The Top Stories - Of The Year And Decade

CONTEMPLATING BIG STORIES
It's that time of the year when those of us who write a little begin thinking about the events of the past year, and what they've meant to me, personally, and to the community in which I live.


BUDGET CRISIS AND FAIRGROUNDS SALE







For 2009, for example, the two biggies are quite obvious - the fiscal disaster that has beset our city, region and state and the potential sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds. More than any other events I can recall in recent memory these have turned our city upside down and forced decisions I wouldn't have thought possible only a couple years ago.

NOT JUST "TODAY" STORIES...
Sadly, both these stories will have "legs", and will carry over into 2010 and will probably big items again next year.

NATIONAL STORIES OF THE DECADE
Then I began thinking about the important issues we've faced in the decade that ends on December 31, 2009. As a nation, the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent "War on Terror" are right at the top, followed by the election of our trainee president, Barack Obama and the ill-advised moves he's made that appear to be turning the most powerful Republic in the world into another socialist enclave. If he and his crew continue on their current track they will rack up a bill that your grandchildren will still be paying after Obama is long out of office.

LOCALLY - "IMPROVER" TAKEOVER OF COSTA MESA
Locally, though, in my opinion the biggest event in Costa Mesa this decade is the takeover of our city government by the self-professed "improvers" in our community. Beginning with the election of the perpetually inept Chris Steel to the city council (and his subsequent un-election when he stood up to the "improvers") and the later elections of Allan Mansoor, Eric Bever and Wendy Leece, the "improvers" have established an iron grip on our city. That grip was tightened by the appointment of more "improvers" to city commissions and committees, which dramatically affected the way business is conducted and the residents of our city are treated.

"THE MOUTH" LEADS THE WAY
Led by the pontifications of one particularly prolific writer and speaker - our old pal, The Mouth From Mesa North - the "improvers" have established an agenda the cornerstone of which seems to be the expulsion of the Latino population from our city. For more than a decade The Mouth has inserted himself into local politics while firmly establishing himself as a voice for the rabid right via his hundreds of racists internet essays and his "little newsletter", now turned blog. His "drain the swamp" mantra, in which he advocates leveling many of the apartment buildings around our city to make parks, is a perfect example of his goal of expunging Latinos from our city.

CHRONICLE OF OPPRESSION AND REGRESSION
This group has successfully closed down the Job Center, which had served our community effectively for almost two decades. That act, first proposed late at night by Councilman Gary Monahan, created an atmosphere of mistrust and tension within our city that exists to this day. The recent federal civil rights trial by Benito Acosta against The City and Allan Mansoor was a direct result of the Job Center closure and Mansoor's efforts to deputize every Costa Mesa police officer as an immigration screener. Those two actions created tension and demonstrations previously unseen in this city.

CONCILIATION REJECTED
The "improvers", through their elected surrogates, unceremoniously folded up the city Human Relations Committee, which had been a venue for resolution of cross-cultural differences in our city for more than 20 years without so much as a thank you to those volunteers who served on that committee.

FAILED ATTEMPT TO CLOSE OCC SWAP MEET
They tried, unsuccessfully, to have the Orange Coast College Swap Meet - a venue for low-end commerce and social interaction for many within the Latino community - closed down. The excuse was that traffic from "other parts of the county" (meaning Santa Ana) was putting an undue burden on our streets. The motivation was clear. That effort was hyped by The Mouth, but it failed.

PAULARINO PARK BARS SPORT
They managed to turn Paularino Park - a neighborhood park in The Mouth's Mesa North enclave - into a "passive park", thereby making it off limits to neighborhood Latino men who would, on occasion, gather to kick a soccer ball around after work. They did that under the guise that it was a public safety issue. They, through their mouthpiece, ginned up the specter of marauding dark-skinned men, wildly kicking soccer balls all over the park and urinating and defecating in the bushes - none of which was found to be true. It was simply another way to make members of our Latino community uncomfortable. Fortunately, their move to ban similar sports in most other city parks failed.

UNDERLYING INTOLERANCE
The underlying motivation of all these actions, and many more over the past ten years, has been aimed directly at the Latino population of our city - which represents more than 35% of the populace. With constant prodding by The Mouth, the so-called "improvers" kept up a constant drumbeat of intolerance which apparently, and sadly, struck a chord with many voters. It was on this wave of intolerance that Mansoor rode to re-election, carrying with him Wendy Leece on his coattails.

