Setting CMPD Pay Numbers Straight

MAKING IT UP...
As you know, at the last Costa Mesa City Council meeting Mayor Jovial Jim Righeimer, during one of his stream of consciousness mini-rants, told us that the Costa Mesa Police Department is the "highest paid" - a statement that rocked those of us who actually follow this stuff.  Why?  Because it's not true, and it represents his willingness to disregard facts and present fabrications from his lofty perch on the "big chair" that are politically self-serving.

MIDDLE OF THE PACK?
In my observations following Jovial Jim's fabrication I said that the CMPD is paid near the middle of the pack in Orange County.  That was a gut feeling based on information from the not-too-distant past.  When you've got a gut the size of mine you pay attention!

RECENT SURVEY SHEDS LIGHT
In response to this issue I was sent the results of a very recent - January, 2013 - salary survey from a very credible organization that covers three police positions - Police Officer, Police Sergeant and Police Lieutenant - for 21 local cities.  It provides data like number of staff members used in the survey; effective date of the salary levels; high and low salary numbers and additional "compensation" - amounts applied for Health, Dental, Vision and other health-related dollars, like the CMPD Cafe plan.  It totals those up into a column titled "Total Comp", which represents the total monthly pay.  It does NOT reflect any pension numbers.  It seems unlikely that the recent retirements of senior officers, nor the recent promotions, were taken into account.  Nor was the Orange County Sheriff's Department included in this survey.

USING "TOTAL COMP"...
Since our elected "leaders" have made such a big deal about total compensation on these issues in the past, let me give you a taste of the results.

Police Officer
Total Comp for the cities listed averages $8,271.  Costa Mesa's number is $8,563.  That places them 8th of 21 cities, slightly above the middle.  Anaheim, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Orange and Fullerton were ranked ahead of Costa Mesa.

Police Sergeant
Total Comp for cities listed was $10,306.  Costa Mesa's number is $10,301.  That places them 11th - smack dab in the middle of the pack.  The ten cities ranked higher are Tustin, Orange, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Fullerton, Fountain Valley, Cypress and Anaheim.

Police Lieutenant
Total Comp for this group is $12,397.  Only 18 cities reported data.  Costa Mesa's number is $12,469.  That puts them in 12th place - well below the middle.  The eleven cities ranked higher are Brea, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Orange and Santa Ana.

NO RAISES SINCE 2008
Another important factor to consider is that members of the CMPD have not received a raise since 8/31/2008.  Sixteen of the 21 cities reporting data have had increases since that date.  The results show that our brave men and women of the CMPD are far from the "highest paid".

SO WHAT?
So, what do we do with this information?  Well, for one, we can use it to validate our mayor's penchant to play fast and loose with facts to serve his political purposes.  What else is he making up when he pontificates from the dais?  If he doesn't have the information he should just zip his lips until he does.  It's just one more example of the adversarial relationship he has cultivated with the CMPD and it certainly doesn't serve the community well.

I GET IT!
Before retiring I made a pretty darn good living recruiting folks, both as an employee of local companies and, for more than two decades, as a recruiting consultant.  While pay is only part of the equation, I understand how difficult it is to recruit excellent employees when your compensation package is not competitive.  Considering the atmosphere between Righeimer and the Costa Mesa Police Officers Association, I see nothing that leads me to believe the contract negotiations next year will be anything but rancorous.

WILLING TO SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY?
It seems to me that Righeimer and his associates are willing to settle for mediocrity by creating a hostile work environment and hiring hardball negotiators to beat the city employees into submission.  Personally, I'm not willing to settle for mediocrity.  I feel we deserve to have a compensation plan that is, at least, competitive.  I don't think we need to pay the highest salaries, but we sure shouldn't be paying the least.  We should be paying somewhere in the top 25% of all Orange County cities.

WAITING AND WATCHING
So, we watch and wait to see what the next fabricated "fact" comes out of Righeimer's mouth...

Light of Truth Shines - "Your Neighbor" Whines, Again

Did you ever notice how some folks just don't like to have the light of day shined on their activities? It's interesting, isn't it?

INFAMOUS RIGHT-WING WHINER
There's a guy who operates a local blog - a man who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor - who has cranked up the volume of his hysterical rants over the past week or so. It seems the Daily Pilot, our local newspaper of record - which he refers to as "ultra-liberal" - has recently mentioned him by name and he just doesn't like it. This is beyond hypocritical, since this is the same guy who has never seen a microphone he didn't embrace nor a topic on which he wasn't prepared to offer an opinion. He whines that he's just a simple private citizen, then stands at the speaker's podium and waves his books around, encouraging all within sight or sound to buy them and read his "pearls of wisdom". This is a guy who revels in the fact that the OC Weekly has called him "one of Orange Counties most frightening people" - and has used that description as a marketing tool to sell his books. He's gained international infamy and is on the watch list of at least one organization that tracks hate groups.

