The Buzz

The forensic audit of San Juan Hills High School began on Dec. 11. For years, parents have asked how the cost of the school’s site, 50-plus acres next to a landfill, grew to $52 million. Total cost of the new school has exceeded $150 million. Revelations of other troubling issues at SJHHS can be found in an attorney’s eight-page letter to the state attorney general, posted on the Capistrano Dispatch’s Website,
http://thecapistranodispatch.com/uploads/pdfs/2008/News%20Documents/CUSD%20Signed%20AG%20Complaint%20letter%209.15.08.pdf
Parents who tried to find out why CUSD paid the developer to make improvements on his private property say he wrongly received between $6 million and $10 million as a gift of public funds.

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From the time the city’s electronic sign went up at La Paz and Marguerite, letters to Saddleback Valley News indicated that residents are unable to read the sign. Lately, residents may have noticed that messages on the sign are appearing in larger type with fewer words on the screen. An observer wrote, “I finally discovered why I can’t read any of the messages. It’s not a message board, it’s an eye chart. They finally have the type big enough that I can catch a letter or two as I drive by.”

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The city survey of 2008 in which residents were found to be completely happy about everything was often quoted by Councilman Frank Ury during his reelection campaign. Mission Viejo blogger Larry Gilbert recently wrote about the survey on a county blog, OrangeJuice: “True North survey of Mission Viejo residents, Where do we get our news?” Read on at
http://orangejuiceblog.com/2008/12/true-north-survey-of-mission-viejo-residents-where-do-we-get-our-news/#more-15173 The survey claimed that 39 percent of residents get their city-related information from the “City Outlook” magazine. Was it a multiple-choice survey? If not, how can anyone explain that residents get their “info” from a city publication that arrives in the mail only four times a year? According to the survey, the puff-piece City Outlook at 39 percent beat the Internet at 25 percent. If the city ever had any credibility, it should be gone with that one.

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When results of the city survey were released in June, the flaws were obvious. A quick review of the company itself, True North, revealed that every city it surveyed had exceedingly happy residents. It calls itself a “research” company, but it’s a P.R. company that gets paid to manufacture data for whatever its client wants to say. In Mission Viejo, residents can expect the council to fund such surveys during city election years and release spectacular results just before council incumbents print their campaign brochures.

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A resident who went to Santa’s Workshop in front of city hall said that Wednesday evening is apparently the best time to go. She emailed: “After reading that a crowd was there for Santa’s arrival on Nov. 30, I didn’t know what to expect. At 7 p.m. on Wed., Dec., 10, there were more volunteers and employees than children. There was no crowd. The parking lot was about like an average night with people going to the library.”

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The city will hold a strategic planning session on Mon., Dec. 15, in the Jacaranda Room of the community center beginning at noon and ending at 6:45 p.m. An online article in the Register
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/city-council-session-2255501-workshop-strategic said the council will work together “for a consensus on a vision, values and key strategies to implement in the next three to five years.” The cost of having a meeting facilitator conduct the workshop is $20,125, which includes a follow-up session. The meeting won’t be televised.