A Double-Header Of Sorts

ADIOS, FEBRUARY
This morning, as we bid a fond adieu to little old February, I'll report last night's activities.  I have not done a double-header for some time, so it was kind of interesting.



MANSOOR'S TOWN HALL

First, I attended lame duck Assemblyman Allan Mansoor's Town Hall at the Costa Mesa Community Center from 6 - 7 p.m.  Mansoor showed up about 5:55 and began the meeting before what turned out to be a full house - more than 130 people attended - just after 6.  He wrapped it up promptly at 7 but stuck around to answer one-on-one questions.

DEFENDING HIMSELF ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Mansoor led off with a preemptive strike of sorts by attempting to salvage his position on illegal immigration that had been brought into question recently when he - apparently too hastily - signed a letter supporting House Speaker John Boehner's position on amnesty for illegal aliens.  Once again - for the gazillionth time - he told the story of his parents, who immigrated LEGALLY from Egypt and Sweden, but this time he threw his mother-in-law into the mix.  She immigrated from Viet Nam.

 MEAN PEOPLE

He complained that people had come to his office and berated his staff and shouted epithets at them and questioned their immigration status.  He reminded us that he, personally, was responsible for 1,300 illegal alien criminals being taken off the streets when he was Mayor of Costa Mesa.

BUDGET SURPLUS

He spoke of the state budget, which Governor Brown recently declared had a $3.2 billion surplus.  Mansoor was flummoxed that there could be a "surplus" when the state has a $354 billion pension liability.


BAD BILLS
He mentioned "bad bills" that were being proposed briefly and without much detail.


"HIS" BILLS
He mentioned his bills - which had not been passed.  Nothing new here.  He's so ineffective in Sacramento that his record of getting bills he originated passed is one (1) UNO!  That one removed the word "retard" from the official state lexicon.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERSHe fielded 21 questions covering a variety of issues:

• The recent Huntington Beach plastic bag fee (he doesn't support it)
• Group homes (he said they have a strong lobby and make a ton of money)
• Poseidon Desal Plan (he supports it)
• The exodus of businesses from California (he doesn't like it and thinks we need to find new revenue sources to retain them) No, I didn't get that one, either.
• Budget deficit (he supports a part-time legislature)
• Crime up in Mesa North with slow police response times (he thinks we need to curb wasteful spending instead of raising taxes to pay for more police)  He also mentioned Pensions as being unsustainable.
• Westside homeless (he thinks a lot of people want to be homeless and he thinks it takes cooperation by neighboring cities to resolve it)
• He was asked if he was proud of his record (he dodged a direct answer, but said "I'm doing the best I can with what I have".  It's not clear whether he meant his own, personal shortcomings, that of his staff or just being a minority in Sacramento.)
• Another questioner asked him if he thought he was "lipstick on a pig" in Sacramento. (He answered "I'm doing the best I can with what I have".)
• He was asked about AB109 - the prisoner realignment scheme that shoved prisoners out to municipalities. (He said "Public Safety should be our number 1 priority", then said, "I'm doing the best I can with what I have".
• He dodged a question about his run for Board of Supervisors 
  
• A question was asked about the ruling by a federal judge to shut off northern California water to protect the Delta Smelt.  (His answer was weak, but he said we need to do more to create water storage and transportation.)
• One very attractive woman - a lawyer, she said - thanked him for his help with Prop. 65 and heaped praise on him. (He said he was "humbled" by the praise.

NOTHING NEW - HE'S STILL WEAK
All in all I didn't learn much from the 55 minutes at that meeting, except that he's doing the best he can with what he has.  I was reminded just what a feeble public speaker Mansoor is, and, even after a dozen years in public office, how he still can't seem to articulate his points without sounding like an echo of himself.  I will attend any debates/forums that pit him against Michelle Steel  and other candidates in his run for the Orange County 2nd Supervisorial seat presently occupied by termed-out John Moorlach.  I'll be hard-pressed to find a reason to vote for him, though.

PARKS AND RECREATION MEETING

I then skipped over to City Hall to attend what was left of the Parks and Recreation Meeting, arriving just a half-hour before they wrapped things up.  I missed both items about tree removals, but did hear the tail end of the report on the field use allocation study presented by the staff, HERE.  The upshot is that we don't have enough of them, particularly lighted fields for youth sports teams.  Mention was made about the possibility of acquiring/leasing the Balearic Center from the Newport Mesa School District.  That meeting ended with two other residents in attendance just after 8:00 p.m.  If you want the whole story read Brad Zint's excellent summary of the meeting published in the Daily Pilot, HERE.

