[Editor’s note: Following is a resident’s response to the council’s two hearings, beginning with a 3-2 vote on April 16, when Councilmembers Gail Reavis, John Paul Ledesma and Trish Kelley supported neighbors who didn’t want a single-family home on Calle Hogar turned into a boardinghouse. When the time came to ratify the decision on May 7, Reavis flipped and voted with Councilmen Frank Ury and Lance MacLean, allowing plans to proceed on the remodel.]

Lobbyists Run City Hall
Letter to the editor

They almost got it right: A previous city council meeting [April 16] saw the council get it right by a vote of 3 to 2. Between the first meeting and the second meeting [May 7], the lobbyist (as indicated by Councilman MacLean) for the property got next to a couple of the city councilmen and the council reversed its decision. The influence of this paid lobbyist was very obvious because Councilman MacLean gave a dissertation right from the mouth of the "gentleman" who represents the temporary owner of the property in question. I say temporary owner because it's obvious this property is being remodeled to be an eldercare facility. This temporary owner has done this several times in the past, and each time she goes through the same routine and winds up spending a few bucks on a hired gun, getting a permit to remodel the property, and then selling it off at a big profit. I'm all in favor of making a profit from business transactions, but I'm not in favor of making a big profit at the expense of our neighbors.

I appreciate that the state of California makes eldercare facilities legal and forbids townships from passing any laws that would deprive someone from modifying a property for that purpose. However, there are still factors associated with the impact to surrounding properties. These factors were considered when the petition was granted [on April 16] by a vote of 3 to 2, but during the May 7 council meeting, those factors were pretty much ignored. It might be noted that the hired gun for the temporary owner was not present at the May 7 meeting. There was no need: he had done his job – quite well – behind the scenes and had been assured what the outcome would be.

We have a city government run by small-time lobbyists, and it's just not healthy.

James L. Garner
Mission Viejo, CA

Almost Everyone Knows
Editorial staff

The May 4 freeway crash that killed the three Coble children got the attention of John Kobylt and Ken Champou, who aired their reaction (KFI 640 AM John and Ken Show) on May 11. According to listeners who called in, those who take the Oso exit during peak times are familiar with cars stopping on the freeway because the exit ramp is backed up.

A blog reader forwarded information from the May 11 talk show. For example, 2,281 car crashes have occurred in the vicinity of the Oso ramps since 1997. A law-enforcement official drew fire for saying the crashes were mostly minor. The talk show hosts said the number alone should have alerted city and highway officials to the problem’s severity.

The talk show underlined the failure of various agencies to establish a traffic control system. The Coble parents hired a lawyer, and blame will be distributed. Initially, John and Ken remarked about the truck driver who hit the Coble minivan. According to news reports, he was driving 55 to 60 mph and couldn’t see the stopped traffic as he came around a curve. If he were distracted, that’s another story. Otherwise, cars piling up are evidence of a dangerous situation.

One person who called the talk show on May 11 said he saw another crash in approximately the same spot on May 5. After three deaths on May 4, could Caltrans not put up a flashing mobile sign to prevent more crashes? With $11 billion collected in taxes for Measure M, warning signs at the most dangerous points on the freeway would be within the budget. Another talk-show caller familiar with the road said she avoids the Oso exit by getting off the freeway at Avery – going beyond her closest exit for safety’s sake. 

Plenty of drivers have complained to government officials about the dangerous situation of cars stopped on the freeway at Oso. No one can say, “We didn’t know.”

A blog reader emailed, “Following the tragedy, lawyers will determine which parties have the deepest pockets.” Will the city be high on the list?