NEW BREEZE IN TOWN
However, there is change on the horizon. A new movement is taking place - one that is not as overtly intolerant of our Latino neighbors. There are some new faces in the political spectrum in Costa Mesa - folks who don't share the angry, intolerant foundation of the so-called "improvers". Among them are current Planning Commission Chairman Jim Righeimer, a political operative who moved to Costa Mesa a couple years ago after providing political support for Mansoor in his re-election run and was promptly offered a plum spot on the Planning Commission. With him is his long-time business associate, Steve Mensinger, who also now holds a slot on the Planning Commission. Both of these men are developers and, when coupled with developer attorney Colin McCarthy, form an unbreakable "developer" majority on that important body. These men are not in the pocket of the "improvers" and can go toe-to-toe with The Mouth any time.

DIFFERENT, NOT NECESSARILY BETTER...
I'm not necessarily sure that having a developer majority on the Planning Commission is a great idea for our city, but at least it does clear the air of the stench of intolerance that has permeated many activities in recent memory. Residents better pay close attention to the Planning Commission in the next several months. The current majority seems more than willing to bully applicants and to impose their own, personal stamp on new projects.

NOVEMBER, 2010 ELECTIONS WILL BE FUN
The elections of 2010 are going to be very interesting. The Mouth has already provided Wendy Leece with an ultimatum in his blog. His instruction to her is clear - she had better continue to march to his beat - or else! We all watched him when Chris Steel got some spine and pushed back - it got him ousted. It will be interesting to see if Wendy can actually carry her own weight in a re-election campaign. I'm not sure she can raise the money on her own to pull it off. And then there's her tendency to try to impose her own, personal religious beliefs on city matters. That's going to be a problem for her...

RIGGY - CAN WE TRUST HIM?
We'll see whether Righeimer makes yet another pass at a council seat and, if so, will he drag along any of his pals with him. He's a smart enough guy, with a solid business background and political connections up the wazoo. The question that lingers for me is, "Can we trust him?" His activities in the whole Fairgrounds sale dust-up makes me wonder... I guess time and close attention to his actions will tell.


POLITICAL MACHINES - BUTT OUT!
So, off we go, into a new decade. It is my hope that less strident, less polarizing voices will emerge to lead our city. I hope that national political organizations will butt out of our local politics and give the good, honest, hardworking voters in our city a chance to seriously consider the kind of leaders we want and need today.

Some Things Just Don't Change...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US, TOO
With all the hoopla surrounding the Independence Day holiday and the budget issues swirling around, I neglected to mark the anniversary of this blog. Yep, 4 years ago today - July 9, 2005 - I launched this blog as a place to vent my spleen unedited. Today, with hundreds of posts, thousands of words and two blog hosts under my belt, I wish I had figured a way to get paid for each word. Yikes! $$$$$

STEPPING BACK
As I do from time to time, I revisited my archives - you can do so, too, by clicking on the link on the right side of the page - to revisit issues. Sometimes things have changed, but most of the time they have not.

A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON
For example, a couple weeks after launching the blog I wrote the following entry bemoaning the demise of the Costa Mesa Human Relations Committee. Most of the players on the council then are the same today, except Wendy Leece has replaced Linda Dixon. I think you might find this entry of interest:

*****

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Human Relations Committee - R.I.P

Well, the deed is done. As predicted, the Human Relations Committee is history.

When, during the council meeting July 19th, Mayor Mansoor used as part of his smokescreen for disbanding the committee the fact that no council member had volunteered to be the liaison to the group, up jumped councilwoman Linda Dixon, who called his bluff. She volunteered not only to be the liaison, but to use her discretionary budget to fund the committee's activities if the council was reluctant to restore the funding it cut in June.

There was no stopping the male majority on the council, though. After councilwoman Dixon made a motion to not disband the Human Relations Committee and for the council to restore funding in the amount of $4,000 per year - a motion that was seconded by councilwoman Foley - Mansoor made a substitute motion to disband the committee. That motion passed, 3-2, with Foley and Dixon voting no.

