Costa Mesa Sanitary District Announces Townhalls

MORE PUBLIC OUTREACH SCHEDULED
The Costa Mesa Sanitary District announced today that two (2) more public town halls will be held to provide information to ratepayers about the proposed changes in Organic Recycling.  So far, two workshops have been held at the Neighborhood Community Center and both were well attended.


The two new town halls will be held as follows:

THURSDAY AT HALECREST PARK
On Thursday, February 6, 2014 at 5:30 p.m. a town hall will be held at Halecrest Park, 3107 Killybrooke Lane.

BACK BAY HIGH
On Saturday, February 8, 2014  at 9:00 a.m., a town hall will be held at Back Bay/Monte Vista High School, 390 Monte Vista Drive.

DO SOME HOMEWORK
I've written about these town halls several times and referred you to powerpoint presentations at the Sanitary District web site, www.cmsda.gov. 

LEARN AND LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD
I encourage any folks interested in this new plan to attend the town halls and ask questions.  The board will consider this issue at their next regular meeting on February 25, 2014, which will be held at a site yet to be determined.

Another Town Hall Next Monday Night

 MONDAY NIGHT
Next Monday evening, October 29, 2012, council woman Wendy Leece will host another in her series of community town halls to address public safety issues.

WOODLAND SCHOOL
This event, as you can see from the flier below, will be held at Woodland Elementary School, 2025 Garden Lane and will run from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m.  While this is aimed at the Eastside neighborhood most proximate to the school, all residents are welcome.

COYOTES AND MORE
A special emphasis will be placed on the growing problem of coyotes wandering our streets, killing pets and threatening residents.

SEE YOU THERE
I've attended each of these events and found every one to be valuable sources of information we all can use.  See you there.

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Town Hall Tonight - North Costa Mesa

Just a little reminder for you...

ANOTHER PUBLIC SAFETY TOWN HALL
Tonight Councilwoman Wendy Leece will hold the most recent in her series of Public Safety Town Halls.  This one, located to reach our neighors in the north part of town - Wimbledon, Greenbrook, Providence Park, etc. -  is going to be held at the Calvary Chapel LOGOS building, per the flier below.  I've provided a map for you.  You approach the LOGOS building from MacArthur, just west of Fairview.

EXCELLENT COMMUNITY OUTREACH
I've attended many of these events over the past several months.  Each one provides an excellent community outreach by members of our public safety staff and will also have valuable information about neighborhood preparedness presented by community volunteer organizations.  Everyone is welcome, regardless where you live in our city.  The event begins at 6:30 and is scheduled to run until 9:00 p.m.  See you there...

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Yet Another Successful Town Hall

NUMBER THREE FOUR (OOPS)
Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Wendy Leece hosted yet another successful Town Hall meeting Monday night.  This is the third fourth in her series and, although it played to a smaller group, it was every bit as successful as the others. (Sorry about that glitch... Leece has held successful Town Halls at the Neighborhood Community Center, Pomona School, College Park and last night at Harbor Trinity Church)

NORTH PART OF TOWN COVERED
The event was held at the Harbor Trinity Church at Baker and Fairview and was aimed primarily at our good neighbors who live in the north part of town.  Based on a quick headcount conducted early in the meeting, about a third of the approximately 50 attendees were from the Mission/Mendoza section of Mesa del Mar, another third from the Paularino area of Mesa North and the remainder from venues throughout the city.

CMPD, MIKA, CERT, UNITED NEIGHBORS
Leece hosted the event and was supported by Corporal Doug Johnson and Senior Gang Officer David Sevilla of the Costa Mesa Police Department plus Walter Garcia from MIKA community development corporation, who provided the essential translations throughout the evening.  Also present was Diane Hill from United Neighbors, who handed out information on her organization,
 
POLITICIANS AND WANNABES
Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer attended the entire meeting.  City Council candidates Sue Lester, Marshall Krupp and Harold Weitzberg came to hear what troubles our neighbors from the north part of town.  Among the 50 or so attendees was a grumpy old fella from Mesa North, who stayed for a few minutes, then left - apparently not willing to endure the need to translate the discussion.  Too bad, too, because he might have benefited from a question that was asked about white gangs in Costa  Mesa.

CRIME STATS
Corporal Johnson gave a brief overview of the crime reporting areas in question for the evening - there are 37 distinct reporting areas in Costa Mesa.  For the 12 months ended July 14th, area 21 had approximately 1800 calls for service, of which 284 resulted in reports being filed or arrests being made.  Area 17 had 3200 calls and 452 reports or arrests.  He gave a quick comparison to areas 1 and 2 - in the southwest side of town - which have 8,000 - 10,000 calls for the same time frame.

CRIME, GANGS, ALLEYS AND CODE ENFORCEMENT
Most of the issues folks wanted to discuss were gangs, crime prevention, alley safety and maintenance and code enforcement issues - run down properties, trash and debris, etc.  Despite the need to translate both directions in the discussions things went very smoothly.
 

GANG ACTIVITY UP AND DOWN
Both Corporal Johnson and officer Sevilla fielded most of the questions and provided specific statistics about gangs and other crimes.  According to Sevilla, gang activity in the two areas in question is down, but he explained that it kind of ebbs and flows like the tide.  They discussed preventive measures - after school programs, sports, churches and the use of School Resource Officers as effective tools to combat gang proliferation.  Those School Resource Officers are theoretically scheduled to be eliminated this fall unless something dramatic happens.  White gangs tend to be more organized, money oriented and violent.  Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach have large white gang populations.

CRIME UP
Although we continue to hear that property crimes are up dramatically in these areas of town, no specific percentages were given.  Both officers acknowledged that crime is up.