What’s the basis for Mission Viejo’s liability? The collective memory of blog readers is thus: the city knew about traffic backing up and had the opportunity to remedy the hazard but did not. While Caltrans widened the freeway from north of the Oso ramps to Crown Valley, the extra lanes didn’t adequately compensate for traffic slowed to a crawl on Oso, nor were any lanes dedicated to exit-only traffic. Councilman Frank Ury allegedly made a remark that the city shouldn’t be concerned about traffic backing up because the slowdown will cause drivers from communities to the east to find alternatives instead of cutting through Mission Viejo. The Planning Commission years ago voted unanimously in support of widening Oso, but the council didn’t appropriate funds because residents living near Oso objected. The city employee responsible for synchronizing lights has a pat answer that it can’t be done, which is ridiculous.

Blog readers also indicated Caltrans installed cameras, and the monitors are in city hall. City staff knows when traffic is backing up on Oso and creating hazards on the freeway. They know the patterns, hours and degrees of clogging. All remedies to get traffic moving have come to a screeching halt because of a claim that nothing can be done about it.

The council failed to light a fire under those refusing to do their job. Perhaps some readers think the blog has unnecessarily criticized council members like Trish Kelley for coming up with words of the month and inane social programs instead of dealing with real issues. The city regularly pays a high price for council incompetence, and the recent fleecing of the city by poverty pimps pushing welfare housing is just one example.

A team of attorneys will now ask questions and get answers regarding the slowdown of traffic on Oso. City employees will respond – and in a timely manner – instead of brushing everyone off, as they have done with residents for years.

Special Students Benefit from Polfit
CUSD news brief

Capistrano Unified School District officials went out of their way to discourage a CUSD parent from asking for help. Her son was diagnosed with autism, and they said he’d never progress.

A year ago, his mom told the blog, “The district would rather fight with parents, even it means a lawsuit, than provide special education. In my case, district personnel went to great lengths, researching how to avoid paying for my son’s special education.”

The blog received a call this week – a follow-up report on this special child. The mom said, “My son finally got started with appropriate education at the age of 16. He’s making progress. It’s like a miracle after the district preferred to let him lie in bed all day.”

Training in special education is being provided by Polfit. Parents with autistic children can visit the Website, www.Polfit.com, to learn about intensive therapy for special students.

Citizens 0 for 2 at May 7 Council Meeting
by Dale Tyler

Our esteemed city council failed, once again, on their collective obligation to protect and defend the citizens of Mission Viejo. They agreed to the further destruction of Mission Viejo's business tax base, thus almost ensuring future generations in Mission Viejo will curse the names of these council members, similar to the Butterfield-Withrow-Craycraft council.

What did they do that was so anti-citizen? First, they approved rezoning of four commercial properties to very high-density residential. With a density of more than six times that of the rest of the city, these properties will be developed in such a way to take the maximum money from the rest of Mission Viejo citizens' pockets. This is because housing, especially high-density housing, uses more services than the residents pay in taxes. In the case of the Steadfast/Target property that was recently rezoned by this same council, the net cost to the rest of us is about $5 million over the next 10 years. I would expect this loss to be multiplied for the other four properties, giving us a loss of $2 million-$3 million per year. Yet, this council has now rezoned a total of six properties from commercial to very high-density residential. One must ask why, and the answer seems to be a combination of a lack of courage to stand up to the poverty pimps, a desire for campaign contributions from developers and the BIA (Building Industry Association) and a general misunderstanding of the reasons for the zoning that was done when the city was originally “Master Planned.” Mark my words, this self-serving, short-sighted view will come back to haunt the city in the coming decades. The loss of $20 million-$30 million over 10 years will mean reduced services and possibly higher taxes and fees as the city runs out of money.

You may hear various council members saying “We had to comply with the low-income housing law,” and to some extent this is true, although the so-called law is only a set of guidelines. However, there were ways of complying with the guidelines that would have had much less impact on the city. For example, to meet our current and future needs for low-income housing, we could have rezoned a single area, capable of holding 200 or so low-income units in a secure (walled) area and then placed the Mission Viejo Right to Vote ordinance on the next ballot, thus ensuring that no more housing would be built in Mission Viejo without voter approval. This would ensure that very few low-income units would be needed in the future, since the need for such units comes from building “normal” housing units, at about one low-income unit needed for every seven “normal” units built.

