The Buzz

Santa Claus is arriving early this year in Mission Viejo. Top city employees and the council majority members (MacLean, Ury and Kelley) have joined together to fight the recall of Councilman Lance MacLean. During the Oct. 5 council meeting, the MUK majority put a dog park in Oso Viejo Park as an early Christmas present to the dog park supporters, costing taxpayers $258,000. They also gave approximately 200 tennis players a facility redo as an early present, costing taxpayers $4,000,000.

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If Lance’s supporters say the city can’t afford a special election to recall him, they must be joking. The MUK majority just threw $4,258,000 into his anti-recall campaign during one council meeting. They said such spending is no problem for a city awash in cash. The city has approximately eight more council meetings before voters can recall MacLean. Such removal would enable a new majority to rescind lifetime medical benefits to council members who go to two meetings a month for three terms. Recalling MacLean could save taxpayers $225,000 per council member.

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Mayor Frank Ury says MacLean would be up for reelection “a few months” after the recall in early 2010. From February to November isn’t a few months, and voters should note the damage the MUK majority inflicted to the city treasury in just one meeting. Consider that Capo school district voters removed two Fleming-era trustees in a special election in June 2006. The regular election was five months away, and the old trustees lost by a wide margin in the special election. The old trustees used the same argument against a special election, and it didn’t work.

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When Ury gave MacLean all the time he wanted to campaign during the Oct. 5 meeting, MacLean reminded voters why he should be recalled. For example, he touted the Crown Valley widening project.

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City Manager Dennis Wilberg came up with only 11 sentences for his weekly insider report, “The Week That Was,” and he wrote only about roadwork. Is it because Wilberg was formerly the director of public works and streets are his focus? Or is he still smarting from being hammered for saying Mission Viejo streets are in better condition than Lake Forest’s? With almost no text and a lot of empty space to fill, he added two pictures of trucks – one coming, one going.

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Did city administrator Keith Rattay get enough photos from residents to replace the grotesque graphics on 16 pillars along Crown Valley Porkway for his new exhibit? With the deadline extended a couple weeks, the city staff will have time to take “resident-provided” pictures, just as they did for Rattay’s Easelgate fiasco of April 2008. If residents want to know what city officials really think of their work, consider the interior walls of city hall. Mission Viejo artists asked several years ago if they could display their work in a rotating art display inside the building. Heck no! The city staff instead purchased hundreds of cheap pictures that look like they were cut out of magazines. The city then paid a framer to put the pictures into pricey frames with mats.