Community Loses Senior Watchdog

Bill Cruse passed away on January 11. He had been hospitalized several times in recent months while being treated for cancer. A longtime community member, Bill was well known at Mission Viejo Country Club years ago for his tennis game. He followed politics at all levels, and he was able to add wit and humor to any discussion. Bill’s letters to the editor (Saddleback Valley News, OC Register and blogs) lightly poked fun at wayward politicians.

Bill was loyal to USC, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in engineering. He faithfully followed USC sports and participated in alumni events. After a long career at CBS, he moved to Mission Viejo when he retired.

Bill is survived by his wife Beverly, their son John and daughter-in-law Mary, and two grandsons, Christopher and Matt. A family memorial service was held in Hermosa Beach, and no service is planned in Mission Viejo.

The Issue Is Lance MacLean
by Joe Holtzman

The issue of the recall is Councilman Lance MacLean – nothing else. Knowing MacLean as I do, I can attest that he has a grand ability to bend the truth.  I want to take a moment to respond to MacLean’s campaign rhetoric versus the facts.

He told Councilman Gail Reavis to "Shut the Hell Up." The truth is certainly more aggressive than Lance and his surrogates have stated in their PR release. Also, I am a good friend of Diane Greenwood. I arrived on the scene just a few minutes after MacLean verbally assaulted her with his nose in her face. The woman was traumatized; she is 5' 4" and 123 pounds, and Lance is over 6' 4" and 230-plus pounds. Those wanting more information can call Mission Viejo resident Bill Barker to confirm this, as he witnessed MacLean's tirade and his nose-to-nose assault on Diane.

So why hasn't Lance addressed the anger management issues he had at UCI? He plea bargained out of criminal charges and now claims it was no big deal. The details on his assault case were reported in OC Weekly. By the way, when the OC Register attempted to get facts on the case, Lance played games with the reporter, falsifying his age and his middle name. I know public institutions don't take precipitous actions, so there may have been other incidents that led up to UCI’s "giving" Lance an "early retirement."

More details: also something no one has addressed was Lance's brutal browbeating of Dr. Frank Lieberman at a council meeting when Dr. Lieberman was discussing some potential changes in the Fun with Chalk event this year. Mind you, Lieberman has put this event on for years and donated the residual funds to various art projects and schools that promote art. Lance's act on this occasion was a total embarrassment, and it is just another indication he has NOT solved his anger management problem.

In addition, on numerous occasions Lance has taken the special interest position that is opposed to the citizens in our community. On the Southern California Edison Viejo System Project, he continually tried to deter action by the city to get Edison to bury the lines. Lance has since ignored the fact that Edison's EMF reading from the Viejo System Project lines far exceeds what they said it would be. This was validated by the Sage and Associates’ readings (commissioned by the City of Mission Viejo) but dismissed  by Lance. Mind you, our children are now exposed to a Class B carcinogen, thanks to Lance's game-playing. Details can be found in the Sage Report and the Bio-Initiative Report.

Another note that no one has addressed was that Lance was on the TCA when all the consultants and bond pushers wanted to "refinance" the toll road. That would have cost millions if he had succeeded. Luckily, County Supervisor Bill Campbell stepped in and stopped that nonsense. Lance summarily dismissed and demeaned the environmentalists on the 241 extension. I attended the meeting at the Del Mar race track when the California Coastal Commission listened to the details. Lance was an outright embarrassment for our city. The California Coastal Commission must have thought so also, as they said a big NO to the TCA and Lance as the TCA representative.

Lance also failed to support his neighborhood school when hearings were being held to see if it should be closed. Wouldn't you think he would come to the meetings and express a concern for the neighborhood and potential property value impact?  Not Lance. Maybe it was because he had previously worn out his welcome at O'Neill Elementary School with some of his "alleged "bullying tactics with administrators and teachers.