WHICH DRUGS?
A question was asked, in response to a statement made by Johnson about drugs being a major part of the crime problem in our city, if he was talking about marijuana.  Johnson's answer was NO.  Other drugs - cocaine, heroin and meth - were the primary problem drugs, followed by prescription drugs like Vicodin and Oxycodon.  The effects of those drugs can normally lead to criminal behavior.

LOTS OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Nearly two dozen attendees filled out question cards and several others simply just asked their questions - usually as a follow-on to another one.  Several people seemed concerned about the number of officers available to fight crime these days.  When the issue of gang detail staffing came up Johnson and Sevilla told us that the gang unit is staffed with 4 right now and has been staffed as such for a couple years.

CONCERNED ABOUT CMPD STAFFING
I spoke privately with Corporal Johnson who expressed concern for our current staffing levels, especially right now with the safety demands of the Orange County Fair.  Most, if not all, officers are working mandatory overtime to cover shifts PLUS the demands of the Fairgrounds coverage.  The combination of the month-long fair plus the fact that the CMPD is currently operating with at least 10 fewer officers than the authorized strength - 131, which is down from 164 two years ago - is stretching our manpower very, very thin.

A WORTHY EFFORT
I think most folks who attended the Town Hall came away with plenty of information about their communities.  Based on brief conversations with some of them, most felt it was very worthwhile.  Thanks to Leece, the CMPD and MIKA for their efforts.  A little sidebar - MIKA Community Development is an organization that has benefited for many years from contributions of Community Development Block Grand (CDBG) funds that are distributed by the city each year.  This year, however, at the recent meeting where the funds were to be allocated, Bever capriciously and arbitrarily just yanked their funding and gave it to a couple of Gary Monahan's pet organizations, even though the 3R Committee spent hours vetting the organizations, ranking them as to need and contribution to the community and providing their best suggestion to the City Council.

Wendy Leece Holds Town Hall Meeting Monday

MEETING AT HARBOR TRINITY CHURCH
Costa Mesa Councilwoman Wendy Leece will hold another in her series of Town Halls Monday, July 16, 2012 at the Harbor Trinity Church, 1230 Baker Street from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m.  The flier for this meeting is reproduced below.  I've also provided a map to the site. Click on each image to enlarge

Wendy Leece Hosts A Town Hall Tonight

SECRET?
In what turns out to be the best kept secret in town this week, I just learned that Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Wendy Leece is holding another in her series of Town Hall meetings tonight!




PUBLIC SAFETY FOCUS
This meeting is geared to issues within the College Park neighborhood. As was the case in her meeting at Pomona School, the focus will be public safety. Members of the CMPD will be present to discuss traffic and other public safety-related topics. The CERT team will also be present to discuss that valuable program.

COLLEGE PARK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The meeting will be held at College Park Elementary School, 2380 Notre Dame Road and is scheduled to run from 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. I've provided you with a map of that location, below.






SEE YOU THERE
I plan to attend and hear what concerns our College Park neighbors have about safety in their neighborhood - and other issues, too. See you there.

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More "Me", Park Peril And Wendy's Town Hall

MORE OF ME ON THE "CHARTER CITY" ISSUE
OK, by the time most of you locals read this on Friday you may already know that the Daily Pilot published a commentary of mine on their pages. You've already seen this issue discussed here earlier, HERE, but I thought - since you just can't get enough of what I write - you may wish to read this essay, too. HERE.
HYPERTENSION ALERT: All you Righeimer fans, please be advised to be sure your blood pressure medications are up to date before you read this essay!

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SUNSET RIDGE PARK UPDATE
Late Thursday night we received notice that the proposed controversial Sunset Ridge Park, located near Superior and Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach, came to a screeching halt at the meeting in Oceanside Wednesday of the California Coastal Commission. According to reports from the Banning Ranch Conservancy, HERE, following lengthy presentations and debate and proposals that included abandoning the most controversial part - the access road off PCH that would have certainly been the precursor to the Bluff Road element of the even more controversial Banning Ranch development - the City of Newport Beach yanked it's application before what appeared to be a certain losing vote could be taken. That saved them having to wait another year before presenting the proposal again. Newport Beach will now be required to submit a new application and, according to the report, no hearing is anticipated until early in 2012.

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PAVING OVER FAIRVIEW PARK?
It is rumored that the November 16th meeting of the Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commission will include a request to pave over part of the vernal pools at Fairview Park - a protected habitat for the San Diego fairy shrimp. Apparently this desecration of what has been described by many as the "Jewel of Costa Mesa" would occur near the section of the park near Jim Scott Stadium and the Waldorf School - to accommodate more spectator parking for events at the stadium. I suspect those of you who really care about preserving Fairview Park will want to attend that meeting and make your views known to Chairman Jeff R. Mathews and his fellow commissioners. I'll remind you once the agenda is available for review - probably next week.

SMELLS OF MENSINGER
If true, this has the stench of Steve Mensinger all over it. And, if true, this won't surprise me at. After all, Mensinger - seen here on the right - is Mr. Football here in town. He is also a developer and those folks just can't stand to see even a sliver of open land without a building or a parking lot on it. The loss of precious local open space doesn't bother him. He can just jump on an airplane and fly off to the wide-open spaces of Montana or Alaska to catch fish or kill critters any old time he wants. In the meantime, those less affluent folks here in our town are given the proverbial finger. I've lost track of how many times I've warned you about these guys. If your rights have not yet been trampled by them, it's only a matter of time...

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ANOTHER WESTSIDE TOWN HALL
A reminder for you. Next Wednesday, November 9th, councilwoman Wendy Leece and Mika Development Corporation will host a Town Hall at Pomona School from 7:00 p.m - 8:30 p.m. You can read all about it on the flier below.