Council Meeting Reveals False Claims

On April 20, MUK majority council members (MacLean, Ury, Kelley) got caught in their own web. The topic was the retail center across the street from city hall. In 2007, the strip mall (Big Lots, CVS, Trader Joe’s, etc.) became the target of city officials who favor razing the center and rebuilding it with stores on the lower level and apartments on top. The privately owned retail center is outside the purview of city officials.

In 2007, Councilman Frank Ury initiated the process of having the Urban Land Institute conduct a study of the retail center for $30,000. Council minutes document that MUK majority members supported the ULI’s recommendations of housing on top of stores at Marguerite and La Paz.

Many residents first heard about the retail/housing plan during the recent signature drive for the Right-To-Vote land-use initiative. The initiative, which qualified for the 2010 General Election, would prevent such rezoning without a popular vote. Many residents signed the initiative either to save the Casta golf course or prevent the city’s meddling in other areas.

Not only did residents sign the land-use petition drive that successfully ended in January, they’re now signing MacLean’s recall papers for one of the same reasons – council nuttiness about the retail center. When residents privately complained to Councilwoman Kelley about the plan, her response was to deny from the dais that the council supported it. She publicly denied it during the Feb. 24 meeting, falsely claiming the council’s response was “thanks but no thanks” to putting apartments on top of stores.

At last Monday’s meeting, Kelley introduced an agenda item to reject ULI’s 2007 report two years after the fact. Perhaps she thought she could dissuade residents from signing MacLean’s recall petition, but she was wrong. As soon as she stated on April 20 that the council had rejected the plan in 2007, Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht read minutes from the 2007 meeting. All three MUK majority members had enthusiastically endorsed the idea. Additional details of last week’s meeting as well as the 2007 minutes can be found on two other blogs, http://missionviejodispatch.com/2009/04/23/councils-urban-denial-amnesia-delusion-or-lies and http://orangejuiceblog.com/2009/04/amnesia-delusion-or-lies-mission-viejo-councilwoman-kelleys-urban-revisionism

Kelley and Ury supported apartments on top of stores, and MacLean’s supportive comments demonstrated his usual in-your-face attitude toward residents. As just one example, he said, “I don’t have a lot of heartburn over the concept of housing in that location, understanding of course from where I sit, for the residents that do, if you don’t like it, don’t live there.”

The incentive to sign MacLean’s recall petition following last week’s council meeting now includes the new revelation that the council majority supported the wacky idea and then lied about it. Residents who are signing the petition to recall MacLean can read documents that demonstrate the MUKsters like to do things behind the backs of residents and lie when caught. With regard to the MUKsters’ support for apartments on top of stores, Kelley should have stopped when residents merely thought council majority members were off their rockers.