Recall Update

It’s official: Dale Tyler and Dave Leckness are the only candidates running in the Feb. 2 recall election to replace Councilman Lance MacLean. When Leckness pulled papers on Nov. 5, longtime city watchdogs immediately knew someone put him up to it.

To end all doubt, an interview on a county blog spells out that Leckness doesn’t know why he’s running in the recall election. When OrangeJuiceBlog.com reporter Larry Gilbert asked him for an interview on Nov. 9, Leckness made a political mistake by saying yes. Read the interview, along with 38 comments from readers, at http://orangejuiceblog.com/2009/11/interview-of-dave-leckness-mission-viejo-recall-election-candidate/

In summary, Leckness revealed he doesn’t pay attention to city issues, and he’s in the dark about the recall. He admitted he didn’t sign the recall petition. When asked why he’s running, he stated it’s time for a change. After demonstrating he has no grasp of current events, how would he know what to change?

As one of Leckness’ big ideas in the interview, he said he would initiate a program, “Wave at a Cop,” as an appreciation for law enforcement. He also said he wanted to help small-business owners because the Chamber of Commerce is ineffective.

Leckness may have believed he had to pay $1,600 for a ballot statement to become a candidate (in fact, the ballot statement is optional). He thought he might put up some yard signs. That’s all the information he had about his own campaign after he began the process of filing. Instead of a campaign Website, he gave the Website of his printing business.

Jump to Nov. 19: Leckness turned in a ballot statement he obviously didn’t write. Instead of reflecting the content of his Nov. 9 interview, the ballot statement reflected the speech Sharon Cody read from the public microphone at the Nov. 2 council meeting.

On Nov. 20, the city posted candidates’ ballot statements on its Web site, just when a number of residents were simultaneously receiving an anonymous email hit piece against council candidate Dale Tyler and Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht. Placed side by side, Dave Leckness’ ballot statement and the hit piece appear to have the same author. One of the city watchdogs remarked that the style and syntax are virtually the same, and some of the points are identical.

A community watchdog forwarded the hit piece to other residents, telling them to look at the email file information on the hit piece. The laughter hasn’t stopped. Incredibly, the author’s name is on it: “Marion.” Either Marion wrote it or someone else was using his computer. The writer either became careless or doesn’t have enough technical knowledge to hide the name.

A quick check of voter data in Mission Viejo shows that 40 or so residents are named Marion. However, only one of them has significance in Mission Viejo’s political arena. Only one person named Marion is connected to a former city councilwoman who was trounced in 2002 when she ran for reelection. Only one person named Marion is married to Sherri Butterfield.