City Funds Phony Survey

Check out the latest spin from the City of Mission Viejo eNewsletter, Oct. 15, http://www.cityofmissionviejo.org/News.aspx Residents received an email blast titled, “Poll shows voters support idea of creating a new MV school district.”

Responses in the survey of 325 city voters demonstrate no such support. Survey questions inject bias without information on negatives or cost, and even the statistical findings show mixed results for push-polling. Among laughable findings, the “most compelling reason” for forming a city school district is different calendar schedules between the two districts, Capo and Saddleback Valley. If that’s a compelling reason for changing anything, will the council now ask the two districts to coordinate their calendar schedules? What the survey really shows is that the city should stop doing surveys.

An alert Mission Viejo resident posted a letter on Brad Morton’s blog, http://missionviejodispatch.com/?p=11792#comments , revealing the true nature of the poll and its creator, Adam Probolsky. Probolsky Research’s Website, http://www.probolskyresearch.com , touts its services: “move public opinion” and “provide cover for decision makers.” Is anyone surprised that Wilberg and the council majority of MacLean, Ury and Kelley (MUK) need help covering their ass(ets)?

The city’s concept of a survey is propaganda – inventing opinion instead of measuring it. For further information, the survey and its results are available on the city’s Website, www.cityofmissionviejo.org Incredibly, the city’s email about the survey came in the form of a press release from City Attorney Bill Curley. By the time a lawyer is charging $400 an hour to write a press release, residents should grab their wallets and run.

The taxpayer-funded survey is designed to show that residents want the city government to meddle in public schools, which it is legally barred from doing. School district constituents – parents, students and other taxpayers – should now respond to the city’s intrusion into public education with one voice: STOP! Whatever problems the two districts have, the solution isn’t to have city hall flexing its muscle with more taxpayer-funded lawsuits and the city attorney crafting press releases.

How did the MUK majority wander off the page? As a matter of authority, school boards – not cities – have decision-making powers to divide districts. When the city (in the person of Frank Ury) began talking about meddling in school district business, a CUSD trustee expressed surprise, saying the district had not been approached. While the city cannot divide the school districts, Ury is capable of leveraging division in the community to attack his old nemesis, SVUSD, where he was thrown off the board of trustees after one term in 1994.

Regardless of Ury’s motives, city taxpayers just got billed $15,000 for another phony city survey.

SRA Endorses MacLean Recall
Press Release

Mission Viejo, CA, October 18, 2009 – On Oct. 15, the Saddleback Republican Assembly Board of Directors unanimously approved a resolution endorsing the recall of Mission Viejo Councilman Lance MacLean. The resolution was presented again that evening at SRA’s regular meeting where members unanimously approved it.

Saddleback Republican Assembly is a unit of the California Republican Assembly, which was founded in 1934. By receiving a local unit’s endorsement, candidates also receive the CRA endorsement, a coveted privilege for those who are deemed by its membership to be conservative, principled and electable.

The resolution reads as follows:

Preamble

Saddleback Republican Assembly holds Councilman Lance MacLean accountable for his broken promises, failed leadership and abandonment of the conservative Republican principles he espoused during his 2002 campaign for office. When presented with notice he was being recalled, he should have resigned to save the expense of recalling him.

WHEREAS, Lance MacLean authored, promoted and sponsored Measure K, a tax increase, after promising no tax increases, and

WHEREAS, Lance MacLean posed as a fiscal conservative but doubled his council stipend and bestowed lifetime medical benefits on council members at
taxpayer expense after three terms of part-time service, and

WHEREAS, Lance MacLean exhibited financial mismanagement by voting for budget items leading to $11.8-million in deficit spending last year, and 

WHEREAS, Lance MacLean falsely promised to relieve traffic congestion but approved housing projects bringing in more congestion and overcrowding, and

WHEREAS, Lance MacLean said he upheld SRA values but was charged with assault and battery on a co-worker, and he lied to a reporter to hide his identity, and

WHEREAS, Lance MacLean promised to represent his constituents but turned against and maligned them, calling them racists and elitists in the L.A. Times, and

WHEREAS, Lance MacLean has fully revealed his true nature as a big-government bureaucrat who promotes social engineering and supports Redevelopment after denouncing it when he requested SRA’s endorsement,

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Mission Viejo Councilman Lance MacLean employed deception to receive SRA’s endorsement in 2002. The voters of Mission Viejo should now remove Councilman Lance MacLean from office in a recall election. Saddleback Republican Assembly Board of Directors and its Membership unanimously endorse the recall of Councilman Lance MacLean.