So, after almost two decades of serving this city, the Human Relations Committee is gone. The Mansoor-led council, in the same callous style they used when they de-funded the committee in June without any advance notice to the members, cut this group loose without any kind of acknowledgment of their service - no "Thank You", no nothing. It was like they were trying to shake dog poop off their shoe.

This is just another example of where this council, under Mansoor's leadership, is taking this city. It looks like they are intent on extracting from government any element that does not involve fixing potholes or public safety. It seems to me that they are methodically draining the heart out of this town. Don't be surprised if we next see a full-on attack on other, in their view, questionable functions - the Recreation Division, for example. They have already shown their attitude about that organization by chopping $100,000 from it's budget last spring.

*****

SOME THINGS DON'T CHANGE
As you can see, some things just never change. At that time I predicted an attack on the Recreation Division and now, four years down stream, that's exactly what we've seen over the past month.

MANSOOR AND THE CCMC WEB SITE
Some will recall that Allan Mansoor was a member of the Human Relations Committee before being elected to the city council. He was also the prime mover to first de-fund it, then disband it four years ago. Before his election, and while he was on the committee, he was a lightning rod for controversy when he posted an anti-gay entry on the the Concerned Costa Mesa Citizen's web site. That entry, and a few others by people with strong right-wing leanings - including The Mouth From Mesa North - provoked such a controversy that the Lolita Harper - then a crack reporter for the Daily Pilot - did a three-part series on the web site and the Orange County Human Relations Commission got interested and began monitoring the site. Very shortly thereafter the operators of the site shut it down and the most egregious posters on it scurried back under their rocks.

ATTEMPTS TO "CLEANSE" THE WESTSIDE CONTINUE
However, many of those associated with that site, including The Mouth, continue to be active in Costa Mesa politics. Some of them were self-anointed Westside "improvers" - folks who have spent much of the last decade trying to "improve" that part of town. In many cases that "improvement" meant trying to make life miserable for the Latinos who live there although they represent the predominant ethnic demographic group in that part of town. By some estimates the Latinos represent 65% of the population of the Westside.

"IMPROVER" GROUPS
Several groups - city-sponsored and otherwise - were formed to address the concerns of the "improvers". They had various names - CRAC, WROC, etc. - but the efforts culminated in several "plans" to modify the zoning of segments of the Westside. One common element in each of them was that it would become much easier to facilitate a demographic change by implementing them. Had the economy not gone south it's very likely that we would have had developers standing in line to snap up some industrial land and turn it into residential enclaves.

THE LEADER OF THE BAND...
So, I guess my message here is that the drumbeat of "improvement" continues throughout our city. Unfortunately, the definition of that word for the most part means "get rid of the Latinos". It pains me to see such overt attempts to cause discomfort to those in our community with brown skins. It really pains me to realize that the leader of the band in that movement, The Mouth From Mesa North, is an internationally infamous racist - a man whose essays have become rallying points for the radical right in this country. He's a favorite of David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, for example. It's a very sad commentary on our city that so many of our elected leaders march to his tune - very sad, indeed.

"Terror in the Latino Barrio"

HUMBERTO CASPA SPEAKS
Thursday evening nearly 100 people and representatives of a local Spanish language television station attended a presentation at Orange Coast College by Dr. Humberto Caspa, a professor at UCI and former Daily Pilot columnist, as he spoke about his new book, "Terror in the Latino Barrio: The Rise of the New Right in Local Government".


Photo courtesy of Daily Pilot

THE BOOK
The book, which I acquired following Dr. Caspa's presentation, is his account of the past couple of tumultuous years in Costa Mesa and the events and players he feels are responsible for the turmoil. He focuses on the events that led to an ICE agent being assigned to the Costa Mesa jail - the players and events that have created great unease within the nearly 37,000 member of Costa Mesa's Latino community.

AN OVERVIEW
I skimmed the book when I got home and will give it a more detailed reading over the weekend. Based on my cursory scan, I'd say he came pretty close to the mark when he describes people and events over the past decade or more in our city. He covered the so-called "improver movement" and some of the major players in that group. I'm sure of one thing - more than a few folks around town are going to be very uneasy if they read his work.

THE TARGETS
In a nutshell, Caspa targets "right-wing politicians" and identifies one specific person in our city as the nucleus of the anti-Latino sentiment that has been pervasive most of this decade. I didn't see that person, a local blogger of ill repute, in the audience, but one of his offspring stayed throughout the presentation and the Q&A session that followed - sitting in exactly the same location that his father sits in during City Council meetings.... must be in the genes.