Mansoor Press Conference Video Now Available

CITY FEED NOW AVAILABLE - HALF OF IT***
As mentioned in my earlier post, the streaming video of Allan Mansoor's press conference yesterday is now up and available for viewing on the city site. You can see it HERE. Unfortunately, only half the event is available - the first portion where the mayor read his prepared speech - so you'll get to see a lot of the top of his head. According to Dane Bora at the City, he's working right now trying to clean up the audio feed on the second portion of the press conference - the Question and Answer section. If he can clean it up sufficiently so at least some of the questions can be heard and understood he will re-post the entire conference. If and when that happens I'll change my link to the new one.
*** The "long version" of the city link is now available... I've changed my link so you can now see the entire 42 minutes.

FULL VIDEO AVAILABLE AT OC VOICE
In the meantime, there is an alternative. Our friend, John Earl over at the OC Voice blog was there, sitting in the front row with his camera and has posted his unedited clip of the press conference. The quality isn't as good as the city feed, naturally, but he does have the entire press conference posted for your viewing. You can see it HERE.

AGAIN, THE "ANOINTED ONE"
And, as you all probably know by now, Mansoor is, once again, being re-anointed as an immigration rock star - his smiling face was all over the news last night again. This is, in the word of Yogi Berra, "deja vu all over again". This is exactly what happened five years ago when Mansoor launched his ICE proposal and ended up on national television as the poster boy for intolerance as he attempted to create his own immigration policy.

GET USED TO IT
So, dear readers, this is what you're going to see until November. Mansoor will jump up in front of any camera available and bemoan our immigration situation. Makes me want to puke!

Mayor Mansoor's Immigration Press Conference

THE MAYOR WAS LATE
As promised, I did attend Mayor Allan Mansoor's campaign event, er, press conference at City Hall this morning. It's taken me a little while to post this because I actually stayed for the entire event, including the one-on-one question and answer period with the press that followed his formal presentation. One wag in town, a guy who fancies himself a journalist, arrived late, stayed for about 10 minutes and then left early - burning rubber out of the parking lot so he could rush home and post a blog entry that said nothing. He apparently didn't want to be noticed because he came in disguise, not wearing his trademark black shirt for a change - maybe it was in the wash. But, he was seen in "his" seat - in the far, right, back corner of the auditorium.

SMALL TURNOUT
The meeting was sparsely attended. The working press outnumbered residents and other visitors about 2-1. Although I sat near the front so couldn't keep close track of the comings and goings, my occasional peeks over my shoulder revealed that, in addition to the brief stay by the guy normally in black, among those in the small audience were Councilwoman Katrina Foley, Planning Commissioner Steve Mensinger - both made brief appearances - and Benito Acosta, he of recent lawsuit fame. There were around 10 members of the working press - print, radio and television - and a couple of us bloggers, too. I think there might have been 25 people in the auditorium at the peak of attendance. It was a pretty skimpy turnout for an issue with, as we've seen in years past, the potential to generate heated passions.

LASTED ABOUT 45 MINUTES - WILL BE AVAILABLE ON VIDEO
Mansoor arrived late to the press conference, which was promised to begin "promptly" at 10:00. It did get started at around 10:15 and lasted about 45 minutes. CMTV taped the proceedings and I've been told that it will be available for viewing via streaming video at the city web site tomorrow morning. You can click on the "archived video" link on the city home page to locate it after 8:00 a.m.

WHY THE PRESS CONFERENCE?
So, what was this all about? I'll try to boil it down as much as possible. The mayor is concerned about illegal alien criminals in our city and wants to discuss new programs to address them.

FOUR ITEMS TO DISCUSS IN STUDY SESSION
Mansoor outlined four items he wants to pursue with the city staff and his peers on the council.

1- Requiring the use of E-Verify for all city contractors and the people they employ.

2 - Requiring the use of E-Verify for all businesses applying for a business license in our city to be sure that all businesses and their employees are legally able to work in our country.

3 - He "wants to have policy discussions regarding asking all who are taken into custody by the police during the normal course of their duties ask them not only their nation of origin but if they are here illegally as we have a legal right to ask that question and to notify ICE and document that this is followed up so that if they are released and commit another crime the city has at least done it's part to notify ICE." Did you follow that one? It was a direct quotation...