KNEE-JERK NAME CALLING
Touting his alleged membership in Mensa, he condescendingly refers to those who disagree with him and his philosophy as "the usual dimwit and cowardly cranks". He accuses the Daily Pilot editors of publishing "letters of bigots who smear others". When I read those comments, and the remainder of that particular post, I started chuckling and still have not stopped. For him to refer to any other human being as a "bigot" is just hysterical. The phrase, "pot calling the kettle black" doesn't even come close on this one!

LITERARY EFFLUENT
As you scroll down the list of his essays on the New Nation News site you will find many that make clear his views on race. Heck, he's even chosen to adorn some with a swastika! His actions in our city have certainly been aimed directly at changing our town from one with significant diversity into one what is, in the words of Councilwoman Linda Dixon, "lily-white". That term caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth when she wrote it, but it was right on the money.

To save you a little time trying to pluck the pearls from the excrement in his essays, let me provide some links for you. Each of the following links will take you to an essay which is quite representative of the perverted viewpoints he espouses. They are not really "pearls", just hard balls of dung among the rest. These are just a few of the hundreds to be found at the site linked in the previous paragraph and on other far, far right wing sites.

Is The Swastika The Spirit In The Sky? (2000)
In which he postulates at the end that God is behind the swastika.

The Mutating States of America - Trust Your Eyes (2002)
In which he bemoans the dilution of the white gene pool.

The Recessive Race (2002)
Where his conclusion suggests that whites must increase their birth rates, including advocating polygamy and pornography as tools of propagation.

Breeding Humans (2004)
In which he begins by praising the Nazis for their selective breeding program and goes down hill from there.

America Got A Lot Darker This Week (2004)
In which he advocates "White Power", using images of swastika-holding neo-Nazis as illustrations.

Proof? (2004)
In which he attempts to debunk the holocaust.

Funny, You Don't Look Indian (2007)
In which he decries the "blending" of certain native American tribes.

That word, "blending" is representative of a theme that runs through many of his essays as he decries the dilution of the white gene pool by "inter-breeding" with "inferior" races. It makes you want to puke! After you've read these essays ask yourself this question: Is this the guy I want charting the course of my city? If your answer is yes, then I'm deeply saddened for you.

GOVERNMENT INFESTATION
This man has infested our city government with his putrid racial views for most of the past decade. He's used his considerable oratorical skills to sway members of the City Council and the commissions to his view. He's written prolifically, and, more recently, has used any number of pseudonyms to post comments on the Daily Pilot blog. Unlike most concerned residents of this city, he demands money from the Daily Pilot to publish his verbiage, then complains when views opposite his position on issues appear in the press.

When he accused the Daily Pilot of being "ultra-liberal" it made me laugh out loud because any position that differs from his is going to seem liberal. He's so far out on the right that he makes Ronald Reagan seem like a Communist.

PERVERTED IDOLATRY
I was watching a piece on the History Channel the other day that dealt with Adolph Hitler's rise to power. It went to great lengths to describe what a meek, introverted person he was in private, but how powerful his words were when he spoke before the masses. It talked about his plan to take over the German government by giving the people someone to blame for the state of their economy - someone to fear and hate - the Jews. He kept up a steady drumbeat on the subject and found willing listeners among those who were suffering because of the post-World War I German economy. After failure and imprisonment he eventually found just the right mix of circumstance and rhetoric to launch his plan for racial purity and the dominance of the Aryan race over those he felt were inferior. He chose to simply exterminate those who were threatening to contaminate the German gene pool.

Does any of that sound vaguely familiar? It should. Your Neighbor has followed the same playback and, sadly, is experiencing similar success. He's found a fertile field in parts of Costa Mesa in which to sew his seeds of intolerance and, with the election of a malleable council majority, they have now taken root. Hitler had the Jews, Your Neighbor has the Latinos - for now.

OFFICIALS LISTEN IN FEAR
You know our description of this guy and his actions are accurate because he's striking out viciously against anyone who dares to speak against him or who attempts to shine the light of truth on him. He has used threats and intimidation of council members when it looked like they might be turning away from him as Chris Steel finally did. I thought Steel was inept and a pathetic council member, but he was smart enough to finally realize what was going on and turned away from Your Neighbor - and incurred his wrath because of it. He's even threatened some current council members with a fate similar to Steel's if they didn't toe his line.