TYPICAL RESPONSE
The guy in question has taken umbrage with the coverage of Caspa's book provided prior to the event by the Orange County Register's Yvette Cabrera. Ever the gracious guy, his most recent blog entry makes no bones about how he feels about her interpretation of the book - and her writing skills. He even discusses personal family matters in her life. He also, today, is critical of the administration at Orange Coast College for permitting Caspa to make a presentation about his book.

MORE TO FOLLOW
So, kudos to Dr. Caspa for his brave effort. I suspect this may not be the last we hear of his book. As I make my way through it I'll provide more feedback.

Costa Mesa - Bastion of Intolerance

SURPRISE!
I don't know about you, but I've passed the age when I expect the world to be full of surprises. As an old coot, I figure I've pretty much seen it all. Sometimes, though, something pops up that you just didn't expect.

HOW BELGIUM VIEWS COSTA MESA
For example, late last week I received a telephone call from a fellow who identified himself as a correspondent for Belgian Public Television, seeking some face time with me. He's based in Washington, D.C. and had an assignment to do a story on racism in America. After researching this subject a little he decided to jump on an airplane and come to Costa Mesa, California, which he perceived to be a hotbed of racism in our country! I'm not kidding - that's what he said!

Well, as you might expect, that comment rocked me back a little.

INTERVIEWING BOTH SIDES
Due to social obligations over the weekend I had to beg off any personal, on-camera interviews, but did provide him with a few names of activists on both sides of the issue who might have time for him, including one he already knew of that writes his own blog here in town. I have no idea if he made contact with any of them. His piece was supposed to air sometime this week, but I doubt if many of us have access to Belgian Public Television, so we won't be seeing the results of his handiwork - at least not first hand.

MANSOOR'S LEGACY
I'm very disappointed that our city has become internationally notorious for the perception of it's position on race, but I guess I'm not surprised. Ever since former mayor Allan Mansoor attempted to cross-designate every Costa Mesa Police officer as an immigration screener two years ago and had his face plastered all over the national media as a "brave crime fighter" our city has become the tip of the lance wielded by the far-right-wing screamers in the battle of illegal immigration in this country.

GILCHRIST'S INSIDIOUS INFLUENCE
The presence and interference of Minuteman Grand Pooba, Jim Gilchrist, and his not-so-merry band of miscreants added fuel to that fire as they paraded around our city blockading businesses and stood before our City Council professing the righteousness of Mansoor's crusade against the invading brown hoard from south of the border.

HAM-HANDED HANDLING
Mansoor's ham-handed handling of the Benito Acosta affair, which was widely reported in the local and national media and can be viewed on YouTube ad infinitum, only exacerbated the situation. Mansoor's ill-timed and insensitive comments throughout the following summer when gang violence erupted amplified the perception of our city as a bastion of hate.

THIS IS NOT NEW
I've written many times about this subject. For most of this decade I've watched as frustrated residents followed the lead of a small knot of malcontents with racist views who guided them down this dark path. I've been amazed that the anti-Latino sentiment has been so widespread and pervasive in our city. I, naively, thought the residents of this town were more tolerant and intelligent - that it would take more than the rants of an articulate racist and the cherubic smile of our young jailer/mayor to direct them down this path. I was wrong.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
I look forward and see the year ahead, which will bring yet another election, and hope the voters of this city will not be swayed by the ongoing drumbeat of intolerance. The character assassination and lies that have become far too prevalent in politics - and our local politics in particular - has already begun. The City Council election in November could end up with a super-majority - a de facto absolute majority - of self-anointed "improvers" on the dais. That, in my view, would be catastrophic for our city. It would hand our future to the forces of intolerance and forever scar our city as a place where only white people need apply. It would eliminate any check and balance in our system of governance and permit them to, literally, plow the earth where Latinos live in our city and effectively expunge them from our borders.

TYPING WITH FINGERS CROSSED
I sincerely hope that does not happen. I hope the good voters of this city finally see what's going on around them and reject and repudiate those who would perpetuate this systematic march that has made our city a metaphor for racism and intolerance.

Mansoor Endorses Ron Paul

BIG DEAL!

