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Editorial Staff

Trish Kelley, who was reelected to the city council on Nov. 7, wrote a self-congratulatory letter to Saddleback Valley News, which was published Nov. 17. If Kelley wanted to thank anyone for voting for her, she could have done so with a few sentences. Instead, she wrote 300 words – an ongoing attempt to look good, despite her record as a council member. Readers are apparently supposed to believe Kelley should take credit for everything taxpayers funded during her four years in office.

Kelley was likely at the height of her ability as a community volunteer prior to running for council in 2002. She doesn’t appear to understand the difference between volunteerism and responsible decision-making. Kelley has no business background and, according to city hall insiders, she can’t add two and two. Staff members control her vote, either by cajoling her into believing they can make her look good, or they scare her out of voting against their wishes. Imaginary threats from the state and “loss” of city revenue are just two of their methods for controlling a council member who either can’t or won’t do her homework. Kelley doesn’t represent the residents, and her claims to listen are evidently limited to listening to city staffers. Some errant Capo school district parents mistakenly believe Kelley is on their side with CUSD. They need to look at the results – the deplorable condition of Newhart, for example, and the district’s funneling of their tax dollars into facilities in other cities. Kelley has blindly followed district administrators including Deputy Supt. David Doomey and former Supt. James Fleming while she ignored the fact Mission Viejo schools were falling apart.

Examples might shed light if anyone thinks the blog has an axe to grind with a woman who merely wants to appear as a friendly do-gooder. First, can anyone cite an example of Kelley’s do-gooding that hasn’t cost the city a fortune? Would anyone like to delve into the Mission Viejo Community Foundation, which Kelley pushed after pretending she invented it? What about Ms. Kelley’s costly city of character program? The basis of the character program – designed for schoolchildren – attempts to teach one word a month in schools failing to teach the Three R’s. As a digression, those claiming “award-winning” schools should look at the number of students who graduate with honors and soon thereafter enroll in remedial math AND remedial English at state colleges because they failed minimum competency standards. Similarly, the city of character has council members who need to enroll in remedial ethics.

Two recent examples of Kelley’s council non-performance are the board-and-care facilities concentration in Aegean Hills and the senior transportation fiasco.

Kelley has had four years to address the issue of an over-concentration of board and care homes in Aegean Hills. She claims there’s nothing she can do about it because the city staff told her such licensing is controlled by the state. According to city staff, no law enables the city to intervene as long as such facilities don’t have more than six occupants. Two weeks ago, an Aegean Hills homeowner wrote a letter to SVN, imploring the city to address the over-concentration and asking for the council’s help. Particularly ironic, the letter writer was among the few people campaigning for Kelley in the recent election. If the letter writer had been paying attention, she might have noticed that another council candidate has expertise in the field and knowledge of how other cities successfully curtailed conversions of private homes to care facilities.

When the Registrar of Voters releases a Statement of Votes with a breakout by precinct, it will be interesting to note how many Aegean Hills voters supported the incumbents. The incumbents have already given their answer regarding board and care, and it is the status quo, including overgrowth of care facilities, changing the character of neighborhoods, ambulance calls at all hours and caretakers’ cars crowding the streets around such homes. The irony is when Aegean Hills residents vote for the incumbents and expect anything to change.

Kelley in her Nov. 17 letter to SVN bragged about keeping her 2002 promise of delivering a senior transportation program. She ignored the issue for nearly four years and then desperately tried to slam a program together. The so-called pilot program focuses on residents who are at least 85 years of age. As a Casta del Sol senior remarked, “The only transportation seniors need at that age is an ambulance.”

Rather than starting with a needs-benefit analysis for senior transportation, Kelley instead found a solution for which there is no defined problem. A similarly costly program currently serving seniors provides rides for a grand total of nine participants in a city of nearly 100,000 people. Cost of the new program will exceed $200,000, and no one has bothered to ask how many residents qualify or have an interest in participating. Part of the cost will be a new city employee at $100,000 to manage coupons for taxi rides. For $200,000, the city could buy a taxi and hire a driver, providing free rides within the city to anyone who “qualifies.” An article in the Nov. 24 issue of SVN stated the cost of the program at $100,000. Did someone “forget” to mention the administrative costs – an additional $100,000?

Results of the Nov. 7 city election have been certified, and even Lance MacLean will get four more years to misrepresent the residents. Several blog readers pointed out that the total percentage of votes against the incumbents well exceeded the percentage of votes in their favor. Ms. Kelley in 2002 received more than 19,000 votes with approximately the same number of contestants in the race (nine candidates in 2002 and 10 in 2006). On Nov. 7, 2006, Kelley’s total was approximately 12,000. As one way to look at it, 7,000 people who supported Kelley in 2002 realized she shouldn’t be on the city council. Twelve thousand still don’t get it.