4 - "Have discussions toward a more clear policy on how we handle foreign nationals with a strong emphasis on proper pro-active training".

COSTA MESA NOT A "SANCTUARY CITY"
He went on to state that, "Costa Mesa is not a sanctuary and is, in fact, a "rule of law" city when it comes to upholding our immigration laws and I will ask the council to commit to make it official."

WHY NOW, MR. MAYOR?It seems our former deputy sheriff/mayor has conveniently chosen this time - a few weeks before the primary election in June - because "it's been on my mind a long time and it needs to be addressed". When the press pushed him about the timing he denied that the election had anything to do with it. When pushed further he admitted that all the turmoil in the city recently - the budget, fairgrounds purchase, ACLU lawsuit for day laborers, etc., caused him to delay presenting these issues for discussion.

I DON'T BELIEVE HIM
From my standpoint, I don't believe that for a minute. I think he is running for Assembly and is facing a strong opponent from the Vietnamese community in the primary early in June and possibly again in November so he needs an issue to hang his campaign on. As has been the case in the past, that issue is immigration, even though the resolution of immigration problems are the purview of the Federal Government, not cities. This is precisely what he did four years ago when he and Wendy Leece rode to victory on the backs of the Latino population of Costa Mesa.

MATRICULA CONSULAR AS VALID ID?
In response to a question from the media he brought up the issue of the validity of the Matricula Consular - the identification cards provided by foreign consulates to citizens of their countries. Here we're talking about Mexican citizens. This form of identification is controversial and Mansoor wants to have the city take a position on the validity or lack thereof of those instruments when "criminals" are stopped for traffic infractions and the like. He feels that anyone here legally should have a valid driver's license or passport or visa. He stated that anyone holding a Matricula Consular is probably here illegally and should be deported.

TOSSING STATISTICS LIKE POPCORN
Mansoor threw around statistics about the criminals deported by ICE in 2009 but he didn't provide anything to compare them to - if ICE had not been in the jail in Costa Mesa, for example. When the press challenged him on the issue of his promise that his ICE plan would be directed at "dangerous felons", when more than half those he's taking credit for were for lesser crimes, he dodged the issue.

MY QUESTION TO THE MAYORI did have a chance to ask Mansoor a question - the final one during the formal part of the program. I asked him, "Mr. Mayor, when you first proposed your ICE plan that issue polarized our community. This council chamber was packed meeting after meeting there were people from both sides of the issue yelling back and forth at each other. The arrest of Benito Acosta was probably the most incendiary moment. By bringing this up now are you anticipating similar kind of response from the community? Do you expect, when this is brought forward to the council for discussion in front of the public are you expecting a similar kind of reaction from the community and, if so, how do you plan to handle it?" His response was weak. He said, "I think it was unfortunate that people came to disrupt our council meeting. I want put forward calm dialogues, Mr. West, that's my goal. I think we should be responsible. I don't think we should shy away from these issues. So, it's my goal to have calm discussions on these issues. I think that's the responsible, appropriate way to handle that. I think it's wrong and irresponsible to not address these issues as well. We all know these are important concerns and, as elected officials, I think we need to address them." I thought it was nice that he addressed me by name - the only time he did all morning. :-)

HERE WE GO AGAIN!
Mayor Mansoor has ripped the scab off an issue that has festered in our city for five years. By bringing it up now he guarantees himself another term in the spotlight of national television as he makes a bid for Van Tran's 68th Assembly seat. He couldn't buy this kind of media coverage! As he spoke and answered questions I found myself thinking that this has a very familiar ring to it. If this process goes as it appears he wants it to - a request to place the issues on a study session agenda, then later to be considered by the council in open session - I can foresee more packed meetings with vocal proponents and opponents batting the issues back and forth in the same kind of atmosphere we saw in the past. Heck, we've already had Minuteman Jim Gilchrist post a comment on this site today and the ball is barely rolling! I fully expect to see Barbara Coe stumble into our council meeting in the near future.

CUDDLING UP TO THE CCIR TONIGHT
Speaking of which, tonight Mansoor will toddle off to a fund raiser hosted by that self-same Barbara Coe and her minions at the California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR) meeting at which his praises as the "savior of California" will almost certainly be sung. What's that old phrase, "You are known by the company you keep?" Well, somebody should have reminded Mansoor of that fact.

