The Buzz

Suddenly and without warning, council majority members (MacLean, Ury and Kelley) seem sensitive to residents’ concerns. For example, the council majority didn’t act regarding the closing of O’Neill school (except to tell teachers to take a pay cut), but a resolution is now on the council’s June 22 agenda about the closure. Majority members can make sappy remarks into the public record on June 22 (suitable for publishing in Saddleback Valley News and on the city’s Website) about the lamentable loss of O’Neill. Similarly, city officials are posturing about a dog park after more than 10 years of dodging the issue. Do city hall’s empty gestures have anything to do with the growing momentum to recall MacLean?

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City hall employees scrapped the mission bells that Mission Viejo residents honored with a logo since the inception of the community. More than a year ago, city staff members started emblazoning all city property with their own logo, the Mark of the Dead Tree. Staffers wear taxpayer-funded clothing embroidered with “The Mark.” On June 16, a recall petitioner asked two shoppers in front of a drugstore if they would like to sign the petition. One of them pointed to the dead tree design she was wearing, “Do you see this [dead tree on my shirt]? We’re city employees, and we can’t get involved.” City employees can sign the petition to recall MacLean if they are registered to vote in Mission Viejo. However, none of the top city administrators can sign because they don’t live here, and most other city employees don’t live here.

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City Manager Dennis Wilberg’s weekly insider newsletter, “The Week That Was,” has evolved since January when this blog began publishing its excerpts. Wilberg’s screed has shrunk to a few paragraphs, generally unrelated to city business. His June 19 edition goes on about the sculpture added outside the Sonic restaurant, which he says is “part of the citywide public art program.” A post on Brad Morton’s blog tells the rest of the story. Morton’s Dispatch says the city pressured Sonic owners to contribute approximately $10,000 toward the sculpture, which portrays a rust-colored Thunderbird on their property. Residents who have seen the project say it is junk that should be hauled away. Anyone who has a rusted-out inoperable vehicle parked in a driveway or curbside should list it on the citywide public art program and avoid those annoying calls from code enforcement.

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City hall has received complaints from residents and anyone else dodging orange cones on Crown Valley Parkway since the disastrous widening project began four years ago. When county blogger Larry Gilbert recently wrote about the project, his Orange Juice post drew a response from a presumed city staff member who calls himself “Hector.” Here’s Hector’s post: “I saw the work on Crown Valley recently, and I have to say what a huge difference it has made to the streetscape. The medians and pilasters look beautiful as does the new landscaping and fresh pavement. This project has created a grand entrance to Mission Viejo. You guys should be proud. I wish I had something similar to that where I live.” Could this ecstasy about medians, pilasters, landscaping, a grand entrance and fresh pavement come from anyone but Keith Rattay? All others “experiencing the streetscape” are drivers stopped in traffic, and they’re mad as hell.