The Buzz column

Employment / Unemployment update: Students at UC Irvine report that Councilman Lance MacLean no longer works there, and no one has been hired to replace him in the student government office.

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A blog reader responded to a question in The Buzz a few weeks ago as to whether or not Councilman Frank Ury got a job with the Building Industry Association. The reader says no. Ury’s WiFi “consulting” business, Viejo Technology Group, seems to be his only gig. It’s a group of one, with Ury as the sole contact.

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Checking the city Website, when will MacLean and Ury’s bios be updated to show they’re no longer employed at UCI and Intel, respectively? UCI students think MacLean left a couple months ago, and Ury was pushing his WiFi business long before that. It’s not just curiosity about where they work; residents are entitled to know if council members have a conflict of interest.

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The Buzz can’t find anyone who attended the city’s meeting on Feb. 1 to discuss traffic circles or roundabouts. Perhaps a meeting to which residents are invited could be scheduled at a time other than 8:30 a.m. on a workday. A blog reader sent a remark about traffic circles: “I thought traffic circles or roundabouts were calming devices – intended to slow down traffic. If city hall’s intention is to slow down traffic, I’d say it’s already covered.”

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The Gateway Center at Alicia and Jeronimo is upgrading its landscape and hardscape, according to an item on Brad Morton’s blog, http://missionviejodispatch.com. That’s the way it should work – property owners remodel and upgrade as they see fit. What doesn’t work is when the city interferes, as it has threatened to do with the retail center at La Paz and Marguerite. Tenants of the latter property have already attended council meetings, telling the city to butt out.

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Morton’s article indicated Gateway’s owner is discussing its plans with city staff members. Will Gateway be held hostage until it agrees to put the “tree-man’s” clip-art logo on every entrance and building? Can anyone imagine the reaction in a corporate boardroom when real artists and designers look at the city’s new logo straight from a clip-art file?

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A certain saying applies when government becomes confused about its purpose. Examples are easy to find in Mission Viejo – the Potocki Conference Center, the Vigilantes baseball franchise, Kaleidoscope, selling park space to cell tower providers, hypocritical spewing of character words – just to name a few. The old saying fits: if government is the answer, it must have been a stupid question.