A LONG, HOT SUMMER AHEAD
I've got a feeling that it's going to be a long, long summer and that Mansoor's campaign is going to be something very interesting to watch. By proposing policies that will bring down the hammer on Costa Mesa Latinos he guarantees a busy time for the Costa Mesa Police Department until November.

Another View Of Immigration Sweeps

CMPD UNDERCOVER SWEEPS
Last Friday the Costa Mesa Police Department engaged in an undercover operation designed to crackdown on people illegally soliciting work on our street corners. According to the article in the Daily Pilot, HERE, 11 "criminals" were arrested for this "crime", ten of whom subsequently proved to be in this country illegally. Those men were apparently deported post haste.

WHO COMPLAINED?
This operation, according to the Daily Pilot report, was launched because of "some complaints in the community". Those complainants were not identified, but anyone following politics in this city for the past decade will have a pretty good idea who "they" are, and why they complained, HERE.

I DO NOT SUPPORT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
I've made my views known for a long time on the subject of illegal immigration - I DO NOT support illegal immigration. However, the prospect of attempting to deport upwards of 12 million people living and working in this country illegally seemed to be not only impractical, but impossible. I firmly believe most of those folks were doing difficult, dirty jobs - many of which simply wouldn't be done by legal residents. They are still doing them - or trying to do them.

DOMINO EFFECT IN THE LABOR MARKET
However, with our economy in the tank thanks to our trainee President and his stupid programs, many of the jobs those folks held have gone by the wayside, along with hundreds of thousands of other jobs further up the food chain. So, folks losing higher paying jobs are having to settle for anything they can find, including some of those jobs being done by illegal immigrants. This, of course, has created much stress.

CRISSY BROOKS IN THE DAILY VOICE
Today, in the fledgling Newport-Mesa Daily Voice, Crissy Brooks - who, according to the Daily Voice, is "the executive director of Mika Community Development Corp, a faith-based nonprofit whose mission is to identify and equip leaders in low-income neighborhoods" - wrote a very poignant commentary addressing this sweep from a "those-left-behind" standpoint. I hope you will take the opportunity to read her commentary, HERE.

CMPD SHOULD GO AFTER "REAL" CRIMINALS
I hope the folks at the top in the CMPD will reassess their position on immigration sweeps and redirect their efforts toward the real criminals in our midst - those who engage in identity theft, run red lights and injure folks, etc.

Wall Street Journal Report on Illegal Immigrants

WALL STREET JOURNAL - "IMMIGRANT FLOW SLOWING"
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal provided us with a Front Page report by Miriam Jordan entitled, "Crossings by Migrants Slow as Job Picture Dims". Her lead paragraph sets the tone by stating, "The number of illegal immigrants apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border is falling steeply, an indication that the economic downturn and beefed-up security could be deterring unauthorized crossings."

APPREHENSIONS DOWN DRAMATICALLY
She goes on to tell us that the U.S. Border Patrol reported on Tuesday that the number of individuals apprehended between October 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008 dropped 17% to 347,372, with particularly significant drops occurring in the Yuma, Arizona sector, where the number dropped 76%.

YEAR END RESULTS MIGHT BE 50% OF PREVIOUS YEAR!
Jordan's report is lengthy and is full of statistics. For example, she tells us that this dramatic drop in the first half of the fiscal year could mean that the apprehensions for the full year ending September 30, 2008 could be less than the 858,638 in 2007. That would be half of the nearly 1.64 million arrests made in fiscal 2000. Stunning numbers!

CLASSIC SUPPLY AND DEMAND
The nut of her report can be captured in a quote from from Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Hoyt is quoted as saying, "The U.S.-Mexico labor market is one of the most efficient examples of the law of supply and demand. If the demand goes down in the U.S., the supply of people coming from Mexico goes down."

"REMITTANCES" UP, BUT SLOWING
One measurement used in this assessment was the amount of money sent "home" by immigrants. In 2007 these "remittances" sent to Mexico and other Latin American and Caribbean countries amounted to $66.5 billion - an increase of 7% over the previous year. While the amount of money sent home increased, this is the first time in this decade that the rate of growth of remittances failed to reach double digits.

