MacLean Loses It

Councilman Lance MacLean is mad at Mission Viejo residents who think his uncontrolled anger is a reason to recall him. MacLean’s tirade during the Oct. 5 council meeting demonstrated just how angry he is.

When the council addressed Agenda Item No. 16, certification of the recall petition, MacLean lashed out. He began by stating the reasons to recall him are “nothing but lies and mistruths.” Minutes later, he flipped by saying he didn’t do it by himself.

MacLean’s accusations about lies, followed by his conflicting statement he didn’t act alone, caused audience members to laugh out loud. When MacLean said other council members are as guilty as he is, someone in the audience called out, “What about your assault and battery”?

MacLean alternately admits to and covers up his assault and battery. When an OC Register reporter called him in February 2008 about the altercation at UCI, MacLean lied to hide his identity. After OCR broke the story, he publicly apologized during a council meeting, saying his attack on a co-worker was the worst mistake of his life, causing him to lose his job at UCI. Here’s a link to the UCI newspaper article and police report: http://www.newuniversity.org/2008/02/news/former_asuci_director_charged55/

In a Nov. 5, 2008, OC Register article, MacLean evolves from perpetrator to victim. Reporter Erika Ritchie wrote, “If he weren’t a public figure, he says, his altercation at UCI wouldn’t have been in the papers.” MacLean lamented to Ritchie that prospective employers were finding out about his anger issues by going online.”

Does his public apology jibe with being the victim? His Oct. 5 denial of recall charges as lies just before saying “I didn’t do it alone” indicates another personality disorder. Is MacLean a one-man debate with multiple personalities?

When Councilman John Paul Ledesma made a motion to approve the recall certification as a procedural matter, MacLean attacked him, calling him “J.P. Lobotomy.” Mayor Frank Ury told MacLean to continue, but he cut off others, including Ledesma. MacLean said, “I could go on and on, and I will because I’ve got the microphone.”

Approximately 50 people, including children, attended the meeting only for the dog park item, which should have been called early so they could leave. It was no accident that animal lovers were still sitting there, and Ury likely knew that MacLean intended to imply that recalling him would harm animals. As part of MacLean’s diatribe, he stated, “The 10 people who want to recall me want to advance a radical agenda … including closing, selling or privatizing the animal shelter, which is a no-kill shelter.”

The recall of Lance MacLean is unrelated to the animal shelter. To the contrary, some of the 51 original proponents of the recall are longtime volunteers at the shelter.

MacLean mentioned on Oct. 5 that Bo Klein initiated the idea of a Mission Viejo dog park. Klein, a contributor to this blog, reacted, “I asked MacLean prior to his first election in 2002 if he would support a dog park. He knew my opinion and told me during his campaign that he would support it. He was elected in 2002, and he’s been sitting on it for more than seven years. Between the time he was campaigning and the day the recall petition was certified, I saw no indication he supported a dog park.”

At the next council meeting, Oct. 19, the council will select an election date, which the city clerk says will fall between Jan. 15 and Feb. 21.

Dog Park Vote Surprises Homeowners

The council’s 3-2 vote on Oct. 5 to build a dog park in Oso Viejo Park took many people by surprise. Residents who live near the site were particularly surprised. Another agenda item – not the dog park supporters – appeared to be the driving force behind the quick decision following many years of inaction on a dog park. The other item on the agenda was the Certification of Petition for the Recall of Council Member Lance MacLean.

Dog park supporters gathered signatures on an informal petition while recall volunteers worked at storefronts. Several times, the two groups worked alongside each other. While the dog park group gathered 1,100 signatures, the recall supporters got nearly 14,000. Apparently, MacLean believes he just bought 1,100 votes (cost to taxpayers: $258,000) to save his seat in the recall election. However, many people signed both petitions.

Homeowners who live near the dog-park site made public comments before the council voted. Each one begged the council not to put a dog park near their homes. The council had previously directed the city staff to consider sites that wouldn’t be in a city park or near schools or homes. The Oso Viejo Park location fails to meet any of the three criteria.

Some residents have suggested that an area adjacent to the animal shelter is the best spot for a dog park because no homes are nearby. The city staff sided with animal shelter workers who said barking dogs outside the shelter would disturb dogs inside the shelter. On Oct. 5, the council majority of MacLean, Ury and Kelley ignored concerns about noise disturbing homeowners (as well as concerns about safety, maintenance, cleanup, costs, parking, overcrowding of the area, property values and incompatible park uses).