HAIRBALL ALERT!
My Google Alert system coughed up another political hairball this weekend. This time it was an entry by Irvine commodities broker and self-styled political pundit Allan Bartlett in his Powder Blue Report blog. You can read the entry here.



PUPPY LOVE?
Bartlett's entry - a fawning little essay about our young jailer/mayor, Allan Mansoor, that really tested my gag reflex - tells us that Mansoor has confided in him that he's endorsing Texas Republican Ron Paul for president - Big Whoop!

WHO CARES?
It sure looks to me as though our young jailer/mayor assumes that his position on the tip of the lance being used to force immigrants from our country has made his opinion valuable to a broader audience. Puhleeze!

REVIEWING HIS PATH TO OFFICE
Mansoor rode to re-electon last year on the backs of the latinos in Costa Mesa, dragging his running mate Wendy Leece along for the ride - using the flames of intolerance fueled by a few Neanderthal "activists" in our city and fanned by out-of-town interlopers like Minuteman Grand Pooba Jim Gilchrist and his frothing followers.

MARGINAL QUALIFICATIONS
Anyone who has watched Mansoor during his reign on the City Council knows that the poor young man has great difficulty putting two un-scripted words together. His "aw-shucks" act got old very early. Here is a man who is an under-educated, under-achieving deputy sheriff who spends his work day in the bowels of the county jail system, dodging effluent and dealing with the very worst in our society.

UNTRUSTWORTHY
Mansoor has talked out of both sides of his mouth, making it impossible to believe him on many issues. For example, he touts the advantages of increasing the level of home ownership in Costa Mesa, yet he sold his own Westside home, took his profit and now rents an apartment.

IGNORES WISE COUNSEL
He talks about being a strong advocate for law enforcement - something that shouldn't surprise us, since he's a deputy sheriff - yet he consistently and frequently overtly ignores the wise counsel of his top law enforcement officers. The most recent three past chiefs of police in our city who represented more than 100 years of law enforcement command experience between them.

EASILY MANIPULATED AND DISLOYAL
He's demonstrated that he is easily manipulated by his small cadre of Costa Mesa "improver" malcontents and Orange County GOP mucky-mucks. He's also shown that he places his own political future ahead of the well-being of Costa Mesa residents by appointing carpetbagging GOP activist Jim Righeimer to the Planning Commission as political pay back, ignoring freshly coiffed and snappily dressed loyal foot-soldier Paul Bunney - who appeared to be prepared to accept that seat - in the process.

AGAIN, WHO CARES?
Why anyone would want Allan Mansoor's opinion anything, much less care about who he is supporting for president, is beyond me.

Bever - Master Architect - Strikes Again

The question for today is, "How much government is too much government?"

What brings this particular question to mind is one of the agenda items addressed by the Costa Mesa City Council in their study session on Tuesday, August 12, 2007. That item was entitled, "Standardized Plans For Freedom Homes Room Additions", which can be read in it's entirety here.

According to the staff report, this item was requested by Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever, a man known for the occasional odd flight of fancy. This appears to be yet another one of them.

THE STAFF REPORT
The first paragraph of the staff report states, "Pursuant to the Mayor Pro Tem's request, staff prepared a Request for Proposals (RFP) to create standardized plans for the most popular building additions to the Freedom Homes. The purpose of the standardized plans is to create a valuable resource for homeowners by providing basic design drawings that, homeowners may use or customize to suit their needs. In doing so, homeowners could reduce time and cost associated with planning/building room additions to their Freedom Home."

Further on, in the text of the Request for Proposals, under Scope of Work, the following statement is made, "The plans do not need to be structurally engineered, but should consider the zoning and structural issues relative to a typical existing property."

The RFP goes on to describe three distinct types of projects to be considered and provides specific guidance to the bidders as to what is expected as a work product. The staff estimates the cost of this project to be $10,000 - $15,000.

MICRO-MANAGING
It seems to me that this is micro-managing of the worst kind. Why in the world should the city be involved developing specific plans for specific homes in a specific section of town? It's clear from reading the staff report that the plans anticipated will not be adequate for the homeowner to circumvent the need to hire an architect to create appropriately engineered plans for city approval. Basically, what will be produced under this plan is a set of architectural renderings - very much like the one shown at the top of my previous post about Triangle Square.