IMMIGRATION COSTLY TO ILLEGALS
While acknowledging that there is no way to accurately measure the number of illegal immigrants coming to this country each year, officials apparently feel that tallying those apprehended can illustrate trends. Jordan quotes T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union that represents 13,000 agents, on the issue of the cost to the illegal immigrants attempting to cross our borders. Bonner is quoted as saying, "The coyotes typically charge $2,500 per person, up from about $350 in the early 1990s in California or Texas. The cost of being smuggled has increased dramatically. People are thinking more carefully before crossing the border."

SMIRKS ALL AROUND
This report should be viewed as good news to those who blame all the ills in our society on the illegal immigrants among us. Those in our community who bemoan the "slums" where they purport illegal immigrants make up the majority of residents should be happy now. Those who complain about the negative impact of the children of illegal immigrants have on our schools should be happy now.

EXODUS OBSERVED?
If Costa Mesa is, in fact, a haven for illegal immigrants and if the thesis of the Wall Street Journal article is valid, then we should be seeing an exodus of dark-skinned folks leaving our city for either greener pastures or back home across our southern border. I've seen no reports recently to indicate this is happening, but that doesn't mean it isn't.

WILL EMPTY APARTMENTS BE BULLDOZED?
So, if there is such an exodus of immigrants from those "barracks-style" apartments on the Westside and in areas in the north part of our city, will the owners capitulate and sell the buildings so they can be demolished so more upscale, single family homes can be built? If so, where will those buyers come from, considering the current condition of the real estate market? And, who will build those homes?

WILL DAY LABORERS DISAPPEAR?
Will we see the pockets of loitering day laborers scattered around town - those willing workers who once used the now-defunct Job Center to find work each day - gradually disappear? What will the impact on our labor market be if these willing workers do, in fact, disappear?

WILL IMMIGRANT'S DEPARTURE STIFLE RECOVERY?
In Jordan's article she tells us that, "About 60% of all unauthorized workers in the U.S. are originally from Mexico" and that the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 14.4% of all Mexicans in the U.S. work in the construction industry. She says experts estimate that if the illegal workers were folded into that equation the number would be much higher. I find myself wondering how the departure of this cadre of willing, affordable workers will affect our country's ability to eventually pull itself out of what is almost certainly going to be a recession?

PROFESSIONAL TECHNICAL JOBS GO BEGGING
In a great paradox, on the same page there was an article exclaiming that the full quota for H-1B visas - those reserved for highly trained professionals, like engineers and computer programmers - was used up within a couple of days of becoming available. Industry leaders are screaming that they cannot find enough of such workers and want the quotas to be increased. Our economy is so strong that our universities cannot generate enough technical professionals to fill the need and our present immigration regulations prohibit us from importing that talent from abroad. I guess it's no wonder that companies, when faced with this dilemma, choose to export the jobs in order to remain in business. We're living in strange times, indeed.

Andy Rooney's Holocaust & Costa Mesa

WARNING! This blog entry is guaranteed to make every reader uncomfortable. Proceed at your own risk.
"AND NOW, A FEW MINUTES...."
I suspect most of you are familiar with Andy Rooney, a correspondent on the enduring CBS television program, "60 Minutes". Those of you who watch "60 Minutes" know Rooney as a curmudgeonly fellow who closes the show each week with a couple minutes of his alleged wit. Usually he says nothing, but says it cleverly and gets paid well to do it.

SLOGGING THROUGH ANDY'S "WAR"
For the past several weeks I've been crawling my way through "My War" - the best selling memoir of his experiences during World War II. It's taking me a long time because I frequently find myself angry at him, so I just stop until I cool off. Sometimes that takes several days.

THE REAL "ANDY"
Although he's written more than a dozen books, if you read this book you will discover the real Andy Rooney - a spoiled, obnoxious member of the liberal elite from an early age. At nearly 90 years of age, Rooney apparently feels he has somehow earned the right to smear war heroes like General George F. Patton and others, because he does so freely in the book.

THE END IS IN SIGHT
That being said, parts of it are quite interesting as a first-person account of that terrible war, so I'm committed to finish it - soon. But that's not really the point of this entry.

RECOUNTING THE HORROR
Near the end of the book - and the war - Rooney describes his visit to a couple of concentration camps, Buchenwald and Thekla. Now, I'm not a stranger to the existence of such places - I've seen many documentaries and read several accounts of the conditions in them. I must admit, though, that every time I see the images and read the descriptions by observers and those who survived the camps I cringe, appalled that human beings could do such things to other human beings.