/s/ Matt Corrigan, President, Saddleback Republican Assembly

Recall Update

The election to recall Councilman Lance MacLean will likely occur on Feb. 2, 2010. The council will set the date during the Oct. 19 meeting. Text of the agenda item can be found below.

Recall proponents say they’re satisfied with the timing of the election. One of them emailed, “Everyone who signed the petition already knows why MacLean should be removed, so this isn’t the beginning. We’ve worked hard from the time we started gathering signatures in March.”

Mission Viejo activists who attended the Western Conservative Political Action Conference in Newport Beach on Friday learned about regional perspectives on the recall. When Jon Fleischman (political consultant and FlashReport publisher who resides in Orange County) chatted with a blog contributor, he indicated he expects MacLean will be recalled.

Another political consultant who attended the WCPAC meeting said, “The outcome has been clear for months. MacLean’s only supporters are apologists, and they won’t be a factor. Having his friends defend his behavior is not a campaign.”

Having no campaign workers isn’t new to MacLean, who has had no activists or volunteers supporting him since 2002.

The campaign against MacLean intensified during the summer. One of the recall volunteers commented, “We spoke with thousands of residents during the signature drive, and we didn’t just ask them to sign the petition. We brought everyone up to speed about what has happened on the council. When we handed out flyers with links to news stories, many people went home and researched online. These are informed voters, and MacLean isn’t going to fool them with slick mailers about his stellar performance in America’s safest city.”

From the Oct. 19 council agenda: No. 20, Special Municipal Election - February 2, 2010:

Recommended Action:  (1) Adopt Resolution 09-XX Calling and Giving Notice of the Holding of a Special Election on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, for the Submission of the Question of the Recall of Council Member Lance MacLean and the Election of Candidate to Fill the Vacancy if the Recall Prevails; (2) adopt Resolution 09-XX Requesting the Board of Supervisors of the County of Orange to Render Specified Services to the City Relating to the Conduct of a Special Municipal Election to be held on Tuesday February 2, 2010; (3) adopt Resolution 09-XX Adopting Regulations Pertaining to Candidates Statements Submitted to the Voters at an Election to be held on Tuesday, February 2, 2010; (4) adopt Resolution 09-XX Amending the Fiscal Year 2009–2010 Budget to Pay for the February 2, 2010, Special Election for the Submission of the Question of the Recall of Council Member Lance MacLean and the Election of a Candidate to Fill the Vacancy if the Recall Prevails; and (5) direct the City Clerk to schedule the adoption of the resolution citing the election results and the administration of the oath to the newly elected Council Members [sic] for March 1, 2010, or as soon as possible thereafter.

Blog Draws in Administrator
by Joe Holtzman

In the latest Mission Viejo Dispatch, Allan Pilger once again hits the nail on the head –City Manager Dennis Wilberg would rather rationalize his nonsense than address real issues. [View the exchange of comments at http://missionviejodispatch.com/?p=11804 ] In my comment, I submitted the following:

Mr Wilberg’s response to Mr Pilger is interesting.

So, why is it that the citizens have to keep reminding Mr. Wilberg of infrastructure problems? A perfect example is our deteriorating slopes in the city. All this while Mr. Wilberg is creating a dump in lower Curtis Park, missing schedule completion after schedule completion on Crown Valley Parkway, building and trashing useless easels and spending over $500,000 on a toilet for Melinda Park.

It also makes me wonder if Mr. Wilberg has a pulse on the real issues in the city when he invites Southern California Edison to spin its misinformation on the San Onfre Nuclear facility in San Clemente at our drug walk. Note: the last three audits of that facility (by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) have proven there are deficiencies in the management, processes and facilities of that Edison nuclear generating plant. This is the same company, Southern California Edison, that falsified health and safety records at San Onfre, falsified customer satisfaction surveys and failed to reduce the EMF levels on the Viejo System Project in Mission Viejo.

