Council Campaign Update
Staff editorial

For the third consecutive week, Diane Greenwood’s campaign manager is the subject of controversy. Greenwood is one of 10 candidates for city council.

During the first official week of the council race, Greenwood’s campaign manager was accused of making racist remarks in his email blasts. A recipient of his emails complained to the city council and city manager. During the second week, Greenwood’s manager was firing emails at the County Republican Central Committee. He wrote to Central Committee members, implying he speaks for the Saddleback Republican Assembly. Greenwood’s manager is not a member of the SRA and in no way represents its decisions or membership.

In week three, Greenwood’s manager had a letter published in the Aug. 25 Saddleback Valley News, misrepresenting a July 2003 council vote to give a business $600,000 of city redevelopment dollars to open an Audi dealership. He stood at the public microphone in July 2003, advocating for the redevelopment deal. In last week’s letter, he condemns the redevelopment deal and then claims to have saved the city money.

When Greenwood was talking about running for city council last fall, she changed her voter registration from Democrat to Republican. Now in a race with nine other registered Republicans, she might rue her decision. With only two women among 10 candidates, Greenwood could have had an additional edge by being the only Democrat. Now a Republicrat, she appeals to neither party.

Those who were recruited by Greenwood’s campaign (and declined to support her) give additional reasons for their distrust. One of them said Greenwood’s vision is to put affordable apartments on top of retail stores at La Paz and Marguerite and form a downtown area. Among the problems with razing stores, the shopping center owners are now enjoying full occupancy. If not the use of eminent domain, the basis for such interference with the market often involves tax dollars to enrich developers. Councilman Frank Ury appears to be promoting this scheme. As another red flag, city hall insiders are using the “R” word – redevelopment – when discussing the “problems” of La Paz and Marguerite. Problems for whom?

Property owners might realize they have a “problem” if redevelopment cash is waved in their face. Residents would have real problems if Greenwood gets on the council and pursues her “dream” of affordable housing at La Paz and Marguerite. As affordable apartments were added in the south part of town, neighborhoods declined, school test scores fell and graffiti began appearing along Crown Valley.

What a surprise – Greenwood’s ballot statement doesn’t mention redevelopment, eminent domain or downgrading a shopping area with affordable housing on top of stores. Instead, she sugar-coats it by saying, “Encourage our business community to upgrade facilities to retain, sustain and gain business.” The shopping center at La Paz and Marguerite doesn’t need Greenwood’s “encouragement,” and residents don’t want urbanization, crime and decline. At 100 percent occupancy, the area she’s targeting is already succeeding without government help or millions of tax dollars for unneeded redevelopment.

Despite the flap about a downtown area, one resident said of Greenwood’s candidacy, “She’s primarily a one-issue speaker at council meetings. She’s mad that she bought a house under the power lines and Southern California Edison added more lines.” Greenwood does mention power lines in her ballot statement, claiming “leadership.” She and then-candidate Frank Ury were a tag team in 2004 when SCE’s new lines were going up. Despite Ury’s pumping campaign literature into voter mailboxes before the election, the decision had already been made – sealed and delivered by the California Public Utilities Commission – to add the lines overhead. Ury’s group even blew the deadline to file an appeal. The CPUC approved the overhead lines, and SCE began the project in July 2004. Na‹ve voters living near the power lines put Ury signs in their yards and were still carrying him on their shoulders until Election Day in November. The day after the election, Ury’s battle cry abruptly ended. Two years later, Greenwood attempts to mimic Ury’s technique to get a seat on the council.

“Visionary” Greenwood apparently failed to notice the area’s growing need for electricity in 2004. If she wanted to lead the charge against more overhead lines, the time to do it was well before a letter from SCE arrived in mailboxes announcing additional lines going up. Those who circulated a petition regarding the lines may have given a false impression that all lines would be buried if residents raised enough hell. The lattice towers carrying the 220 kV lines were never part of the legitimate question – they weren’t coming down, period. Only the three new lines were at stake. Additional misleading information was spread with regard to paying for burying the lines. How many people would have signed the petition if they had known payment would come directly from their wallets? By the time the truth came out and residents were informed, the vote was 84 percent against paying to bury the lines and 16 percent in favor. Greenwood’s “leadership” also looped in the city council and cost taxpayers at least $150,000 to wage a fruitless legal battle. Burying the power lines was not, is not and will not be a city issue unless Mission Viejo residents vote to tax themselves silly.

Greenwood’s ballot statement regarding power lines fairly screams contradiction: “Bury the power lines and defend our residents against the oppressive power rate increases we are experiencing.” For residents who know burying the power lines would cause the most oppressive special-assessment district or citywide tax in the history of Mission Viejo, Greenwood’s final goal in her ballot statement is a real hoot: “Oppose all tax increases.”