Planning Commission: Crispy or Extra Crispy
Staff editorial

A longtime city activist commented to the blog, “The council had a chance to clean house with the 2003 dismissal of Dan Joseph as city manager. Instead, they turned over the reins to staff members trained by and loyal to Dan – same personnel, same policies. The staffer who became city manager had side-stepped the council to spend more than $200,000 on Lower Curtis Park in a make-work contract benefiting Granich Construction. Activists took it to the grand jury, but the council had made the mistake of approving payments to Granich. The fiascos continue because the same city staffers are running the city.”

Nowhere are fiascos more blatant than the city’s combination of inaction and bumbling with affordable housing. Council members lacked the leadership to act, and the city staff only had to wait for the state to apply pressure. City council members have enriched their own campaign treasuries with developer cash, approving more housing in a built-out city but failing to satisfy affordable housing advocates.

The city recently lost in the lawsuit filed by the Public Law Center, an agency funded by developers of high-density welfare housing. As an ironic twist, city commissioners at the April 23 Planning Commission meeting asked the Public Law Center attorney’s advice on affordable housing.

In fairness to the commissioner who missed the April 23 meeting, he was evidently the only one who didn’t appear inept.

The meeting’s main event was a public hearing regarding General Plan and development code amendments and zone changes. The city staff recommended rezoning four parcels that could be developed as welfare housing. Two residents who attended the meeting commented to the blog.

One attendee emailed, “This Planning Commission is scary. No one on the commission seemed informed, prepared or capable of making a decision. When they don’t read the packet or know what’s going on, they rubberstamp whatever city employees want.”

Another said, “The outcome was obvious from the beginning. The commissioners were led by the city staff to favor rezoning. The commissioners are supposed to make decisions and direct the staff, but they constantly asked the staff what to do. Then they asked the lawyer who sued the city what she would like them to do. The chickens were asking the wolf how they should cook themselves – crispy or extra crispy.”

The lawyer who sued the city (on behalf of her welfare housing client) seems to prefer Site A, across the street from Palmia on east Los Alisos, as the next location for low-income housing. A Palmia resident spoke during the meeting in opposition to rezoning Site A, saying such a high-density project would devalue Palmia homes. A commissioner emphasized that Palmia has no access gate on Los Alisos – as if a six-foot perimeter wall is an invincible barrier. The Palmia resident, who serves as its HOA president, presented the opposite view of his predecessor, who said at a December 2003 Planning Commission meeting he didn’t object to another parcel adjacent to Palmia being rezoned for high-density residential with affordable units. The red carpet, once rolled out, is difficult to yank back.

The lawyer representing welfare housing said some of the other three parcels are less attractive because of environmental issues or other concerns. The Planning Commission ignored residents, heeding only the comments of non-residents who intend to profit from more welfare housing in Mission Viejo. The council majority will likely do the same as the Planning Commission, and Palmia will have plenty of new neighbors.

CUSD update – Chapter 3
Sad facts about Mission Viejo School Facilities

Why does the Capistrano Unified School District think our Mission Viejo students don’t deserve proper facilities? Mission Viejo pays the bill while all the other cities get facility improvements. Schools are a reflection of our city. Where is our money, and why are Mission Viejo CUSD schools neglected?  

Did you know …

Newhart (built in 1980), the largest middle school in CUSD, has1,800 students.
When it rains, our children are left to eat in the rain or on the floor of the locker rooms and showers. The administrators said the kids like to eat in the rain, and no child gets wet who doesn’t want to be wet. Children have parents because they like to do a lot of things they shouldn’t, and we hope the adults on campus are watching out for them. (On April 20, it was pouring rain and the multipurpose room was CLOSED during lunch.) Mission Viejo’s Mello-Roos helped fund a private shower in the district superintendent’s office while our children are eating on the floor of the Newhart showers. The multipurpose room has a capacity of only 390.

Arroyo Vista (in Rancho Santa Margarita) is getting a second 2,900-square-foot, $3.5-million multipurpose room in addition to its current multipurpose room with a 600-student capacity. Arroyo Vista’s new building is 10,000 square feet, which includes the 2,900-square-foot multipurpose room. The rest of the building is comprised of practice rooms, etc. The student enrollment maximum capacity of Arroyo Vista is 1,050 students.

Newhart has 52 portables, most of them more than 15 years old and many that are more than 20 years old.

Capo Valley High School (built in 1977) is the only high school in South Orange County with no performing arts building. Aliso Niguel students left CVHS for their full-amenity high school in 1993. Tesoro students left CVHS for their full-amenity high school in 2000. San Juan Hills High School students will leave CVHS for their full-amenity, state-of-the-art high school in 2007

What do you do in a performing arts building at a high school? EVERYTHING!
Plays, musical performances, award ceremonies, parent and student programs, air guitar, talent shows, teacher in-service, club events and meetings. Bathgate students held their school plays at CVHS.

CUSD’s elementary schools in Mission Viejo are getting old and are not well maintained: Barcelona Hills (built in 1977), Bathgate (built in 1994), Castille (built in 1975), Hankey (built in 1977 and now in the process of converting to a K-8 with inadequate funding), Reilly (built in1991) and Viejo (built in 1971).

The Buzz column, April 27

City activists were noticeably absent from the April 23 Planning Commission hearing on affordable housing. A blog staffer called one of them, who commented, “Several years ago, activists came out in force against more housing, and we succeeded in delaying two projects that still haven’t been built. If Palmia’s HOA or the residents near Oso want to prevent a new project from going in near their homes, they need to rally the troops.”

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Coverage of the April 23 Planning Commission meeting in Saddleback Valley News looks as if the city staff wrote it. Among misleading statements: “Eight people spoke during the commission meeting, some of whom opposed the rezoning.” Here’s the rest of the story. Every person who spoke in opposition was a Mission Viejo resident. Every person who spoke in favor either lives in Santa Ana or didn’t state their city as required. Every Mission Viejo resident made reference to defending his or her quality of life. Every outsider indicated an interest in financial gain from building welfare housing in Mission Viejo.

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One of the April 23 speakers in favor of affordable housing who didn’t say in which city she lives is a manager at Mission Hospital. She said low-income hospital employees need a place to live and, apparently, taxpayers should finance housing for minimum-wage hospital workers. It is always interesting to see how special interest groups line up to spend other people's money. Perhaps if the hospital paid its workers a reasonable wage, then they would not have to grovel at the public trough.

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The Three Stooges connection: a blog reader pointed out the overlooked significance of having a city attorney named Curley. Bill Curley’s remarks fall short of quality entertainment – throwing pies and hitting people on the head with a frying pan.

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Councilman Frank Ury’s former fan club members finally get it. Ury campaigned for office as a fiscal conservative promoting open government, which ended abruptly after he took office. After more than two years of voting against nearly everything his fans support, his April 16 remarks about public speakers hijacking the council’s agenda may have ended the honeymoon.

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An insider shed light on the depth of Capistrano Unified School District’s turmoil, saying, “Interim Supt. Charles McCully began with a good attitude, talking about honesty and restoring trust. When he realized CUSD is a big mess, he just wanted to get the heck out of there as soon as possible.”

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