COOKIE CUTTER HOMES?
Yes, the Freedom Homes are, for the most part, cookie cutter homes - all have similar floor plans, or did when first built. They are fairly typical of homes built following World War II throughout Southern California. They were intended to provide affordable housing for our returning warriors and their families, where emphasis was placed on providing basic shelter and lots of space outside to play. Times have changed and the emphasis a half century later is to larger homes with smaller outside areas. Now the only exercise many kids get today is on their thumbs as they text message back and forth.

COSTA MESA = IRVINE?
It seems unlikely to me that any Freedom Home homeowners intent on performing a major remodel of their homes would choose to perpetuate the cookie cutter approach by utilizing a government sponsored "look". If they wanted that they could have moved to Irvine, for goodness sake.

WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE...
If this is a good idea for the Freedom Homes, what about College Park or Mesa del Mar? Do we really want our government to design our homes for us? I think not! There are already plenty of constraints on homeowners who wish to remodel or rebuild in our city. City government should not be in the business of designing home remodels.

PANDERING PIPE DREAM
I think this pipe dream steps way beyond the boundary of government intrusion and is a waste of government funds. For such a proposal to come from a man who touts himself as a "conservative" is astonishing. Quite honestly, it sure looks like Bever is pandering to his core constituency in that section of town in anticipation of a re-election campaign next year. Many folks in his "improver" base live in that neck of the woods. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at such a blatant move - such poor judgment is typical of Bever and displays yet another reason he shouldn't be re-elected.

Affordable Housing - Yeah, Right!

Our friends over at the Newport Beach Voices blog have provided a couple interesting entries dealing with the recent edict from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) regarding the need for affordable housing throughout Southern California communities. Here's the link to the relevant entry. Embedded in it is a link to a detailed report which, if you choose, you can visit for some of the details of the numbers.

DIGGING THROUGH THE DETAILS
However, since I've already done that, I'll share some of the interesting numbers for Costa Mesa and Newport Beach with you. In SCAG's report entitled "Final Regional Housing Need Allocation Plan - Planning Period (January 1, 2006 - June 30, 2014), it presents their requirements for additional housing units through their fiscal year ending June 30, 2014. The big news locally, which was covered by an article in the Orange County Register, here, is that the City of Irvine must absorb almost half of Orange County's 82,332 total new housing units mandated over the next seven years. Of that total of 35,322, more than 21,000 must be "affordable" - available to very low, low and moderate income households. Irvine officials have freaked out with these numbers, claiming a lack of land. Kind of makes me smile just a little.

BUILT OUT, ARE WE?
Closer to home, Costa Mesa has been mandated to provide 1682 new housing units, of which 972 must be either very low, low or moderate income units. Newport Beach will be required to provide 1784 new housing units, of which 1076 must be very low, low or moderate income units.

UPSIDE-DOWN
For us Costa Mesans this presents an interesting dilemma. By all accounts, we are upside-down in rental versus owner occupied housing. The last number I heard was 60% rental, 40% owner occupied. Typically, very low income and low income housing units mean rental units. I'm informed by city staff that, as far as the 710 market rate units are concerned, we seem to have that covered and more. The Enclave, which will be built by Irvine Apartment Communities in the bean field near the Performing Arts Center, will account for more than 800 units alone.

MOVE OVER, ROVER
However, that doesn't address the folks at the other end of the spectrum - the low and very low income folks for which we will be required to plan for over the next seven years. If the rhetoric we've been hearing for the past few years - spurred on by those folks who identify themselves as "improvers" - is any indication, there seems to be little interest in providing housing for folks at the low end of the economic ladder. Quite the contrary, most of the ambient noise we hear these days seems to be about bulldozing many of the apartment units that very likely provide that kind of housing specifically.

LEADERSHIP DILEMMA
The Costa Mesa planners will have their work cut out for them, as they attempt to meet the mandate and still follow the direction of a council intent in turning Costa Mesa into Newport Beach or, at least, Huntington Beach. There are a few folks in our town who, when they hear the words "affordable housing", apparently instantly see slums in their minds eye. They exercise a lot of influence over the council majority, so it will be very interesting to see what tack they take on this subject.