PERCEPTIVE OBSERVATION
In this section of his book, while describing things he saw, Rooney makes the following statement: (The emphasis is mine)
"One of the devilish aspects of this crusade against the Jews was the necessity the Germans felt for making the extermination of Jews legal. I don't think Americans know about it. Whatever the Nazis wanted to do, they first arranged to have a law passed that made the action legal. They did not, as it might seem, simply haul Jews off the streets and out of their homes without being able to justify it in their own minds and according to laws that had been enacted. There were laws that covered every despicable act."

"THE LAW"
He went on to describe sections of a document written and produced by the Reichstag in 1935 entitled, "The Nuremberg Laws on Race and Citizenship, 1935", which defined the position - or lack thereof - of Jews in German society shortly before the outbreak of World War II. He quotes liberally (no pun intended) from the chapter entitled, "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor", which includes specific descriptions of what constitutes being a Jew.

A FAMILIAR CHORD
When I reached this section of his book and read the paragraph above I just paused because it struck a chord with me. I read and re-read it and realized that the concept described in it had a very familiar ring.

OUR TOWN
Our town, Costa Mesa, is a city in southern California of around 110,000 souls - depending on how many alleged illegal aliens remain after the current purge. Most of the folks who live in our city are fine people - hardworking and dedicated to making a good life for their families. We call ourselves "The City of the Arts" because we are home to an exceptional Performing Arts complex and seem to have more than our fair share of creative types. Heck, our current mayor is an artist of sorts who, until he decided to run for public office, wore his hair in a long pigtail - a sure sign of an artistic self-perception.

DIVERSITY
We are a diverse community, with a third of our population being of Hispanic heritage - some of whom are almost certainly not in this country legally. Those folks came here for a better life and work hard to achieve it.

OPPOSING VIEWS
Unfortunately, there are among us a few people who object to their presence and, for the past few years, have methodically gone about making life difficult for them by passing laws to oppress them, dissolving government support entities such as the Job Center and the Human Relations Committee, pressuring and defunding charitable support groups, etc.

PAINFUL REALIZATION
When I read that paragraph in italics above I realized that the theme applies to our city - and it made me ashamed.

METHODICAL PLAN
No, I'm not accusing every person in this city who has spoken out against illegal immigrants of being Nazis, although there is a powerful presence in this city that denies the existence of the holocaust. What I am saying is that much of the legal foundation for ousting folks of Hispanic heritage from our city is in place or is being planned. Our former mayor - currently the mayor pro tem - hatched a scheme a couple years ago to train every Costa Mesa police officer as an immigration screener. That was headed off, but the melody lingered in the form of an federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent being assigned to our jail to personally screen every person arrested and taken to our facility.

PLAN CORRUPTED
Originally, the former mayor assured his constituents that he only wanted to get dangerous alien felons off the streets, and that there would be no sweeps. Few in the Hispanic community believed him, rightly so, as it turns out. The enforcement and screening effort has, indeed, taken some dangerous felons off our streets, but it's also snatched up individuals for minor infractions which resulted in their deportation. In some cases, this resulted in their families being left behind, including their American citizen children.

DEPORTABLE OFFENSE?
Some supporters of the plan proclaim that those people were law-breakers because they came to our country illegally. No argument there, but that "crime" hardly fits the former mayor's assurance to the city.

EXPANSION OF THE PLAN
The city has had a non-solicitation ordinance in place for almost two decades with which our police can managed loitering day-laborers, but currently there is a movement afoot to pass a more stringent ordinance to create more law-breakers, who can then be scooped up and sent packing.

USING EMINENT DOMAIN AS A TOOL OF OPPRESSION
There are those who espouse the use of eminent domain to yank property from their current owners, to be bulldozed and replaced with artist lofts and high-end homes. Most of those places to be demolished provide housing and/or jobs for members of the laboring class in our city, many of whom are of Hispanic heritage and some are certainly here illegally.

ATTACKING THE KIDS
Those same strident voices decry the impact of children of immigrants on our school system. Most of those children are American citizens. Despite much progress being made in the integration of those children into the system, there seems to be a cadre of folks in our town that are determined to force them out.

UNDENIABLE PARALLEL
In my view, the parallels between what's currently happening in my city and the events in pre-war Germany are clear and undeniable.

SAD COMMENTARY
It's a sad commentary on the societal attitudes of a few people in our city.