I was Chairman of the Friends of Mission Viejo that originally helped get Lance elected.  I had a number of conversations with him during that campaign. I spent time waving his campaign signs with him on the street corners. Typically, Lance told me one thing and then did exactly the opposite after he was elected. Lance started out by wanting to do good, but he very quickly only wanted to do good for himself. As an example, he took money from Edison, walked away from his campaign platform, doubled his salary and gave himself lifetime healthcare benefits.

For anyone who is receiving the campaign emails from MacLean’s supporters, I suggest you send them this article.

Recall Update

Councilman Lance MacLean’s mailers against residents have underlined why he is unfit for public office. If voters can’t remember that MacLean is the one being recalled, his union-purchased TV commercials and hit pieces against residents are effective reminders of the urgent need to remove him. MacLean’s campaign finance reports prove his support is coming from unions, lobbyists, special interest and other out-of-town trough-feeders.

MacLean and his backers claim the recall proponents want to shut down city services. According to MacLean, anyone wanting him out of office favors “gutting the city.” If MacLean didn’t have lies and scare tactics, his anti-recall campaign would collapse. His lies about recall proponents raising taxes, closing the library and shutting down the animal shelter are outrageously false.

MacLean is delivering on his threats from the dais that “the recall is going to get ugly.” The real problem is how ugly MacLean has become on the council. He can work with no one except when lining up other council votes to raise taxes, cater to his out-of-town financiers and insult entire neighborhoods.

Here it is again – the list MacLean can’t dodge. He’s being recalled because of his own bad judgment, greed, arrogance and failure to represent residents. That’s why voters should proceed to remove him from office on Feb. 2.

MacLean was presented with grounds for the recall during a February 2009 council meeting. The notice began: You violated your responsibilities to voters, showing yourself unfit to serve as a City Council member by exhibiting

• Violence when you were arrested by Police for assault and battery on a co-worker.
• Anger and incivility when you ordered a Mission Viejo councilwoman to “SHUT THE HELL UP” in closed session.
• Hatred and disrespect when you called residents racists and elitists in a LA Times interview.
• Self-dealing when you voted to double your council salary during the current economic crisis.
• Greed and corrupt priorities when you voted to give yourself lifetime medical benefits at taxpayer expense after only three terms of part-time council service.
• Financial mismanagement when you voted for budget items leading to $11.8 million in deficit spending.
• A tax increase when you authored and promoted Measure K, which was rejected by Mission Viejo voters.
• False promises when you voted to increase housing density leading to more traffic congestion.

CUSD Update

Constituents in the Capo school district may have been surprised to learn that two trustees were recently served with notice they’re being recalled. CUSD voters have overwhelmingly supported “reform” candidates who have replaced all seven old-regime trustees appointed by or otherwise loyal to ex-Supt. James Fleming. The two trustees being recalled won seats as reform candidates, and both had wide margins of victory.

On one side of the prolonged battle are parents and other constituents supporting reform, and on the other side are those who were loyal to Fleming and the prior board. That description doesn’t include all the factions that are now lining up against each other. The teachers union has continued to play a major role, particularly in encouraging its members to show up in large numbers at board meetings as a form of protest against board decisions.

The two trustees who were served with recall notice last week are Mike Winsten and Ken Lopez-Maddox. The recall action appears to stem from a group of people of which five (5) are on the CUSD payroll as employees or retirees, two (2) are/were members of other teacher unions and one (1) is the spokesperson for the group leading the effort to elect trustees by area, thereby reducing votes representation from seven (7) trustees to only one (1). Erin Kutnick, who lost her bid for a seat on the board of trustees in the November 2008 election is publicly supportive of the by-area elections and the recall.