LOOK HONEY, A PLACE FOR THE KIDS!
I thought it was quite ironic that Newport Beach has been earmarked to provide even greater numbers of very low and low income units. I find myself wondering just how they're going to pull that off, since the average home value in that city is at least four times that of Costa Mesa. Maybe they can turn the entire Banning Ranch into an affordable housing enclave.

Neighborhood Traffic Management Program

Thursday evening I, along with a couple hundred other Costa Mesa residents, attended a Town Hall Meeting which introduced the Neighborhood Traffic Management Program. The meeting was conducted by Transportation Services Manager Peter Naghavi, who did a good job of explaining the various charts posted around the room and the thrust of the program.

This meeting was the first step in a comprehensive plan to improve traffic within the various neighborhoods throughout the city. This purpose was to gather data from residents - concerns they have about traffic and suggestions they have for mitigation of the problem areas.

Among the city officials in attendance were the City Manager, Allan Roeder, Assistant City Manager, Thomas Hatch and members of Naghavi's staff. I also saw Planning Commissioner Sam Clark and two Parks and Recreation Commissioners, Terry Shaw and Mike Brumbaugh. Curiously, I did not see any member of the City Council present, which I thought was just a little unusual, especially since members of the majority profess to be all about fixing potholes and improving our infrastructure. I guess, since you can't blame the traffic on the Latinos among us, they didn't see any political wheat to be harvested, so were not interested.

The meeting, scheduled for two hours, stretched to three, the last half of which was taken up with questions and answers by residents and staff.

Although Naghavi sent out 42,000 letters a month ago, only two hundred or so people showed up. This, of course, is the beginning of spring holidays for many people in town. Regardless, those folks who did show up were attentive and active participants.

The upshot of this meeting will be an accumulation of the information provided by the comments and questions from the audience plus those observations they included in the survey forms passed out at the meeting. Subsequent meetings will take place with homeowner associations around town during which more questions and answers well be compiled until, at a point in the future, a plan will be presented to the City Council for approval and funding.

It was interesting that, even though this meeting was held on their front porch at the Neighborhood Community Center near Lion's Park, I didn't see any of the "usual suspects" - the yapping, self-anointed Westside "improvers" - at this meeting. Neither did I see that intrepid reporter from the CM Press - traffic must not be an issue in his part of town. I suspect these folks stayed away for the same reason no council members were present - no Latinos, no issue.

Buffoonery Abounds

It's an interesting day in the local blog world.

First, in response to an article in the Daily Pilot, here, about the childish game of musical chairs our young jailer/mayor seems intent on playing, our old pal, Byron de Arakal published yet another pithy post on his blog, Itchingpost.com, here. Nobody manages to insert the knife and twist it just right better than Byron.

Then, over at the CM Press, The Brain That Ate Costa Mesa posted not one but two new entries designed to twist the facts for his loyal, misguided readers, here and here. It constantly amazes me that he actually finds folks who believe him, especially in light of his perverted views of our society as reflected in his numerous essays on radical right wing web sites, here.

Then, Claudio Gallegos posted the final installment of his expose', Confessions of a Westside Improver, which you can read here. If you missed the first two, you can read number 1 here and the second one here.

All of this is an interesting preamble to the City Council meeting tomorrow night. The grand "musical chairs" issue is scheduled to be discussed at the end of the meeting. It will be interesting to see if our young jailer/mayor continues with this folly, or will he have seen the light and changed his mind. He should simply ask to have the issue removed from the agenda, apologize to the staff for making them waste valuable time and money researching this issue and move forward - but he won't. Nope, much as Brer Rabbit got stuck in the Tar Baby in the briar patch in Disney's "Song of the South", he's just going to keep slugging away until he's got both feet and hands so deep into this ridiculous issue that he can't extricate himself.

So, the beat goes on here in the land of Costa Mesa, where buffoonery on the dais has been refined to an art form and intolerance forms the foundation for governance.

"Improvers" Coming Unglued?

Still fighting a cold, I arose this morning and did my usual canvass of online publications and blogs, just to see what was on folks minds this cloudy day. When I hit the CM Press and read his current contribution to the general enlightenment of our populace I almost choked on my grape nuts! Then I got a big smile on my face. Sorry, I just couldn't help it.

