Mission Viejo City Council Elections
by Harry Lenczyk

This correspondence is an appeal to all Mission Viejo residents who need to know which city council candidates are best for its citizens.

About a year ago Sunrise Senior Living started an attempt to purchase Casta Del Sol Golf Course and convert it into a senior living facility and convert the remaining acreage into a park. That immediately got the attention of the adjacent homeowners and the many people using that facility, because it was a potential start of degrading our excellent quality of life, as we citizens have been enjoying for all our lives in Mission Viejo.

During the ensuing period since that time, we citizens have recognized that we need to have city council members who recognize what we have worked for and want to be part of retaining it without jeopardizing our future by unnecessary spending. We have observed that our representatives didn’t seem to be strong in telling Sunrise to go away because the city council would never rezone the golf course for anything but a golf course. We citizens put up a big fight against the Sunrise proposal and eventually got them to back off. We think this is temporary because the golf course is still for sale. The potential of having a city council soft on rezoning and needing to make money could result in creating changes in the city that are untenable to the citizens.

During this time when we were fighting the potential zoning change, we observed that our city was spending money on unnecessary projects and/or improvements. For instance, the funding of a Rose parade float, paying to have a new city image, easel-gate, $15-million upgrade to the Norman P Murray senior center, and additional tennis courts. Some of these things wind up requiring maintenance costs forever. It’s one thing to pay for something once, but to have follow-on costs is not something we should fund. At the same time the city is looking for ways to build up money reserves; that, if they did their job correctly, they wouldn’t be in this situation. This is just an example of what is developing in our community.

Therefore, it is apparent that our city government is ready for reform.

I have personally attended two meetings that were organized to have the candidates meet and state their case to the city residents.

One meeting was organized by City Council Member Gail Reavis. The other one by Mayor Trish Kelly.

Gail Reavis presented Cathy Schlicht and Neil Lonsinger. They fit our need for reform. Cathy Schlicht has demonstrated that she has identified the shortcomings of the city council at many of the city council meetings and is strong enough to carry through any changes in city operations required to satisfy us citizens. Neil is strong in money management and, teamed with Cathy, will strengthen the government of our city.

Mayor Kelly presented Frank Ury and Rich Atkinson. Incumbent Frank Ury seems to lean towards spending money and be too easily willing to go for projects that we don’t really need. Rich Atkinson appears that way also. He thinks the city paid for Rose Parade floats in the past, but that is not true. The Mission Viejo Company funded those floats when they were trying to get potential sales for homes in our area. Both these candidates are very politically astute, and listening to them talking the spin around our problems makes me insecure. They tend to lure the citizens into a state of artificial complacency.

The present city council members’ approval of doubling their monthly pay is an example of the majority of them not noticing what is happening around them. Have they noticed that our state and country are experiencing economic problems? Would an observant city council vote for this in the middle of widespread economic problems? No! I rest my case.

I, therefore, endorse Cathy Schlicht and Neil Lonsinger.

I’m Harry Lenczyk and I approve of this message!