What the council did by their rezoning ordinance is to perpetuate the low-income pyramid scheme by only requiring 15 percent of the zoned units to be built as low income. This ensures that yet more units will be “required” by the guidelines. At the very least, they could have required 25 percent to 50 percent be built as low income to cover future needs. I bet their developer contributors would have hated that.

Also at the May 7 council meeting, Reavis, Ury and MacLean voted to overturn the completely sensible decision to deny a massive addition to 23732 Calle Hogar that would have more than doubled the size of the house. The notice for the May 7 meeting said that the staff suggested deferring the item until the May 21 council meeting, to give the staff time to get neighborhood input on the proposed changes from six bedrooms to four. However, the council went ahead without getting a full sense of what the neighbors thought. The previous plan (six bedrooms) was protested by virtually ever close neighbor who pointed out that it would cause parking and other problems. It turns out that the owner of this property, Lori Ghnouly, wanted to get immediate zoning approval, so she could expand the house and then probably flip it for a profit. While profit is a good thing, leaving her former neighbors with the problems seems somewhat unkind, to say the least. It seems the likely purpose of the addition is to house renters, not her family. What kind of renters would they be? Only time will tell, but it could be used for disabled eldercare or drug rehabilitation or sex offenders. Given the profit motive of the additional space, my guess it would be the highest bidder. The state of California pays top dollar to house sex offenders.

Once again, we lose. Remember this at the next election.

The Buzz column, May 18

Where will Mission Viejo’s ”cut and shoot” housing development be located? Those placing bets say it will be near Palmia (east Los Alisos next to Mission Foothill Marketplace). Palmia residents voiced their objections at the May 7 council meeting, but the fix was in. Councilwoman Trish Kelley doesn’t want more slum housing in “her” school district, Capo USD. The property near Palmia was the only one of four parcels up for rezoning that’s not in CUSD. Councilmen Frank Ury and Lance MacLean likely reveled in sticking it to Councilwoman Gail Reavis, who lives in Palmia. Although all four parcels were rezoned, Palmia will likely get the next welfare housing project as a neighbor.

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Political gaffe of the week: Councilwoman Reavis suggested during the May 7 council meeting that the parcel outside Casta del Sol’s Gate 1 should be on the list of potential affordable housing sites. Casta residents noticed, with one remarking to the blog, “I haven’t been interested in city politics because it’s such a mess, but count me in for the next election.”

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Casta del Sol has a solid record for getting out the vote. It still has the highest number of voters among gated developments in Mission Viejo (2,844), but Palmia is No. 1 in voter turnout. In fact, the west half of the Palmia community was out of sight with 88.2 percent in the 2006 election. Mission Viejo’s voter turnout in November 2006 was considerably lower than usual at 54.8 percent (59,563 residents are registered but only 32,521 voted).

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The Capo school district has had every kind of problem with its “dump” school, San Juan Hills High School, located next to a landfill in San Juan Capistrano. The district announced the school might open with only 590 freshmen and no other classes. With only 155 prospective sophomores, the number is too small to pencil out. A Capo parent informed The Buzz that district officials made a lot of strategic mistakes. They focused their recruiting effort on private schools and opened boundaries as well. Still, not enough students wanted to attend the dump school, which is located under power lines alongside a road less traveled, except by trash haulers. Along with volts and vermin, the long-delayed opening (originally set for fall 2005) and soaring costs (more than $140 million) make this CUSD’s biggest boondoggle to date.

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Neighbors near the Steadfast/Target parcel at Jeronimo and Los Alisos have watched – mostly in horror – as bulldozers created a surrealistic landscape. A neighbor with a view of the property emailed an update: “First, it looked like a strip-mining operation with complete destruction. Next, it took on a Matterhorn profile. It now reminds me of a scene from ‘Encounters of the Third Kind,’ when Richard Dreyfuss went completely nuts and built a replica of Devil’s Tower out of mud in his living room. I expect the mothership will arrive soon.”