How does Mickadeit know? Has someone inside City Hall leaked this still-private and confidential information to him before the entire council has heard it? If so, who? And what laws does this violate, if any?

OCFA PROPOSALS REJECTED
Mickadeit mentions the Orange County Fire Authority proposal(s) - there were two of them - presented to the City Council last year as a result of a request by the Costa Mesa Firefighter's Association. Although each of the several permutations of the OCFA proposal theoretically would have saved The City money and the firefighters were in favor of the shift, the City Council majority stiff-armed the OCFA - twice.

MICKADEIT SAYS CITY COULD SAVE DOUBLE
The OCFA could have affected cost savings - according to Mickadeit, $6.6 million - by closing one fire station and providing coverage from other OCFA stations nearby. Mickadeit quotes the city as assuming it could save more than double what he presents the OCFA proposal saved - $15 million a year - by having the firefighters agree to reduce contractually obligated minimum manning staff level. This reeks of Jim Righeimer's hand - he's been complaining about the minimum manning aspect of the current contract and his shills posting here have been yapping about it too. And what would the cost be in response times?

RIGHEIMER'S FABRICATIONS
Not only that, but in recent weeks Righeimer has tried to characterize the OCFA as a marauding hoard, intent on taking over every fire department in the county. He lied about the recent contract signed by the City of Santa Ana with the OCFA - a fabrication which he must have felt served his political purposes because any rational man would know that people would see right through the falsehood.

SANITY? I THINK NOT!
Mickadeit asks, "Doesn't the council's behavior regarding the largest department on the potential chopping block indicate that it will act similarly sanely when it comes to evaluating the other city services?", to which I answer "Not only NO, but HELL NO!" His assumption that this council has acted "sanely" in the matter of the fire department is, well, insane! If they'd have gotten away with violating their own rules half the city staff might have been laid-off by the end of last year, for goodness sake.

COUNCIL IRRATIONAL
Not only has this council NOT acted rationally with the OCFA proposal, they have been capricious and irresponsible throughout this whole "outsourcing" calamity. They DID NOT generate the proposal - the firefighters did. They rejected the OCFA not once, but twice and left the Fire Department dangling, short-handed because Righeimer had one of his hissy fits and refused to authorize hiring any more firefighters until a second pension tier was in place.

SHORT-STAFFING REQUIRED OVERTIME
The department has been operating with at least nine (9) fewer staffers than required for months. So, that forced the firefighters and their leadership to rack up thousands of hours of overtime - for which Righeimer and his sycophants roundly criticized them. It's been clear from the beginning - with the irresponsible reduction of Police Department staffing levels far below the minimum recommended by their own consultants and former chief Steve Staveley, HERE, and their ham-handed handling of the Fire Department situation - that political posturing is much more important to a few of the council members than is the safety of the public in this city.

I EXPECT MORE...
I fear that Mickadeit has been spending too much time leaning against the bar of a certain local gin mill, having his ear bent by members of our city council. While his column is his opinion and what information he includes is his prerogative, he doesn't serve his readers well by presenting only a portion of the facts. I guess I expect better from him.

Hoping For Maturity And Truth - Disappointed

HOPING FOR MATURITY
At last Tuesday's city council meeting we got a taste of what the next eight months are going to be like. We saw Mayor Eric Bever act like a petulant punk, barking back at many speakers who had tried to address grievances before the council, trying to "correct the record" when some of those "records" were made when he was in one of his many "days off" - when he stayed home instead of fulfilling the responsibilities of his office. Since he has not matured over the past dozen years I see no reason to believe he will grow up between now and when he, thankfully, leaves office following the November election.

HOPING FOR TRUTH
Worse, though, were the prevarications of Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer. Time after time he used his bully pulpit to present fabrications and flat out lies to the audience and viewers at home. The falsehoods were sprinkled throughout the evening, but the most memorable was his mischaracterization of what happened in Santa Ana.

LIED ABOUT SANTA ANA
Righeimer characterized the recent agreement between the Santa Ana government and the Orange County Fire Authority to provide fire and emergency medical service to that city as a "takeover" by the OCFA. He amplified that lie by saying it was just like the OCFA tried to do with Costa Mesa! You could almost see his nose growing as he spewed those words.

