Why Vote YES On Measure AA and NO on Measure BB
TRYING TO SAVE THE "JEWEL"
Measure AA on the Costa Mesa ballot was placed there by a dedicated group of volunteers obtaining more than 7,100 signatures of registered voters who joined those who wrote the initiative in their concerns about the future of Fairview Park - widely described as Costa Mesa's Jewel.
COUNCIL MAJORITY INTENT WAS CLEAR
The petition was circulated because of actions taken by the current City Council majority over the past nearly six years that implied a clear intention to turn this mostly natural park into something akin to a regional sports complex.
STACKED COMMITTEE
The Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee was created by the City Council and stacked with cronies who apparently followed the party line when creating a process to determine what should be considered for Fairview Park. They crafted goals and a list of issues to consider. The original 35-item list included things like hard-surface sports courts, playing fields and much, much more. The meetings evolved from a couple dozen attendees to well over 100 in some of the later meetings.
DR. MEHREN RESIGNS IN DISGUST
The committee went about discussing the park, quadrant by quadrant, over many months. The meetings were heavily-attended by concerned citizens and they saw the attempts by the stacked majority to manipulate the process. Finally, in January of 2015 - not quite two years after the committee was created - the chairman of the group, Dr. Richard Mehren, described by many in the community as the "Father of Fairview Park", resigned in disgust and shortly thereafter the committee was placed on hiatus.
PETITIONS CIRCULATED AND QUALIFIED
Dr. Mehren and a group of dedicated volunteers, the Fairview Park Preservation Alliance, launched their petition drive and, earlier this year, submitted more than 7,100 signatures - more than enough to qualify for the ballot next Tuesday. Their goal was to protect the park from what they perceived to be a focused effort by some in authority to violate the deed and add "facilities" of all kinds to the park venue.
COUNCIL CREATES CONFUSING MEASURE
The City Council majority, once again ignoring the will of the people and apparently unwilling to simply trust the voters and let this issue be decided in November with a Yes or No vote, cobbled together a bogus competing measure - Measure BB - to confuse the voters. It implies that no sports fields would be permitted at Fairview Park, but is worded to permit many other kinds of facilities "normally expected in a park". That left the gate wide open for development. And, the City Council authorized the City to spend $8,500 on misleading mailers to support Measure BB.
THIS VIDEO TELLS THE STORY
The following video presentation does an excellent job of defining the issue and provides you all the reasons you need to vote YES on Measure AA and NO on Measure BB.
VOTE YES ON MEASURE AA - VOTE NO ON MEASURE BB
Labels: Dr. Richard Mehren, Fairview Park, Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee, Fairview Park Preservation Alliance, Measure AA, Measure BB.
4 Comments:
Good one, Geoff! I collected a lot of the signatures on the AA petition. Many more people wanted to sign it than signed, but they lived in Newport or Huntington Beach or Anaheim or Fullerton or... You get the picture. At the Goat Hill Model Railroad, I collected about fifty signatures every day I was there -- but only one person in ten was an eligible Costa Mesa voter. We had people from Australia there, people from Britain, people from Connecticut -- people from all over the world.
Had Gary Monahan not defected from the Soviet Three almost three years ago, there would BE no model railroad right now. Righeimer, you may remember, proposed a fourteen-month extension of the OC Model Engineers' lease - Not enough time even to tear up all the track and move their equipment out. Fortunately, Sandy made a substitute motion for five years, which she and Wendy voted for; Monahan joined them, and grinned at Mensinger and Righeimer while they gave him the "stink eye". That lease expires sometime in 2018. Measure AA will prohibit the council from ripping out this world-renowned attraction to our city; electing our friends Jay Humphrey, Sandy Genis, and John Stephens will nullify the evil of the Soviet Three; and maybe, just maybe, we'll get the twenty-five year renewal we ought to have had on the railroad.
Aside from that, AA will make it impossible for these fools to implement their 42-space parking lot that only holds ten cars; their destruction of the canyon by paving it; and further denigration and degradation of vernal pools and indian burial sites.
Most interesting of all, had the Soviet Three listened to the citizenry, had they engaged in study and dialog instead of dogma and diatribe, had they maybe hired someone who could count to twenty with his shoes on, we would never have thought to gather the 7,135 signatures that we did.
Fairview is a well-beloved park. Mensinger should have walked it instead of the 3000 miles of Costa Mesa streets he has claimed -- though I have yet to see that particular streetwalker on any street I'm familiar with.
Disgusting; absolutely disgusting. I'm hoping that we will all wake up with some very positive news the day after the election.
Speaking of mensinger walking the park. . . What has happened to the investigation into the mysterious DG trail he's suspected of playing a major role in?
Department of fish and wildlife seem to be taking an awfully long time with their investigation. Could Dana have anything to do with that, or is it just typical govt. slowness?
It's too bad the dark side is using ADA access as a smokescreen to promote their agenda. Wilderness parks are not the same as city parks. Fairview Park meet ADA standards!
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