In addition to supporting last week’s recall notice, Kutnick requested and got a county committee (the 11-member Orange County Committee on School District Organization) to approve a June election to determine if the current method of electing trustees should change. Voters now vote on all seven trustees, whereas Kutnick’s group favors a method whereby voters would vote only for the one trustee who represents their geographic area. CUSD trustees had passed a resolution seeking to have the choice placed on the November ballot, but Kutnick was among those asking for an election in June. She addressed the county committee at three separate meetings, stating that a November election would be too confusing for the voters and defending spending $496,000 on the June election as opposed to $8,000 on a November election.

Then, Kutnick reversed her stance. Was it because she learned that Winsten and Lopez-Maddox would have to be recalled at-large regardless of the outcome of the vote to elect trustees by area? On Jan. 12, she spoke at the CUSD board meeting, again pushing for a waiver (the waiver allows the district to change the CUSD voting method without voter approval) and the same meeting where Winsten and Lopez-Maddox were served with recall papers.

In case anyone can follow all of the above, Kutnick then spoke at the Jan. 13 meeting of the county committee and asked them to move the election to November. (Changing the boundaries would no longer serve a purpose of making a recall easy because of a smaller voting area since Winsten and Maddox would have to be recalled by voters in the entire district.) The county committee three times has insisted on the June election date and disregarded the CUSD trustees' request for a November election.  They are now going to hold a new hearing to consider the change in election dates because Kutnick has made the request.

On Jan. 14, a reform-minded CUSD parent reported to this blog that the waiver, redistricting, recall effort and the union objectives are lining up as the force against the reform effort.

The Buzz

The Feb. 2 recall election is two weeks away, and the Registrar of Voters had received 5,626 absentee ballots as of Jan. 15. That’s an unusually high number for a special election. Recall proponents are estimating the return could be 20 percent to 25 percent of the city’s voters. Approximately 62,000 Mission Viejo residents are registered to vote.

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Check out an excellent analysis of the recall election on Brad Morton’s MissionViejoDispatch.com: http://missionviejodispatch.com/?p=14023 Letter-writer Allan Pilger describes the two replacement candidates as “Lapdog Leckness vs. Watchdog Tyler.” Candidate Dave Leckness supports MacLean and the status quo, including lifetime medical benefits for part-time council members, wasteful spending like the Rose Parade float and pillars on Crown Valley Parkway and cutting corners on maintenance of infrastructure. Pilger suggests the heavy rains predicted this week might remind voters of the city’s precarious situation resulting from overspending on frills while ignoring needs for street repair and slope renovation.

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Out-of-town financiers of recall target Lance MacLean funded another wave of phone survey calls to potential voters last week. The survey essentially asked residents how well MacLean is doing in distracting voters from reasons he’s being recalled.

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While recall supporters have no phone surveys to measure voters’ opinions, they’ve noticed a shift in MacLean’s campaign tactics after each poll conducted by his backers. During the past week, MacLean’s entire support group was seen on the corners of La Paz and Marguerite. Instead of waving signs for MacLean, they were holding up a banner for Leckness. A MacLean supporter was observed by recall proponents when she took a “YES on Recall” sign from an intersection, and they said she put it inside her SUV. The YES on Recall signs are popping up next to Leckness signs. While Leckness has stated he opposes the recall, his supporters are evidently trying to confuse voters by associating his name with a YES vote to remove MacLean.

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City Manager Dennis Wilberg’s insider newsletter (“The Week That Was”) continues to focus on happy talk. His “Business Tidbits” summary of commercial news only describes businesses that are opening. No balance is provided about diminishing revenue. Apparently, city hall still has immunity from any negative news, including loss of jobs, closing businesses and a meltdown in the global economy.

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A public input meeting is scheduled at 7:00 p.m. on Jan. 19 at city hall to discuss a possible dog park site. New emphasis has been placed on Lower Curtis Park, which has consistently been rejected by the city staff for more than seven years. The city staff only needs to give an appearance of considering a dog park until Feb. 2. If MacLean can manage to hold on to the “dog park vote” until after the recall election, dog park supporters can then be dismissed with a perfunctory “thanks for your vote for MacLean.”