Yet Mr Wilberg gives Edison a booth at the Drug Walk! I hope Mr. Wilberg can explain this little issue.

School Update

Any school update in Mission Viejo should summarize the city’s current lawsuits against school districts. At the Oct. 19 council meeting, two closed-session items involve the city suing Capistrano USD and Saddleback Valley USD. That should answer most questions about the city’s ability to help schools sort out problems.

During the Oct. 5 council meeting when Councilman Lance MacLean launched a lengthy attack from the dais, he said the recall group would end city support of OCSD officers in the schools. To the contrary, it would not. With regard to OCSD officers in schools, MacLean taken both sides, opposing the program prior to supporting it.

When Jonathan Volzke posted news about Mission Viejo’s one-district survey on his blog ( http://capistranoinsider.typepad.com/beyond_the_blackboard/2009/10/mission-viejos-announcement-about-poll-supporting-new-school-district/comments/page/3/#comments
he used the text from City Attorney Bill Curley’s press release. As a reader noticed, someone who is making a lot of money to write press releases doesn’t know the name of the school district:

“Somebody tell those MV voters how much it'll cost, how the calendars can be aligned for free, and that the ‘Capistrano Valley Unified School District’ doesn't exist and then see what they say.”

Here’s another reader comment from the post:

“Poll done by Probolsky Research? I suppose folks know who he is – the OC GOP's favorite son. So Ury and company come in and screw up the district, then they hire a friendly pollster to demonstrate that people think the district is screwed up. Nice. More adult-centered activity from people who don't give a damn about public education. No, wait, I take it back – they DO care about public education – they care about eliminating it.”

When Ury was on the SVUSD board in the early 1990s, his former supporters said he lied to them and spent his entire tenure fighting with everyone. After four years, Ury had accomplished nothing except to show his hostility toward public schools. After voters threw him out, he said he was removed from office because the union didn’t like him. Constituents said the union, teachers, school administrators, parents and other taxpayers didn’t like him. In 2004, either SVUSD amnesiacs voted him onto the council or they thought he’d be OK in a position that had nothing to do with education.

MacLean has seven more council meetings before can be voted out of office on Feb. 2. With the clock running, Ury announced that he wants to fast track a number of items.

The Buzz

On the council’s Oct. 5 agenda, the check register was approved, dated Sept. 25, for $1,970,062. What recession?

***

Where in the check register is payment for grading at Lower Curtis Park? During the past two months, residents emailed this blog about increased activity – more dumping and grading of soil. Oh, never mind. Some benevolent contractor is doing the work for free. That’s what City Manager Dennis Wilberg proclaimed approximately a year ago. Wilberg also said truckloads of dirt were coming from the Crown Valley project – a claim swiftly challenged by city watchdogs. Wilberg said the soil is clean dirt that will be used elsewhere as needed.

***

With the council majority’s vote on Oct. 5 to proceed with a tennis center redo, the plan involves filling in the ravine south of Casta Drive with 3,000 truckloads of dirt. If the soil dumped in lower Curtis was for future use elsewhere, why was it spread out and leveled? If the soil won’t be scraped back up into a pile and transported to the tennis center, then the explanation doesn’t make any more sense now than it did a year ago.

***

Discussion of the city’s poll of 325 Mission Viejo residents about forming one city school district is on the Oct. 19 council agenda. Information about the poll shows that only a third of residents surveyed (32.3 percent) have children in school. Other data, if revealed, should tell how many of the 325 residents who picked up the phone have answering machines. If the city intends to create policy toward two school districts on the basis of residents who seem cut off from the world and/or living in another century, who are they pretending to represent?

***

To view another take on the sham survey, read Larry Gilbert’s article on OrangeJuiceblog.com, http://orangejuiceblog.com/2009/10/should-the-city-of-mission-viejo-create-its-own-school-district/#more-30281 It just becomes more entertaining.