Not only were homeowners ignored – none of them even received notice of the agenda item – the council majority also bypassed the Community Services Commission, which was evaluating the need for a dog park and possible locations that wouldn’t impact homeowners. The commission’s schedule for next week includes discussing a dog park.

Mission Viejo resident Larry Gilbert posted a story about the dog park on a county blog, OrangeJuiceBlog.com, referring to the process as agenda manipulation: http://orangejuiceblog.com/2009/10/agenda-manipulation-to-support-mission-viejo-councilman-lance-maclean/

A homeowner who lives near Oso Viejo Park gave her reaction to Gilbert’s post: “I am thoroughly disgusted with the City Council and I have only lived here for 4 months. It took us a 9-month fight to buy our home in a short sale, and one of the things that specifically attracted us to it was the location…above Oso Viejo Park. We learned from the OC Register the day of the meeting that this vote was going to take place. There was NO NOTIFICATION to any affected homeowners of the vote. Most of them had no idea this was going on and are outraged.”

MissionViejoCA.org Wins ‘Best Cartoons’
Press Release

Mission Viejo, CA, October 10, 2009 – It’s official: MissionViejoCA.org has the best political cartoons in Orange County. OC Weekly Magazine on Oct. 10 announced its “Best of Orange County 2009,” awarding the Mission Viejo Watchdog blog with Best Political Cartoons in OC.

MissionViejoCA.org’s political cartoonist, Lisa De Paul-Snyder, gives blog readers an entertaining view of city hall’s mismanagement, cover-ups and buffoonery. She often portrays council members as pinheads and uses her edgy wit to expose government wastefulness and incompetence.

OC Weekly’s brief description of De Paul-Snyder’s prowess acknowledges that her cartoons are hilarious. What piques De Paul-Snyder’s thought process? She says, “Mission Viejo city hall is a target-rich environment for anyone with an appreciation for sanity and a preference for limited government.”

MissionViejoCA.org publisher Dale Tyler says he enjoys De Paul-Snyder’s wit. He added, “Some of Lisa’s funniest cartoons demonstrate the outcome of city hall’s catastrophic ideas. The point is to laugh at officials’ bumbling behavior and inflated egos. We’re gratified that OC Weekly appreciates Lisa’s sense of humor, and we thank them for the award.”

MissionViejoCA.com is the city’s pioneer blog, founded in 2005 by editor-in-chief Carl Schulthess. Tyler has published the blog since its inception on his Web site, Mission Viejo Watchdogs, http://missionviejoca.org

Capo School District Update

The next Capo USD board meeting will be Tues., Oct. 13, at the administration center, 33122 Valle Road, San Juan Capistrano, starting at 7 p.m.

Among agenda items, the staff is recommending that trustees hire a demographer to redraw trustee area boundaries. The work is needed in advance of the June 2010 election, in which CUSD voters will decide whether to elect trustees by trustee area or at large.

In last week’s CUSD update, this blog reported that two deposed, Fleming-era trustees had offered to help redraw the lines. Hiring a demographer at a cost of $20,000 to $40,000 is a better value than having former politicians do it, even if they’re volunteers.

While the June election is eight months away, this blog is already recommending that Mission Viejo voters keep the current at-large method of electing trustees. Each constituent now gets to vote on all seven, and it makes no sense to decrease one’s voting powers. The current method is working well for Mission Viejo, which previously was a donor city. Its tax dollars flowed into such money pits as the “Taj Mahal” administration center and the $150-million high school next to a San Juan Capistrano dump.

A CUSD parent sent the following email about the election:

“If CUSD trustees are elected by trustee area, Mission Viejo will again be disenfranchised. The CUSD portion of our city is divided into three areas, making it difficult to get a candidate elected from our city to represent our interests. See the trustee area at http://capousd.ca.schoolloop.com/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1232963604565. As you are aware, our MV tax dollars did not go to our MV schools. MV residents pay Measure A taxes (the bulk went to San Juan Hills High School in San Juan Capistrano and Arroyo Vista, a K-8 in RSM), Mello-Roos (the bulk went to the district office and Aliso Viejo School), and redevelopment (which must go to MV schools).”

Until the November 2006 election, no Mission Viejo resident had served as a CUSD trustee for many years. While the current at-large method of electing trustees might not be good for some other cities, it’s good for Mission Viejo.

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.