Change Happens - Adapt or Drown

"IMPROVER'S" PLIGHT
Over the past decade or more a group of long time residents of this city, the self -anointed "improvers", have preened, pontificated, postured and protested before council and commission meetings about how the city was declining - and clearly blaming that decline on what they perceived to be the reason - the Latinos among us. In recent years that description has morphed into "illegal aliens", because it struck a chord with the broader community. Yes sir, brown and illegal - how much worse could it get, right?

WESTSIDE BLIGHT
When I first began writing about issues in our city a half-decade ago the hot button subject was the decline of the Westside. I've recently gone back and re-read some of my earliest contributions to the Daily Pilot, composed and published several years before I began my blog. I've also kept some of the responses to those essays, most of them written by members of that "improver" group.

AND, SOMETIMES, THEY'RE RIGHT
I re-read their complaints from a few years ago and hear them speak and read their words published more recently and must, at least in part, agree with some of what they say. They complain about the crime in their Westside neighborhoods - rightfully so. They complain about the shoddy condition of some of the dwellings in their neighborhoods - I would, too. They complain about overcrowding of homes and apartments, which tax our social and physical infrastructure - valid observations.

SHARED BLAME
Each of those things are certainly reason for concern. And each of them have solutions under our current laws and code enforcement regulations. And, each of this issues are not exclusive to the Latino community. If you read the Costa Mesa crime logs you will see Latino names, but you'll also see names that are not Latino. When you drive the neighborhoods of the Westside you'll certainly see some shoddy homes occupied by Latinos, but you'll also see many run down dwellings that are occupied by mostly older anglos - some of those very folks who complain about the condition of their neighborhoods.

ACTIVIST GEEZERS
Many, if not most, of the folks who have become activists in the "improver" movement are people my age or older - much older. They've listened to the strident voices of the radical right, who promised quick solutions. These folks - part of Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" and their children - are among those who founded this city and shepherded it's amazing growth over the past half century. But we, myself and those folks, don't represent the future of this city - we represent the past. I can tell you from personal experience, when you reach a certain age you're not particularly enthusiastic about change. You're happy to find some fog on the mirror when you breathe on it! The only change you want to see is a new date on the calendar each day. At my age and beyond you like to find your newspaper exactly where it should be, your slippers beside the bed and your robe within easy reach. You like to find the same products with which you've become comfortable for most of your life still available in the markets and drug stores. However, that's not the real world... life is change.

TREADING WATER BEFORE THE WAVE
The folks of the "improver" group don't like the change they are seeing in their part of town. They don't like the fact that they cannot communicate with some of their neighbors, nor share the same cultural values. I don't blame them for being uneasy. However, as I've said many times in the past, the Latino immigrants are the wave of the future for, at least, this part of our country. If we don't find a way to manage that wave we are destined to be overcome and drowned by it.

NO MASS ROUND-UP
I don't think anyone honestly believes that it is possible to round up and deport all 12 million (or more) illegal immigrants in this country. Even if it was possible, it certainly isn't practical from an economic standpoint. Instead of trying to find ways to expunge them from our city - and our country - lets find a way to make their presence work better for all of us.

EARNED AMNESTY
Many people in this country react in horror when the word "amnesty" is mentioned. They are offended that those "criminals" who crept across the border will actually be allowed to stay in this country - perhaps with a path to citizenship - while others wait patiently in line to become legal residents. They scream at the top of their lungs that amnesty should not happen - that it will only encourage more illegal immigration. Well, with the open borders that we have now, that's probably true. In my view, once our borders are secured, a form of earned amnesty should be adopted. Back taxes and other fees should be imposed to those eligible and crime-free.

CONTRIBUTORS TO SOCIETY
I have gotten to know many people who took advantage of amnesty the last time it was offered. Without exception, they are honest, hard-working, cheerful, family-oriented people, grateful for the opportunities available to them. They jump in their cars and head to distant places - Portland, Chicago, etc. - to visit family members, just as my family used to do in the middle of the last century. They are proud of their heritage, just as my parents and grandparents were. They encourage their children to achieve good grades and attain higher education so they can make a better life for themselves and their families - just as my parents and grandparents did. These folks have become valuable members of our society - just as my parents and grandparents were.

TEST SCORES BETTER
Many so-called "improvers" have used low test scores in schools which educate the children of Latino immigrants - most of those kids are American citizens like you and me, by the way - as an example of the financial drain of the immigrants on our society. Well, recent upticks in some of those schools have demonstrated that those children, who may be brown, are certainly not dumb. They may not speak English in the home, but they certainly do speak it in school, and their test scores demonstrate their comprehension. These are, for the most part, cheerful, bright children who are thriving in circumstances most of us cannot imagine.

