Countdown Begins

The October 5 council meeting is a bonanza for city employees and council majority members who excel at problem-causing. Residents from various parts of town will, once again, need to alert their neighborhoods to protect their homes, property values and peace of mind.

Agenda Item No. 16 is the certification of the petition to recall Councilman Lance MacLean. Despite efforts by City Manager Dennis Wilberg and Councilwoman Trish Kelley to thwart the recall, the council will now set the election date. If residents can remove MacLean from office and find a replacement to rescind lifetime medical benefits for council members who serve three terms, the net savings for removing MacLean in a special election could be huge.

MacLean could be recalled as early as Jan. 19, and council majority members (MacLean, Ury and Kelley – MUK) are running out of time. Residents should expect an array of wacky ideas that city staffers want to push through before losing “their guy.” As examples of MacLean’s usefulness to them, he pushed the Rose Parade float into reality, and he sat quietly as city employees turned Crown Valley Parkway into the laughingstock of south Orange County. Residents should also watch the MUKsters for attempts to pay off favors to special interest before the joyride ends.

The wacky idea of the month can be found in Item No. 8 on the council’s Oct. 5 agenda. This item will transfer ownership of Mallorca’s slope along Marguerite Parkway to the city. Mallorca is the gated development along the northwest edge of Lake Mission Viejo. Mallorca’s HOA board or its property manager allowed the slope to decline, with an estimated cost of $500,000 to fix it. Poorly maintained slopes are at risk with heavy rains, and one of these years, the prediction of another El Nino will be correct.

The city already owns more neglected slopes and other liabilities than anyone can count. Has the Mallorca transaction already been decided out of public view? We hope not. A genuine public discussion and deliberation on this matter should be more than a mere formality. With the transfer of Mallorca’s slope to the city’s list, Director of Public Services Keith Rattay will have a new area he can turn into a public display of over-planting, with the potential for pillars, obelisks and pyramids.

Agenda Item No. 9 will likely give a pass to a major nuisance in the Mission Ridge neighborhood – a homeowner who has been “remodeling” his house for eight years. His neighbors have been begging the city for help, which they’re not going to get from the current council majority. Instead of acting, the staff recommendation is to receive and file a report.

Agenda Item No. 15 is a request by the city staff to close the Mission Viejo library for future Readers’ Festivals. It seems they forgot to ask the council’s permission to close the library for the Sept. 12 Readers’ Festival. The vast majority of Mission Viejo residents did not attend or care about the festival, which took two years to plan. The project absorbed two full-time employees for two years as well as an enormous amount of time for many other city employees. The party lasted eight hours, and the benefit to the city was the receipt of several notes to the city manager expressing what a fun event it was.

Agenda Item No. 18 is a dog park, under the council comments of MacLean – what a coincidence on the evening the council will schedule an election to remove him. As the centerpiece of MacLean’s argument to stay in office, he says the city can’t afford a special election that could cost as much as $225,000. The design phase of the dog park will cost $258,000. The projected cost of building the dog park, including design, is $1 million. Average cost of dog parks in other Orange County cities is $100,000. As MacLean’s other argument against the recall, he says he’ll be up for reelection in November 2010, so why not keep him around for “just a few more months”? From January to November is not a few months, and residents cannot afford to keep him for even one more council meeting.