It’s a Road, Not Disneyland

During the June 15 council meeting, city employees gave details of their plan to install pictures on 16 recently erected pillars along Crown Valley Parkway. This blog’s staffers dubbed the display the A.R.T. (Another Rattay Travesty) gallery.

Among images to be installed, one piece summarizes the tone of the project. “Untitled” by Suki Berg is reminiscent of “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. Although Berg’s A.R.T. has no title, it’s another scream.

City employee Keith Rattay will place Berg’s macabre and disturbing self-portrait in the middle of a road that fairly screams for relief. Rattay’s gallery will join the other dysfunctional elements of Crown Valley: visual noise, blaring horns and angry drivers who sometimes jump from their cars to punch out road workers who aren’t working on the road.

Mission Viejo residents have watched – mostly in disbelief – as city administrators have degraded Crown Valley. “Before” and “after” photos show the roadsides were unplanned but not previously tortured by people with bad taste. That changed as Rattay decided the medians needed strange-looking stone structures, soon to be decorated with his A.R.T.

When a blog reader said the structures look like tombstones, it all came together. The grisly and morbid A.R.T. planned for the tombstones on Crown Valley is the second phase of the city staff’s message to taxpayers: the grim reaper is coming to town. For years, city hall has quietly been installing tombstones at every turn. Look at what the city staff demanded of retail centers and HOAs in the way of “monument signs.” The shapes are unmistakable. Nearly every major entrance has a family-size grave marker. Does someone in city hall have a relative in the tombstone business?

The crowning touch for Rattay’s Crown Valley fiasco could be the Kaleidoscope, Mission Viejo’s “entertainment hub.” If it could become an A.R.T. center, the Kaleidoscope’s top could flip open like a jack-in-the-box. Out pops a gigantic Chucky, the evil doll from “Child’s Play,” wielding a huge sickle and taking swings at passing cars.

When Rattay in 2006 described Crown Valley to the OC Register, he called it a “vehicular-oriented street.” WHAT? The problem becomes clear, now that he’s spent millions of tax dollars creating road hazards and other oddities. He has no idea that people driving on Crown Valley are trying to GO somewhere! He’s done his best to bring traffic to a standstill so everyone can contemplate dead palms, pillars that look like outhouses, an A.R.T. gallery and 400 trees planted during a severe drought.

Check other blogs for additional coverage: http://missionviejodispatch.com/?p=9508 and http://orangejuiceblog.com/2009/06/grand-opening-finally-arrives-mission-viejo-open-cv-pkwy-art-gallery/#more-23493

Recall Update: MacLean Loses It

As of June 21, proponents recalling Councilman Lance MacLean have 65 days to complete the signature drive. They continue to anticipate having the required number, approximately 9,350 valid signatures, and a margin of safety well before the Aug. 25 deadline.

Last week, MacLean clashed three times in three days with signature gatherers. In the first two encounters, he initially pretended to be an uninformed third party, asking the petitioners about grounds for the recall. But the third encounter ended differently. It may have been the sight of many petitioners working in many locations, but MacLean lost it.

Two people witnessed the third incident on June 17 in front of a store on Marguerite Parkway. One of the witnesses said, “I don’t know if MacLean spoke to the petitioner or if her presence alone set him off. I saw him leave the storefront, and he was either so angry or upset he was shaking. He got into his car and peeled through a parking lot that was crowded with shoppers walking between the store and their cars. He has no control over his anger.”

Storefronts near city hall have become a recall battleground, primarily because city officials have abused their power. Three store managers have been pressured by Council Members MacLean and/or Trish Kelley, who attempted to deny petitioners their First Amendment rights. On March 27, City Manager Dennis Wilberg interrupted a conversation between a petitioner and a voter at a storefront. Wilberg later said he was “setting the record straight.” Wilberg has an opportunity at every council meeting to speak into his microphone when he wants to address the public. It is not his job to do interventions on the street or eavesdrop on private conversations. Wilberg lives in Lake Forest, and he is ineligible to sign the petition or vote in the recall. As a city employee, he is legally barred from involvement.

Top city employees are on high alert that MacLean – their third rubberstamp vote comprising the council majority – will be removed from office. Without his vote, city hall’s taxpayer-funded parties could abruptly end.

O’Neill’s Sad Ending
Letter to the editor

Read a June 18 post on the Mission Viejo Dispatch on the closing of O’Neill Elementary School, http://missionviejodispatch.com/?p=9606&cpage=1#comment-2246 It was a sad day in the history of Mission Viejo.

Don't be fooled by Councilwoman Trish Kelley's "Pontius Pilate" act at the closing of O'Neill school. Kelley's maudlin speech made me sick. Neither Kelley nor Councilman Frank Ury was vocal or even present at the first meetings concerning this closure. Only Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht addressed the board in those formative meetings. 

I personally know that Ury was told to get it in gear at the early stages of this decision-making process. Ury chose not to act! MacLean, who lives in the neighborhood, has also been conspicuous by his lack of action. Now, after things are all said and done, the cowards on our city council act like they are going to punish SVUSD. Who are they kidding?

Dr. "Invisible" Fish did not even have the courage or courtesy to speak – or most likely be present – at the closing of the school. The absence of any board member at the closing of the school should also be so noted by the community. Obviously, the school board collectively lacks the courage of their convictions. Their collective absence sends a message: they just don't care.

Cowards can run, but they can't hide!

Joe Holtzman
Mission Viejo

Note: On June 19, the council belatedly added an agenda item to its June 22 budget workshop, a resolution of support for O’Neill. The item appeared to be posturing to avoid further criticism for not supporting O’Neill.

July 4 TEA Party Update

Saddleback Republican Assembly continues to update plans for the July 4 Mission Viejo TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party. New developments include live music provided by “Diamond Tom” for the 90-minute program, which begins at 7:00 p.m. on Sat., July 4. Jeff Morrow will serve as emcee.

SRA, which organized Mission Viejo’s April 15 Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party, is putting together the 7 p.m. rally. SRA is sponsoring activities throughout the day. All activities will be held alongside Mission Viejo’s annual Fourth of July Street Faire, which begins at noon and culminates with a fireworks display at 9:00.

The city’s Faire will be held on a closed-off section of Olympiad Road between Marguerite Parkway and Melinda Road. The Faire is a carnival-style event with food, music, crafts and games.

SRA members and other TEA Party Patriots will have tables outside both entrances to the Faire to offer voter registration and an opportunity to sign letters of protest to state and national officials. SRA’s activities will start at noon and continue throughout the day near both entrances. The TEA Party will begin at 7 p.m. at the west entrance of the Faire, between Marguerite Parkway and the entrance to the lake.

For additional information about SRA, call Matt Corrigan, SRA president, (949) 830-8088.

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.