Everybody Cares About Musical Chairs

Well, the mayor's most recent misstep (of many) last Tuesday night has gained notoriety for our fair city far and wide. Both the Daily Pilot, here, and the Orange County Register, here, took shots at the council for the mayor's clumsy attempt to shuffle the deck on the dais and force Linda Dixon over to the hinterlands with Katrina Foley. Orange County blogs were buzzin' with it's own special brand of speculation. Byron De Arakal, over on Itchingpost.com, said it best - as usual.

Simultaneously, the two main posters on the Orange Juice! blog, Claudio Gallegos and Art Pedroza (who resigned from the Orange County Republican Party Central Committee after the recent elections because of his disenchantment with the organization) have made Costa Mesa their cause of the week. Gallegos continued his three-part interview with a "Westside Improver", and promises a more incendiary finale next week. Pedroza wrote a blog entry, which included input from our young jailer/mayor, regarding the differences between Costa Mesa and Santa Ana - of which there are many.

Both sets of postings have generated several comment threads of the type we've come to expect on that blog - dominated by heated raves by gutless anonymous posters. I guess if you're part of the SantaAnaCentric inside group you've learned to deal with it, but from an outsider's standpoint it sure does seem non-productive.

There's a lot of speculation going on around town right now on 1) whether the mayor will actually agendize the issue of the seating chart for a future meeting and 2) just who is Gallegos' anonymous westsider?

As to the first question, I wouldn't be surprised if he continues to display poor judgment and actually require the staff to prepare an agenda item for consideration. History has shown us that he's capable of such lapses. In fact, using poor judgment seems to be his normal mode.

I doubt we will ever find out the identity of the anonymous Westside Improver. I suspect the poor person fears for his or her safety, so will choose to remain unidentified. I guess I can't blame him or her. There has been enough information provided for at least one person involved to guess the identity - the guy who runs the CM Press. Since his broader writings on the various far, far right wing web sites panders to the worst side of people, it's likely that he has some very rabid followers who have not taken kindly to the fact that their guru has been exposed, so to speak.

So, I guess we'll just wait for next Tuesday's finale to see what surprises might be in store for us. In the meantime, we can only hope that our elected leaders wake up and start acting like adults one of these days.