HERE'S THE TRUTH
First, as is chronicled in the Orange County Register article about the contract, HERE, the OCFA did not "take over" Santa Ana. At the request of the City they made an offer to provide fire service to the city and it was accepted. According to the reports, it will save Santa Ana millions of dollars each year with no reduction in services. Both sides, including the rank and file firefighters of the SAFD apparently are happy with the deal.

WE INVITED THE OCFA IN
In our case, in an effort to provide an "expert" assessment of Costa Mesa's fire operations, the Costa Mesa Firefighters Association approached the city with an offer to pay for the OCFA to come in, do an assessment and make a bid to take over the fire and emergency medical responsibilities for our city. If the City chose to accept the proposal it would reimburse the CMFA half the cost.

COUNCIL HEARD, AND IGNORED, THE OCFA PROPOSAL
Upon hearing the OCFA proposal - twice, over a period of months - the council chose to just ignore it and pass up the millions of dollars in annual savings, so the Costa Mesa Fire Department continued to operate as usual, except with fewer people because this council refused to let the staff recruit new firefighters until they agreed to a second pension tier. So, in order to provide coverage at the levels necessary, thousands of hours of overtime have been logged by firefighters and fire leadership.

HE'S THE REASON FOR THE OVERTIME
Righeimer, at one point in the last meeting, gritted his teeth, ranted again about "$300,000 firefighters" and spouted that he wasn't going to have anymore overtime. Of course, he has NO control over that issue. He, and his political agenda, is the reason overtime is being worked. He'll try to deny it, but he'll be lying when he does.


PASSING UP MILLIONS IN SAVINGS
The City could have chosen to accept the OCFA's proposal and, even though most firefighters would take a pay cut, they were willing to do so. The proposal would have saved millions of dollars each year, depending on which of the three choices the City preferred. Instead, Righeimer has chosen to wait until the CMFA contract comes up in 2014 and try to eviscerate that organization at that time.

THE LIES LINGER...
I just can't let Righeimer's lies go by without comment. If the folks at home heard his rant they might believe him - a huge mistake on their part. Because nobody is allowed to refute his comments in real time, those lies just linger in the air like gas passed in an elevator, pretending to be truth. You can get the real truth at the Costa Mesa Firefighter's Association web site at www.cmfd.com.

LEAVING YOU WITH A SMILE
As we close this entry I'm going to leave you with an interesting, short, 3 minute video clip. Resident Terry Koken provided us with another memorable little ditty - one that will certainly make you chuckle.

McCarthy Attacks Employees

ANOTHER ANTI-EMPLOYEE SCREED
Colin McCarthy, president of the OC GOP shill organization, Costa Mesa Taxpayer's Association and current Planning Commission Chairman, has produced yet another anti-employee screed straight from the OC GOP song book as edited by Jim Righeimer, HERE.

BLAMING THE FIREFIGHTERS
Just as Righeimer did at the last city council meeting, in his latest attempt to ignite the ire of residents of our city against all public employees McCarthy paints Costa Mesa firefighters as a bunch of greedy laggards, intent on destroying the fiscal well-being of our city by earning outrageous salaries and benefits. He points out that two battalion chiefs earned what he described as, "a whopping $347,000 per year and $313,00 per year, respectively." and goes on to mention that one of them topped nearly $110,000 in overtime pay last year.

COUNCIL ACTIONS CAUSED THE OVERTIME
Well, what he doesn't tell you as he rants about overtime is that those men were forced to work those hours - in one case nearly 4,000 hours in a year - because THIS city council has refused to permit them to fill vacancies that would have eased the pressure for such overtime. Do you actually believe that ANY of our firefighters prefer to work what amounts to two jobs rather than be with their families? He also conveniently neglects to mention that EVERY expert in this field, including our current Interim Fire Chief, Tom Arnold, has acknowledged that the use of overtime in some cases is actually less-costly to the city than if we hired more firefighters to cover all the hours required.

MISLEADING COMMENTS
McCarthy implies that the overtime adds to the pension burden of the city - it doesn't. Overtime pay is NOT included in the calculation of retirement benefits, but acknowledging that fact doesn't fit the agenda that he and others have in attempting to bust the employee associations.

MAKES ME WANT TO PUKE!
Near the end of his piece McCarthy says, "In addition, we need to remove the politics from the discussion." Well, just who is he talking to when he says that? The only people who have injected politics into this discussion are McCarthy himself and his fellow-travelers on the far right wing of local politics, led by OC GOP President Scott Baugh. It was Baugh who declared Costa Mesa "Ground Zero" in the state-wide battle for pension reform.

