What’s the Reward for Failure?
by Bo Klein

On Nov. 11, a local television program, “Real Orange,” reported on the Crown Valley Parkway widening project. The point of the reporters’ investigation was the question of why this project has taken record time to complete. My interpretation of the report was that this project has been mishandled by Mission Viejo’s city staff and that the project delays cost businesses to suffer and commuters to waste valuable time sitting in unrelenting traffic for the past many years.

I think it’s time the news media did, in fact, launch an inquiry into why this project has been such an embarrassment to the City. On camera during the Nov. 11 program, city employee Mark Chagnon offered ridiculous excuses, such as the need to move traffic signals, install sewers, etc., which are not reasons for delay but within the actual scope of work. Why would Chagnon claim these were the issues causing delays? The relocation of street infrastructure is exactly what was expected to be involved and completed when he first got the contract to perform those construction tasks.

For many years, Chagnon worked as an outside consultant for Mission Viejo and other cities on projects such as this one. But the news media headlined him now as the Director of Public Works for Mission Viejo. Is this true? The title was previously held by the current City Manager, a man whose former boss, deposed City Manager Dan Joseph, blamed for being the responsible party of the debacle over massive expenditures on a secret project at lower Curtis Park a few years ago. The City Council at that time dismissed Dan Joseph and awarded his job to the very guy who may have acted completely on his own, spending taxpayers’ money without City Council approval.

I did not understand then, nor do I now, why that City Council did not do a real, complete search in 2003 for a replacement City Manager who was not involved in the very issues that caused a clean sweep in 2002 of council members who dropped the ball on overseeing city staff. They promoted the very guy I would have fired. And, now, after many years of record failures to complete a basic street improvement project under his control, why is this City Manager still on the job? Clearly, to me, if he was a competent Director of Public Works before, he would have known how to manage the Crown Valley project during the many years it has dragged on and on and on. Apparently not.
A year or two ago, I read a newspaper report about this project’s delays, and when Mark Chagnon was listed as a consultant, he was quoted as saying the delay was caused by the gas company. That is a ridiculous remark, as the entire street improvement project did not rely on a single gas connection – not then, not now. And, any good construction manager knows when a utility company can get its end of the work scheduled and completed. You don’t start a major project based on the whims of just one utility company unless you are lacking experience at getting things done as a project manager. So, has this guy now been employed by the City directly? Has the overall county construction industry dropped to the point that he landed a job because no one else was available? If so, I assume the person doing the hiring, the current City Manager, hired a person who is in many ways similar to himself.

Does anyone remember that after the City Hall was built, a consultant or two on that project latched onto staff jobs? Why? That was the question asked by city council challengers who prevailed in that election, and later, those new staffers were dismissed. Point being is, do paid consultants deserve a lifetime job with the city after the project they worked on is completed? This question is of particular importance when the job they were hired to oversee becomes such an embarrassment to the City.

Is everyone familiar with the “good old boy system”? Seems to me it is alive and well. The only thing I have seen the City Manager manage well is some city council members like Trish Kelley, Lance MacLame and Frank Ury.