The guy, who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor, seems to have slipped a cog or something. In his post today, #88 since he became a blogger, he goes on and on accusing the current majority on the Costa Mesa City Council of having "lost it's focus". I've linked to it here. He asks, for example, "Have your elected positions gone to your heads?" This was one of fourteen questions he posed to the majority - hand-picked by him, by the way - apparently trying to slap them back into line.

Another very interesting question was, "Have you turned your backs on improvement activists in your appointments to some city commissions and appointed political hacks who know nothing about our city or improvement?" This, obviously, refers to one loyal "improver" foot soldier who was rejected not once, not twice but three times as a candidate for the Planning Commission by Mayor Mansoor and carpetbagger Jim Righeimer was appointed instead. That must have been painful and embarrassing for him.

The final sentence on his entry was quite telling. He says, "The CM Press certainly hopes the above don't apply to you three, but some in the improvement community are asking questions similar to the above."

The message here, my friends, is that this fellow feels his little flock has stopped dancing to his tune. Apparently he thinks they should already have bulldozers plowing down the "slums" around town to make way for parks. That's just one of his metaphors for expunging every brown face from the city's borders.

That "improvement community" to which he refers is that small, angry cadre of mostly Westsiders who have attempted to take over control of the city for almost a decade, beginning with the election of the chronically inept Chris Steel. When Eric Bever was elected and lame duck Gary Monahan joined the dark side, they began to trample the rights of residents and have kept this city in a turmoil for more than two years and counting. Now, with Wendy Leece teamed with Mansoor and Bever, there's no stopping them. They've stacked the deck on the Planning and Parks and Recreation Commissions, which provides them even more power. This "improver" majority has demonstrated a willingness to blatantly ignore opposing viewpoints and have attempted more than once to quash debate when it didn't suit them.

Over the years I've gotten to know a few of the self-named "improvers". Some of them are pretty darn nice people, with good intentions and some very valid concerns about the deterioration of their neighborhoods. There are others in that group, however, that might be best described as frothing pit bulls instead of activists. They seem to have channeled all their fears toward the Latinos among them and have followed the lead of the guy who runs the CM Press to solve every problem in this city by simply removing the Latinos, legal or illegal, from our midst.

Today's posting is, hopefully, a sign that there's discontent in the "improver" camp. Let's hope that means that a few of them will realize what a dangerous, disgusting path they've been led down and will come to their senses. Let's hope those good, solid citizens among them will take a step back and select a different course. I fear that, if they do not, they may be tarred with the same brush as the guy who continues to turn the pages on their song books - a man who is notorious for his racist rants posted on the internet at various sites and who has been under scrutiny by civil rights organizations for years.

In the meantime, if the CM Press is angry, I'm smilin'.

"Improvers", Carpetbaggers and Sounding Off

Over at the CM Press this morning the guy who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor, presents a schedule of events for his readers to consider. Sound familiar?

Anyhow, part of his presentation today is a gloating rant about what he refers to as the no-planning commission, and makes reference to tonight's meeting being the first for the "improver" commission - stating that all the members have ties to the angry group of malcontents who describe themselves as "improvers". In my view, that's a real stretch. Four of the five certainly have strong ties to that group, with Sam Clark being the latest appointee. To say that carpetbagger Jim Righeimer is an "improver" tests credulity. He hasn't even been in town long enough to unpack his bags, for goodness sake. No, Righeimer is occupying that chair as political patronage until something better comes along - a council seat or maybe another run at the Assembly seat held by Van Tran. This perch will give him a place to get some name recognition until it's time to move on.

Incidentally, with at least four of the planning commissioners carrying the "improver" banner, what are chances of Brown Act violations among this group? Do you really think they won't be pre-fabricating decisions on development issues in this city? Just wondering...

Tuesday's council study session is going to be very interesting. The discussion of the Youth in Government program, trash-canned at a recent council meeting, will be enlightening. At last report, none of the New Majority had requested that any information be discussed or presented. It will be interesting to see just what kind of "input" our young jailer/mayor makes on this issue. You will recall, his reason for discarding this program was because he hadn't had a chance to provide input in the nine months after it was first introduced. Talk about a slow learner!

Sunday the Daily Pilot published one of my submissions under their "Sounding Off" banner (here). It's going to be very interesting to see what kind of comments are published in the online version responding to this particular piece. I'm thinking they will very likely prove my point. I'm grateful to the editors of the Daily Pilot for considering my commentary print-worthy.