COUNCIL REJECTS HELP
The current council has rejected overtures by the firefighters to save the city money in recent months - $500,000 was rejected by the council at one point. In an attempt to help the city understand our fire and emergency medical response organization, the firefighters paid to have the Orange County Fire Authority assess the Costa Mesa fire operations and provide a bid to take it over. Three proposals were included in that bid, each of which would have saved millions of dollars and would have cost many individual firefighters pay and benefits, but the current city council stiff-armed that proposal and it sits molding on a shelf somewhere.

HALF-TRUTHS AND FABRICATIONS
The current city council and their shills like McCarthy are, at best, disingenuous as they attempt to mislead the residents of our city with incendiary rhetoric full of half-truths and fabrications. They have attempted to use the public employees of our city as scapegoats for their perceived fiscal crisis and yet we had a budget surplus last year. We would be even better off this year if they were not incurring legal fees at double the budgeted rate - an increase caused by their own misguided and malicious actions.

SABOTAGING PROGRESS
So, while Chief Arnold and Costa Mesa Firefighters Association President Tim Vasin are working hard to find solutions, McCarthy and Righeimer continue to dump gasoline on the fire THEY started with bogus claims and fabricated crises. It's no surprise to hear that our city is rapidly becoming a laughingstock among those who actually understand municipal government management. It seems that a week does not pass lately without this cabal making one more attempt to destroy our fine city.

REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER
It is widely assumed that McCarthy and his Vice President of the CM Taxpayers Association, Ethan Temianka, will run for higher office in November - McCarthy for city council and Temianka for a seat on the Mesa Consolidated Water District Board. There is a groundswell within our community of plain old regular folks who are tired of their shenanigans and will resist the takeover of our community by this band of political extremists. We will, indeed, remember in November.

Another Long Meeting - And It Showed(Amended)*

YOU JUST NEVER KNOW...
Just when we start thinking that most of the council meeting chaos is over, The Mayor throws us a curve ball - as did my day today. I would have posted this hours ago, but an unanticipated, but wonderful. visit from relatives stopped me in my tracks. I was "forced" to spend the day with beautiful 6 and 10-year-olds at the Balboa Fun Zone and the beach. Got my priorities straight...

GARY SHUFFLES THE DECK
Last night all seemed right with the world as the second Costa Mesa City Council meeting of July began on time. However, immediately following the "moment of silent expression", Mayor Gary Monahan shuffled the deck on us. Instead of just letting the agenda flow in the order published, for some inexplicable reason he decided to move New Business Item #3, the SR-55 Study Update, to the head of the pack. So, following presentations to Colin Moran for being selected to the PacSun Surfing Team; Ivan Calderon, founder of Taco Mesa and Taco Rosa for his community involvement and a brief presentation by members of the Huntington Beach helicopter program that currently provides contract aerial law enforcement support following the misguided decision by our city council to disband the A.B.L.E. program, we heard about the plans for the continuation of the study for the improvement of SR-55 (Newport Blvd.) at the terminus of the freeway at 19th Street.

LITTLE TIME LEFT FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS
By the time that presentation was finished only 20 minutes was left for Public Comments, so Monahan told the crowd that any speakers who had not spoken by the magic 7:00 hour - when Public Hearings are scheduled to commence - would be trailed to the end of the meeting. As it turned, out the final three speakers began at 11:35! More on that later. If you care to do so, you can watch the entire meeting - all 5 hours and 45 minutes of it - on streaming video HERE.

VEHICLE CITATION FEE IMPOSED - FOR SOME
Ignoring the fact that the Consent Calendar had not been address yet, at 7:00 sharp the Public Hearings began and both of them were dispatched with little comment. The council agreed to have the police department begin charging $10.00 for the certification of vehicle code violations, with the exception that NO Costa Mesa resident will be charged, regardless where the violation occurred. So, if our neighbors in Newport Beach, for example, decide to visit our police department for the certification instead of going to theirs, where it costs them $22.00, we'll make a couple bucks off their dilemma.

SCOFFLAWS TO BE HANDLED
The council also approved the resolution certifying special assessments for collecting delinquent fines for municipal code violations. The list totals $32,000. Both those items were completed in less than fifteen minutes.

