Make Controversy Your Mission

Despite the Rose Parade float being panned by the community, the city’s spin goes on. During the Dec. 1 council meeting, Mayor Trish Kelley said thousands of residents have participated in float-making. She stretched the use of “thousands” by saying “nearly 4,000 time slots have been filled.” What does that mean? If a family of five from Rancho Santa Margarita stays for hours to do multiple “shifts” and then comes back repeatedly, do they rack up 50 time slots? Activists visiting the site and expecting to see “thousands” say the numbers are greatly exaggerated and so-called Mission Viejo residents are coming from other cities.

Given that more than 50 percent of cardholders for Mission Viejo’s library don’t live here, city taxpayers are funding a regional library. City taxpayers are apparently funding regional float parties as well.

Another of Kelley’s Dec. 1 claims about the float caused some audience members to ask if they’d heard correctly. Did she say the Rose Parade float is a national ad for the city? The implication is that a 15- to 30-second spot on TV is equivalent to a Super Bowl ad and the city has something to sell.

Longtime community activist Don Wilder commented about Kelley’s remark: “I am wondering what it is that Mission Viejo has that is worthy of advertising. New homes? – uhhh, aren’t we built out? The shopping? – why here?  The Shops at Mission Viejo? – not likely with the Irvine Spectrum and South Coast Plaza so close. The boutique auto dealerships? – again, not likely worth any city investment (especially after the tax giveaway to get them here in the first place). Lake Mission Viejo? – nope again. Not really part of the city operation or revenue-generation infrastructure. The recreation centers and parks? – not unique to our town and certainly not worth the advertising ‘investment.’ So I ask the city council, just why do we need to advertise? And, I am wondering how much of the contracted expenditure for the Rose Parade float will find its way back into the city council members’ campaign coffers.”

Councilman Frank Ury added his spin to another subject at the Dec. 1 meeting following a report the city spent nearly $12 million more than it took in during the past year. The matter was correctly described as deficit spending – when spending exceeds income over a particular period of time. Ury insisted it wasn’t deficit spending because it was planned.

A city employee also said the bulk of the $12 million was for one-time expenditures, but that doesn’t explain what happened. A large portion of the deficit was caused by change orders on the community center expansion. The council approved so many changes that the one-time expenditure ran three times over budget. Nor is the widening of Crown Valley Parkway simply a one-time expenditure when the mismanaged project has become a career for some city staffers and contractors. The same mismanagement is applied to each new “one-time” endeavor, and Oso Parkway is next.