WAKE-UP CALL
The so-called "improvers" better wake up. These children - the ones whose parents they are so eager to castigate, incarcerate and deport - are going to be registered voters in the very near future. If they think Benito Acosta gave them nightmares with his activism, they had better renew their valium prescription, because during the next decade these kids are going to begin voting in large numbers. They and their anglo peers, not you and me, are the future of this city, so we'd be much better off trying to find ways to integrate them into the mainstream of our society than to waste precious energy and resources trying to alienate and anger them.

INTERVENTION AND ENFORCEMENT
Our present leadership seems to advocate an "enforcement only" policy toward our gang problem. That's a huge mistake, in my estimation. Any program that has no element of intervention included is doomed - recent history in Los Angeles has demonstrated that for us. You'd think our young jailer/mayor - a law man - would know that, wouldn't you?

EDUCATE, MOTIVATE AND INTEGRATE
In my view, it's critical that we work harder to educate, motivate and integrate the children of the immigrants among us. If we don't do a better job of providing alternatives to gangs, that insidious sub-culture will take over large numbers of our youth, just as they have in other parts of Southern California.

LET'S MAKE IT WORK!
Things change - got it? Those geriatric activists my age will not be around to harvest the bitter crop they are planting, but your children will. It's time to get our collective heads out of the sand and find solutions that will work instead of trying to turn the clock back a half century, because that's not going to happen.

"Your Neighbor's" Racist Foundation

The immigration bill pending before Congress seems to have re-invigorated Your Neighbor (The-Brain-Who-Ate-Costa-Mesa) over at the CM Press. His last three posts here, here and here, are aimed directly at the bill. In his post this morning he advocates flooding senators with anti-immigrant telephone calls to stop the process.

However, of even greater interest is his most recent essay published on the New Nation website today entitled, "It's More Than Amnesty; It's Genocide For European-Americans", in which he attempts to convince us that he's not really a racist - he's only a simple guy, worried about the dilution of the Aryan gene pool. I want to thank him for this one, because it provides focus on what his real motives are as he goes from forum to forum bleating about rogue soccer players, slums and such. This essay helps you understand the foundation of all his activities in Costa Mesa over more than a decade. It also helps you understand how he has been so influential over a few easily-led residents, including our young jailer/mayor.

Under the guise of protecting the sanctity of the Aryan gene pool he has methodically gone about facilitating the discomfort of the Latinos among us - legal and illegal - and orchestrating their expulsion from our city by attacking them where they live, where they work, where their children are educated and, yes, even where they kick a soccer ball around after work.

Your Neighbor says he's not a racist. Well, Dictionary.com provides the following definition for the word racism: "a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others." Read his essay, linked above, and you decide - is he or isn't he a racist? To me, he personifies the word.

The raging debate about illegal immigration has this country in a turmoil. I doubt you will find many American citizens who think illegal immigration is a good idea - I certainly don't. The issue is complex - if it were simple, those simpletons in Congress would have solved it long ago. In my view, any solution must start with secure borders. Unless that is the first step anything else that might be done is futile, costly and ineffective. How we manage the tens of millions of illegal aliens currently working in this country is a separate issue. From a purely practical standing, I just don't see how you deport 12 to 30 million illegal aliens without having a devastating impact on our economy.

However, Your Neighbor is fanning the flames of this illegal immigrant hysteria to further his own, perverted goal - protecting the integrity of the Aryan gene pool. What astounds me is that so many people actually buy into his putrid philosophy and follow his lead. Like some kind of twisted Pied Piper, he has mesmerized his followers into ignoring his ultimate goal - the expulsion of Latinos - by providing them with chunks of raw meat (slums, soccer players, low test scores) to chew on as they march to his tune.

This man has, virtually single-handedly, dragged Costa Mesa to the point of no return. Through his oratory and influence he has created a culture of intolerance within our city and, through it, turned Costa Mesa into the poster child for anti-immigrant hate. It deeply saddens me that more than a few folks in this city have been swept up in his scheme and seem to be chanting his mantra like a group of brain-dead zombies. Hopefully, in the near future they will awaken and realize what has been happening to them and step back from this man and renounce his view of the world.