MASSAGE PARLOR ORDINANCE APPROVED
On to Old Business where the City Clerk had barely finished reading the title of this second reading of the new Massage Parlor ordinance before the council voted to approve it. That whole transaction took less than one minute.

YOUTH SPORTS REQUESTS APPROVED
They then briskly approved the extension of a grace period requested of the Newport Mesa Girls Softball and Group 1 Field User status for Friday Night Lights Flag Football.

INVESTMENT POLICY PASSED
New Business then brought us the Statement of Investment Policy, the discussion of which lasted only about 4 minutes. It was approved. The council blitzed through 6 items in less than 40 minutes.

ORANGE COUNTY FIRE AUTHORITY PROPOSAL VETTED
Then, at 7:40, we came to the discussion and presentations of the proposal by the Orange County Fire Authority, who were represented by a hoard of blue-suited folks - I counted 7. Interim Assistant CEO Terry Matz led the presentations, discussions and deliberations that went until 10:25, with a short break mid-way. I'm not going to attempt to give you a play-by-play account of this issue, but will tell you that the council decided to "receive and file" the report and instructed the staff to continue to work on questions that came up during the discussions last night; to investigate joining with surrounding communities to provide joint fire fighting efforts - Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, for example - and to open conversations with the Costa Mesa Firefighters Association to determine what kind of concessions they are willing to make if the city decides to keep the Fire Department an independent entity.

CMFA OK WITH DEEPEST CUTS
There were some interesting moments in the Fire Department discussion. Perhaps the most interesting was the announcement by Association President Tim Vasin that his group supports going to the OCFA and that they think option 3 - the one which closes a station and reflects the greatest reduction of staff, from 29 current to 23 under that plan - is the best choice.

RIGHEIMER AFTER THE MECHANICS, TOO
That news seemed to energize some members of the council - particularly Jim Righeimer. During the discussion he seemed displeased that the numbers presented did not include any savings that would potentially be realized by staff reductions in support areas where, for example, mechanics would no longer be required to work on the fire equipment - the OCFA will maintain the fleet. We know from previous discussions before the council that the fire-related fleet makes up a very large part of the workload of our maintenance team.

NO PAY INCREASE FOR YEARS
Another interesting point made by the OCFA number-cruncher was that the OCFA members, including the Costa Mesa contingent if the contract goes through, will receive no pay increases for the next several years. This is based on negotiations with their bargaining unit recently. According to Vasin, the CMFA is OK with this fact.

THE CLOCK CONTINUES TO TICK
No time line was given for making a decision on this proposal or any of the other actions described above. In the meantime, the clock ticks and we operate without senior leadership in the fire department.

8/16 MEETING CANCELED
At 10:40, following another short break, the council re-convened and took about a minute to decide to cancel the scheduled council meeting of August 16th. A light calendar for that evening was the reason given. Personally, I think everybody just needed a break, so the meeting on August 2nd will be the last one until September 6th, right after the Labor Day holiday weekend.

CONSENT CALENDAR - FINALLY
Then, the council finally got around to considering the Consent Calendar, with Eric Bever pulling the minutes of previous meetings as a tool to launch into a discussion of what he felt was the inadequacy of the current minutes. City Clerk Julie Folcik was interrogated about the format and eventually the council decided to go with an even MORE abbreviated version. It seems some were irritated that the current version quotes speakers in detail, but didn't quote the points made by council members. Folcik reminded them that the "Action Minutes" were implemented when the streaming video became available as a verbatim record of each meeting. Previously, the staff had to laboriously transcribe each word by each person verbatim for the minutes - a task that could take weeks to complete.

LEECE WANTS MORE DETAIL ON LEGAL FEES
Wendy Leece pulled Item #4, the Warrant resolution that contained the $117,000 charge from Jones & Mayer, indicating that not enough information was included. Eric Bever proposed that each entry should be divided by account to make it easier to determine how the dollars are allocated.