UNDERESTIMATING EVIL
A couple of regular posters of comments on this blog have opined that I over-estimate the influence of this particular guy in civic affairs - that he appeals only to a very small number of residents. I reminded them that he appeals to those in power, which counts a whole lot more than any other guy on the street. Those in power set the tone and establish the ordinances by which our lives are governed. To under-estimate this man's influence is a huge mistake. For example, the whole "Paularino Park" thing began with him as a solitary, but strident voice, complaining about marauding soccer players in "his " park a couple years ago. He created this "problem" out of whole cloth and, when it seemed that he was getting nowhere with this move to cause discontent among the Latino population in our city, he turned it into a public safety issue. Well, that's all the management of our city needs to hear - rightfully so. They cannot, and will not, ignore an issue that might cause harm to our residents. He continued with his drumbeat of discontent until he finally just wore down the process. His influence over our city council on this issue will likely bleed over into other neighborhood parks and result in there being many fewer places where kids can go to just "play".

INSIDIOUS INFLUENCE
Your Neighbor can continue to sit in his bunker in Mesa North and whine about the attention he's getting, but he's an insidious influence on our city and his role in the decline of civility and respect for all residents is obvious and worthy of discussion. As long as he continues to present a public face and spew his hate based philosophy he will be the subject of scrutiny. As long as he holds sway over certain council members he will be the subject of criticism. If he doesn't like it he can simply stop, but I seriously doubt he'll do that. He's on a roll now and seems all set to jump aboard a bulldozer to begin leveling Latino occupied apartments throughout the city.

KUDOS TO THE DAILY PILOT
Bravo to the Daily Pilot editors for boldly stepping up to this subject and for - as one blog commentor put it in an unfortunate, ironic turn of phrase - calling a spade a spade. That is their proper role as a community newspaper - to expose evil where it exists. I hope the readers in our city will finally understand what's going on and reject Your Neighbor's attempt to make this city a bastion of intolerance. If not, woe to us. If not, they will soon know what it was like to live in the deep South during the middle half of the last century - because that's the direction we're taking.

Bever Trades Veracity for Mendacity

At the end of last week the agenda for Tuesday night's Costa Mesa City Council meeting appeared on the city web site. I scanned down through the agenda items to the very end and found an interesting entry. It seems the council will consider sending a letter to President Bush decrying the "amnesty" bill that has been resurrected and may be passed by the time you read these words. That's not really the point of this entry.

Attached to that agenda item was a draft of the letter proposed to go out over Mayor Mansoor's signature, theoretically representing the views of the City Council. In the letter it made the following outrageous comment, "Our community suffers significant impacts as a direct result of unfettered illegal immigration, including hundreds of hit-and-run accidents every year in our small city alone."

Well, not only did this comment catch my eye, but two Orange County Register reporters, Jeff Overley and Tony Saavedra, saw it and investigated the claim. Apparently this piece of fiction was fabricated by the actual author of the letter, our municipal court jester, Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever. This is not atypical for him. He's been known to shoot from the hip and bend the rules with regularity.

According to an entry by Overley on The Total Buzz, the Register's political blog authored by reporters Martin Wisckol and Peggy Lowe, CMPD Police Lt. Dave Anderson, who told Overley that the cops don't keep such figures, was quoted as saying, "We're a little taken back by that, because we have (found) no correlation on hit-and-runs and illegal immigration."

According to Overley, Bever says there were 728 hit-and-runs in Costa Mesa in 2006, of which 284 were solved. Of those, 186 involved unlicensed drivers. Bever, without proof, infers that most of those people were illegal immigrants. He is quoted by Overley as saying, "We didn't have a rash of 14-year-old kids stealing mom's car and playing bumper cars through the city." That's a typical glib, smart-aleck response from him.

Subsequently, investigative reporter Saavedra reported, "A look at Costa Mesa arrest data compiled by the Register shows that only seven undocumented immigrants were picked up for hit-and-run between Dec. 5, 2006 and May 31. That is a far cry from the "hundreds" every year reported by Councilman Eric Bever. Even when you consider the number of illegal immigrants arrested for driving without a license -- 26 in the six-month period -- Bever's numbers don't add up. "

Prior to reading these reports I contacted the Costa Mesa Police Department myself, but no return call was received. I'm sure they were very busy trying to figure out how Bever came up his numbers. They needn't have bothered - he just makes up his "facts" as he goes along.

A check of the city web site on Saturday found a new, revised version of the letter to be considered by the council on Tuesday. Yep, you guessed it - the reference to hit-and-running illegals is gone.

This would be comical if it were not so darn important. This is precisely the kind of things I've commented on for years. Bever, Mansoor and their cronies really don't care if they have to play fast and loose with the truth as long as they get their way. Even though Bever continues to act the clown, this should deeply concern every resident of this city. It's clear from watching him that veracity is an "alien" concept to him (pun fully intended).

One more time... you just cannot turn your back on these guys or they will stomp on your rights eventually, too. Consider yourselves warned - again.