Crown Valley Parkway Gets the Mark

City administrator Keith Rattay has lately invoked his power to further the standstill of construction on Crown Valley Parkway. According to a community member following the project, Rattay has changed his mind numerous times about landscaping. Among his latest demands, palm tree varieties were switched, with taxpayers incurring costs estimated at $10,000 per mature Mexican fan palm tree (up to $150,000 for trees on Crown Valley). Onsite workers were said to confirm that Rattay’s daily flip-flopping over vegetation is delaying completion of the project.

On Mar. 5, drivers who tried to navigate Marguerite Parkway south of Crown Valley crept along because of lane closures. A crane was parked on the road, hoisting more of Rattay’s palm trees into position on Marguerite.

Crown Valley was already an eyesore of clashing design elements before Rattay piled on. Blog readers have commented about the metal debris on a corner next to hospital buildings, installed when the hospital apparently opted not to pay for an art object. Another reader commented last week, “Many people who are going to the medical offices are already sick, and they don’t need the aggravation. Then they have to look at manure-colored walls and cow pies stacked into pillars on Cow Pie Parkway. Even well people are throwing up in their cars.”

Rattay seems to have a penchant for trees, and he may have found the clip-art of the wrought-iron tree that was foisted on residents as part of the city staff’s 20th anniversary spending spree. BrandStrata, the company that was hired to tell residents what Mission Viejo’s logo should be, took time during a council meeting to inform everyone that “the city has a lot of trees.” It could be that BrandStrata had the tree clip-art picked out for Lake Forest, which would be a logical choice for outsiders who don’t know that Lake Forest doesn’t have a forest (and not much of a lake). However, Lake Forest wasn’t so foolish as to hire BrandStrata. Perhaps no one at BrandStrata knows Mission Viejo means “old mission,” but more likely Rattay couldn’t find clip-art of a mission.

Aside from the "Mark of the Iron Tree," which is now stamped on every sheet of paper coming from city hall, Rattay has a special pox for private property owners. He holds them hostage during any process requiring a city permit until they agree to his “design” demands. This blog published reports when Pavilions and Gateway owners/managers balked at demands on how their property should look. Pavilions was ready to upgrade its interior for the pleasure and benefit of its customers but canceled its remodel after an encounter with the city staff. An insider confirmed, “Rattay is out of control.”

Rattay’s "color bowls," flat basins that were a fad of the mid-1990s, are popping up in Mission Viejo as if a Tijuana pot-maker had a fire sale . They’re along the sidewalk at the lake’s southern edge, peppered around the mall, along Alicia next to the new Rubio’s and, well, everywhere including the city’s Rose Parade float.

City property belongs to the taxpayers who live here, and Rattay isn’t one of them. He lives in Irvine. Former council members were dumped from office after they tried putting their names on public facilities. Rattay is more like a stray dog marking his territory, but with about the same reaction from the rightful owners