WEB SITE REDESIGN CONTRACT CHALLENGED
Resident Tom Egan pulled Item #5, the contract with Vision Internet Providers, Inc. for the redesign of the city web site, indicating that he thought that because it included a 40% contingency that was apparently not known by the bidders, it should be canceled and re-bid. This got CEO Tom Hatch's dander up. He rejected the contention that the contract was not fair. During the discussion of this item councilman Steve Mensinger got off the best line of the night - one that brought chuckles from the crowd that had dwindled to around 20 people by this time. He said, "As council members we should not be meddling." I'm sorry, but that is so funny that it's almost preposterous, since his entire short tenure on the council has been marked by meddling. The contract was approved as proposed

HEATED EXCHANGES ON LOBDELL'S CONTRACT
Egan also pulled Item #6, the extension of the contract for Interim Communication Director, Bill Lobdell. He apparently felt it was inappropriate to pay him more than 47 public safety staffers. Supporting his view, former Mayor Sandra Genis also stood to complain about the extension of the contract, stating that it was a no-bid contract in the beginning and had been extended twice so far. She felt the contract should have had a Request for Proposals issued and alternate candidates considered. She said Lobdell's assignment was cronyism. This prompted Mensinger to call Genis back to the podium and challenge her - a real "in your face" confrontation that was totally unacceptable by a council member. But then, that's who he is. Further in the discussion Mensinger pointed out that Irvine has a handful of highly paid PR types on staff. Wendy Leece, during her turn to speak, said Irvine doesn't matter on this issue. Mensinger tried to interrupt her - bully that he is - but Monahan shut him down and let Leece continue.

MENSINGER DOESN'T LIKE THE PACE
When Mensinger spoke again he praised Lobdell for being able to tolerate working in the city where things "move at glacial speed". That was a real clue to how he, Mensinger, feels about government and is obviously one of the reasons he keeps champing at the bit about making it work more like a business. His idea of a business is one where he, as the boss, can simply demand that an action be taken and nobody questions it. He's not looking for a government, he's looking for a dictatorship.

BEVER BAD-MOUTHS ROEDER
Bever took this opportunity to bad-mouth former City Manager Allan Roeder, saying that he never delegated anything - a lie. Righeimer chimed in and said he thought we should just make Lobdell an employee and be done with it. The contract passed, 4-1, with Leece dissenting.


MADAME EGAN QUESTIONS GROWTHPORT PARTNERS CONTRACT EXTENSION
Eleanor Egan pulled Item #7, the contract extension for GrowthPort Partners for continuation of their personnel support activities. The extended date on the staff report was incorrect and was corrected to read June 30, 2012. The reasoning was much like the previous issue - a no-bid contract that is being extended without sufficient consideration of other alternatives. Genis stood again to complain about this one, indicating that the "augmentation" went beyond the original intent. Egan complained that the nature of the work involved highly confidential personnel issues by people who were not staff members and were here only for the money. The item passed, 4-1, with Leece again dissenting. *NOTE: The original version of this segment misstated that Tammy Letourneau was affiliated with GrowthPort Partners. She is affiliated with Management Partners, the group that did the Police Department Restructuring Assessment. I apologize for the error and hope Ms. Letourneau will forgive me for the erroneous association. Perfection continues to be a goal not yet met.

LESTER FINALLY SPEAKS
We finally got back to Public Comments around 11:35 p.m.! Sue Lester addressed the lawsuits the city currently has pending, including the one with the employee bargaining unit. Genis told the council the juggling of the agenda like this short-changes the public because many speakers had long since given up and went home. Of course, that may have been Monahan's plan all along, as you'll see in the next paragraph.

MONAHAN VS. KOKEN - THE BATTLE OF WILLS
Finally, crooner Terry Koken stepped up to present his most recent song to the council. Monahan warned him not to do it and the two went back and forth with Monahan threatening to have the police officer present remove him from the council chambers. Finally Koken, who looked like he was seriously considering singing and being removed, just read the lyrics to his song. The video - drag the scroll bar across to "05:18:00" to view it - shows this little drama and you can hear City Attorney Tom Duarte tell Monahan to "just let him speak". It was a tense moment and very disturbing. Monahan was obviously ready to violate Koken's right of free speech simply because he didn't think he would like what he was going to say/sing. This episode should make us all more than a little nervous about our rights to address grievances before our elected leaders.

*HERE'S MY VERSION OF TERRY KOKEN'S PRESENTATION
This shakey, wobbly video is what happens when an old guy gets his hands on a new camera. The city video is MUCH better, but this shows Koken throughout the event. Watch him contemplate the future as Monahan threatens to have him hauled out of the auditorium.



WEAK LEADERSHIP SHOWS
So, at 12:10 a.m. this morning the council adjourned to Closed Session after another long, long and frustrating meeting. These marathon sessions clearly demonstrate the lack of strong leadership on the dais. Monahan seems to have lost his grip on the process. We are NOT being well-served by this group.