Mission Viejo Buzz - 05/01/10

The Buzz

The Mission Viejo Chapter of ACT for America will hold its monthly meeting on Mon., May 10. Doors open at 6:45 p.m., and the meeting starts at 7:30. Guest speaker will be Mano Bakh, who will speak for approximately 50 minutes, followed by Q & A. The meeting location is the Norm Murray Community Center, 24932 Veterans Way, Mission Viejo. Chapter leader Bruce Mayall sent the announcement, adding that the meeting is free and open to the public, but a $5 donation will be appreciated to help cover costs.

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Those who attended the 12th annual Fun With Chalk street painting event last weekend said the artwork on the pavement was fabulous and the weather was perfect. On other blogs, the artwork received great reviews, but the city’s three-ring circus activities were panned. Here’s a sample response to Larry Gilbert’s article on a county blog, Orange Juice, http://orangejuiceblog.com/2010/04/12th-annual-fun-with-chalk-street-painting-festival/#comments : “When driving by the chalk festival on Sunday, I saw a Pied Piper with followers trailing behind. It was Trish Kelley, Queen of Character, carrying paper chains and leading her “chain gang.” Ms. Character voted (along with Ury and MacLean) to give city manager Dennis Wilberg an amended contract that stated he cannot be fired if he is guilty of a felony. What felony did he commit that triggered this vote? The vote was so outrageous it should have been replayed on national TV.”

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How did so many other activities become attached to Fun With Chalk? An attendee emailed an opinion: “The commotion surrounding Fun With Chalk detracted from the artists and the street paintings. It looked to me like trying to combine all the old events of the past, plus some new unrelated things were added, which were distracting.”

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From a press release issued by the teachers union (CUEA) after ending the strike in the Capistrano Unified School District: “Victorious in their struggle to achieve a negotiated settlement, Capistrano teachers and their students will return to their classrooms Tuesday, April 27, ending CUEA’s five-day strike, the first such action by teachers in southern California in almost ten years” Just what did the union think it won? The major change in the negotiated settlement was an agreement to restore teachers’ pay cuts if the state gives the district an unexpected sum of money.

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Still needing help: Buzz readers are invited to support the wives of deployed Marines by contributing to gift baskets for the May 29 Camp Pendleton Appreciation Luncheon. Anyone wanting to help can donate items for a basket, money to support the effort or creating a gift basket. Suggested items include bath and hair products, gift certificates, jewelry, movie tickets and gift cards that can be redeemed at restaurants on the base. Please email cam.fam@cox.net for additional information. Please respond this week.

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What happened to the recall of two Capo school district trustees, Ken Lopez-Maddox and Mike Winsten? Those who were promoting the union-fueled recall said they would either succeed at gathering the required number of signatures by May 1 or stop the recall effort. No information has been released about the number of signatures gathered by May 1.

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From a Buzz reader: The ant and the grasshopper, new (and shortened) version. The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. The EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, the ant’s home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper. The grasshopper and his free-loading friends finish up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in, which happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again. The grasshopper dies in a drug-related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once prosperous and once peaceful neighborhood. Moral of the story: be careful how you vote in 2010