Mission Viejo Buzz - 04/10/10

The Buzz

Tea Partiers will rally in Mission Viejo on Tax Day, Thurs., April 15, on the corners of La Paz and Marguerite from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. Signs will be available, but participants are invited to create a sign of their own or bring an American flag to wave. Saddleback Republican Assembly is organizing the peaceful protest against overgrown government and wasteful spending.

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What happened when Trish Kelley’s planning commission appointee was denied membership in Saddleback Republican Assembly last month? According to observers, he created a scene at the check-in table at the start of the meeting. He began cursing at the SRA president and told a state-level officer to “f--- off.” The planning commissioner and his friend (who is ineligible for membership because she’s not a registered Republican voter) sat at a table apart from most other members. They ignored the guest speaker and passed notes back and forth throughout OC Supervisor John Moorlach’s presentation. One of them would write a message, and the other would stifle a laugh, as if reading something hilarious. An SRA member who saw the notes said they were childish and not funny. One of the messages said, “I’m bored.” Who sent these two to disrupt the meeting and disrespect the guest speaker?

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Question from a Buzz reader: “Why is the city attaching pie pans to utility poles and street lights around town? I was driving on La Paz and noticed something was taped to the utility poles. The writing on the pie pans was too small to read while driving by, but I later saw that it has something to do with the city’s art event.”

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It’s true. The city attached signs to the poles. Doesn’t the city try to discourage residents from taping signs to utility poles? Garage sale and “lost dog” signs are removed quickly, and the city hires contractors to remove all signs posted by residents. The premise (that junk on the poles is unattractive and a distraction to drivers) should apply equally to residents as well as city staff members.

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Check out an article on Brad Morton’s Mission Viejo Dispatch about the council cutting expenses because of falling revenues: http://missionviejodispatch.com/?p=15873 The council cut another $500,000 on April 5. At the same meeting, the council majority approved more than $100,000 for bleacher shades on baseball fields. After the city staff bragged about planting 400 trees last year, particularly along Crown Valley Parkway, $50,000 was cut from the cost of watering the medians. Interdepartmental First Aid was reduced by $1,500. Pie pans for utility poles were not cut in the most recent budget adjustments.

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No expense has been spared in putting banners up and taking them down. An activist tracked the city’s banner mania a couple years ago and discovered that taxpayers are dinged $10,000 every time the banners are changed, and that doesn’t include the cost of the banners. The banners were being purchased with no-bid contracts, and the related descriptions were too vague to determine what was being paid for.

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The annual Fun With Chalk street-painting event will be held at the Community Center on April 24-25. The popular event is in its 12th year. Those attending can watch artists create their chalk masterpieces on the asphalt.

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Competing with and/or distracting from the chalk festival will be a range of city staff activities, including an exhibit funded with taxpayer dough for the staff pseudo-greens. The king of pseudo-greens, Keith Rattay, displayed his earth-friendly style on April 22, 2008, when city contractors trashed 500 custom-built easels on public property. To memorialize the occasion, photographs appeared on blogs of the easel heap, along with trashed signage in a county dump: “Be a green machine.”