He’s baaaaaack. After declining the public outreach contract for the Crown Valley Parkway wid ening project, Roger Faubel apparently had second thoughts. He’d sent a letter to the city on Oct. 26 (published in the Nov. 5 blog), withdrawing from the process and leaving $100,000 on the table. By Fri., Nov. 11, Faubel had evidently withdrawn his letter of withdrawal and accepted the contract. The blog’s City of Characters award to Faubel still stands regarding his questionable performance on a no-bid contract in 2002 and his alleged lawbreaking on Aug. 1-2, 2005, in representing the Capistrano USD Trustees, among other foibles. And how is it that the city staff can accept a letter of withdrawal and then reinstate a $100,000 contract without conferring with the council?

Those who watched the Nov. 7 council meeting were treated to City Economics 101 on how to turn loss into profit. First, propose building a facility - a gymnasium, for example. If anyone questions the operating costs of $195,000 a year, create a formula whereby loss magically turns into profit. Call it the Vigilantes Baseball Franchise formula. Councilwoman Trish Kelley announced that a gym could generate income of up to $100,000 a year if the hourly rate for use were quadrupled from $15/hour to $60/hour. One instantly gets a headache trying to follow the calculations. Considering the operating costs of $195,000 and user fees of $60/hour, the gym would have to be rented 3,200 hours a year at the maximum fee to break even. Ms. Kelley from the dais then extrapolated a profit of $100,000/year, which would require 5,000 hours of operation (when the city said its use would be limited to 4,000 hours a year as a joint-use venture with CUSD) and ignore such other costs as insurance, maintenance, administration of scheduling, janitorial services, equipment and materials, utilities, etc. Sign up now for the 2 a.m. games.

A member of the audience joked about the exaggeration that city facilities could or would be operated for profit. He said, “The only real way to make the gym profitable is with pay toilets.”

The city has also missed an opportunity by failing to apply this principle to the sports fields in Melinda Park. Residents have noted the lack of restrooms as the primary cause of well-fertilized bushes. By installing pay bushes, the city could turn the sports fields into profit centers. Just kidding, but the underlying problem is serious and it warrants attention. Neighbors living near Melinda Park and other observers who have reported incidents believe that most of those who are abusing the park aren’t Mission Viejo residents.

To tidy up the defeat of the joint-use gymnasium proposed for the Newhart campus, one should set the record straight. Two council members and several speakers at the public microphone referred to “overwhelming” support for a gym. What overwhelming support? In a city with a population of nearly 100,000 and approximately 60,000 voters, what indication does anyone have of overwhelming support for anything? A showing of 200 residents - most of them children - at a council meeting was more likely an indication of an email campaign involving at least one council member and joined by PTA members and school employees. Children revealed that a Newhart teacher had offered “extra credit” to students for supporting a gym.

The most damaging testimony against a gymnasium at Newhart came from Capo Unified School District Trustee Marlene Draper at the Nov. 7 council meeting. When questioned by two councilmen, Draper explained the reason Newhart doesn’t have a gymnasium is that no one had asked for one. She said a gym at Newhart was not a priority according to input from the parents, administrators and community. While Measure A funds (bond passed by voters in 1999) could have been used for a gym at Newhart, Draper indicated it wasn’t a priority for trustees, who made decisions about school additions and modernization throughout the district.
If “overwhelming support” for a gymnasium exists among the 200 attendees at the Nov. 7 council meeting, the parents, teachers, PTA members and their children now need to go to a CUSD board meeting and demand that the trustees reconcile the difference by building a gymnasium at Newhart. Newhart also lacks numerous programs and amenities that many people consider to be significant. Considering Draper’s comments that a gymnasium hasn’t been a priority, perhaps a new survey is warranted at Newhart to determine if anything has changed … but that’s CUSD’s business.

Along with alleged “overwhelming support,” various speakers also talked about “an overwhelming need” for a city gym. On what basis? Instead of performing a needs analysis, city staff members wrote a laundry list of possible uses for the gym. On the list was everything from children’s clubs to exercise groups. Factor in the “new” cost of $60/hour, and most of the list evaporates. Clubs and interest groups don’t have money to burn. Such city facilities as the Potocki Center, the Emergency Operations Center and various library rooms are unused or under-used for one reason: most groups or individuals either can’t afford or choose not to pay fees they consider excessive. As an additional issue, city staffers are apparently not encouraging use. A resident was recently told by a city staffer that the city isn’t interested in renting such facilities as the EOC room. Other deterrents include insurance and cleanup fees. As an interesting twist, City Hall provides those making queries with a list of meeting rooms in other cities. A CUSD family in north Mission Viejo believed they were among the lucky ones because their teenager had a choice between attending Tesoro High, which is fairly close to their home, and Capo High, which was undesirable for various reasons. There’s a catch. (con’t on page 4)
Families who were given a “choice,” might not have bus service to Tesoro after this school year The parents calculated the cost of driving to Tesoro and realized it’s beyond their means. They called the school district’s bus yard and transportation department and got no direct answers, but they found out the district won’t send two buses into a neighborhood, and one bus won’t deliver students to two different high schools. Other problems the family had experienced with CUSD were compounded when they realized they had no real choice of schools. The mom responded to the latest frustration by joining those gathering signatures for the recall of the trustees. On a single day, she and a friend completed 26 “packets” of signatures. A packet consists of seven signatures for all seven trustees. Multiply that number (49 signatures) times 26 for a total of 1,274 signatures in one day. It wasn’t easy. They set up a table in Aliso Viejo at the Pumpkin Patch on Sun., Oct. 30, and worked from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Don’t mess with a mom.