Mission Viejo Buzz - 04/19/08

The Buzz

Here’s another reason for Casta del Sol homeowners to be on high alert. The council’s April 21 closed-session agenda includes real estate negotiations between the city and Chabad Jewish Center of Mission Viejo. The property being negotiated is south of Casta del Sol Road, east of the city’s Marguerite Tennis Center and Marguerite Aquatics Center. Is this parcel targeted for another housing project? Those already fighting a developer’s effort to build housing on the north side of the road and carve up the Casta del Sol golf course now have two reasons to support the Right To Vote initiative.

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Following the recent discovery that CUSD built the new high school, SJHHS, in San Juan Capistrano near a high-pressure, jet-fuel pipeline, Capo spokeswoman Beverly de Nicola delivered the spin. Her statement appeared in the April 18 OC Register: "We're trying to ask a lot of questions and determine if the information is accurate," de Nicola said. "We don't see this as an unsafe situation, but we understand there may be members of the public who hear this information and will become concerned." Yes, the possibility of being blown off the planet is a cause for concern.

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Supt. Woodrow Carter took three weeks to close nearby sports fields at SJHHS after a CUSD parent publicly pointed out the jet-fuel pipeline. Prior to the new school’s approval, a report on the pipeline described it as having an automatic shutoff, which is supposed to operate within five minutes of a rupture or other problem. Given the shutoff is manual and owners of the pipeline would have to be summoned before it could be closed, their response would be about as timely as Carter’s.

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Another blog reader’s response to city employees changing the city’s image: “The Mission Viejo Co. developed a timeless image for Mission Viejo as a family-oriented, planned community and gave it a meaningful slogan, ‘The California Promise.’ Twenty years later, a few city hall employees coined their own hokey phrase, ‘Making living your mission.’ A city staff member found a clip-art wrought-iron tree and told us that’s our logo. I hope someone will run against the current council members in November and get rid of all these people. The higher-ups at city hall are ruining our community.”

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Following the city staff’s odd string of slogans in the City Outlook (“Make living your mission,” “Make education your mission,” “Make champions your mission,” etc.), here are messages to the city staff: “Make bad slogans your mission,” “Make wasting time your mission,” “Make annoying us your mission” and “Make wasting our money your mission.” The mission of city employees is clearly not the mission of those who live here.

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Council candidates are emerging, and the election is still six months away. Those talking about running include two well-known community members who are responsible adults. This doesn’t include another likely candidate, Diane Greenwood, who ran unsuccessfully in 2006 as an irresponsible adult who lied to the Fire Authority about her campaign. Greenwood listed her profession as a high-tech rope entrepreneur, which roughly translated as a housewife who hangs herself when given enough rope. She’s currently putting together another scheme that will cost the city a fortune. She and three other tinfoil hatters are foisting an EMF campaign on taxpayers as another false claim they’ll get the power lines buried. Has anyone not had enough of the rope entrepreneur?

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Comments continue on various blogs about city hall employees wasting an enormous amount of time planning the city’s weeklong 20th anniversary party. With no other major anniversary on the horizon for at least five years, can the city staff now be trimmed by 50 percent? If Trish Kelley’s “character” program were dropped, another 10 employees would have absolutely nothing to do. If Kelley’s failed taxi program ended, how many more employees could be laid off? Compare Mission Viejo’s bloated bureaucracy with that of neighboring planned community Rancho Santa Margarita. RSM, a city half the size of Mission Viejo, has fewer than 25 permanent, full-time employees. Mission Viejo has approximately 135. RSM uses consultants for services that are needed occasionally and avoids the costs of ongoing salaries of unneeded personnel, along with endless benefits and pensions. Mission Viejo employees who have such real responsibilities as maintaining slopes and other infrastructure have chosen instead to involve themselves in party planning, coining slogans and designing rock gardens.