Councilwoman Soaks Taxpayers

Last week, the council majority did it again, flip-flopping on giving themselves lifetime healthcare benefits. This time, Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht’s motion to end the benefits passed with a 4-1 vote (Councilman Frank Ury dissenting). Details can be found in a post by Larry Gilbert on a county blog, http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/07/its-already-november-in-mission-viejo

While Councilwoman Trish Kelley might think she made a smart move by rejecting the benefits on July 6 after voting to keep them at the previous meeting, the publicity helped to reveal her self-enriching record. Privately, Kelley says she deserves lifetime healthcare at taxpayer expense. Given the distaste of voters for incumbents in general, Ms. Kelley is going to need more than her usual order of 2,500 campaign signs to stay in office. (Yes, that’s how many signs she purchased for her reelection bid of 2006.)

Two years ago, council majority members doubled their council stipend. An Orange Juice post by Gilbert last month pointed to another cash cow, whereby Kelley socks away $825 per month http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/06/mayor-kelley-lines-her-retirement-fund-on-the-back-of-mv-taxpayers . She does this by “rejecting” city-provided health insurance while on the council, saying she is covered by her husband’s policy.

Instead of truly rejecting the money, $825 a month goes into her tax-deferred retirement fund. If she is reelected in November and completes 12 years on the council, she’ll receive approximately $120,000 in a lump payment.

The potential amount of $120,000 is in addition to the on-again, off-again lifetime healthcare valued at $250,000-plus per council member. Does anyone think Kelley wouldn’t vote to reinstate her lifetime healthcare after the election if she can stay in office?

As mayor, Kelley has also appointed herself to serve on agencies that pay council representatives to attend meetings. For example, Orange County Fire Authority, Southern California Association of Governments and the Transportation Corridor Agency pay per meeting, and Kelley has appointed herself to all those. And she’s charging the city 50 cents per mile for driving to every possible get-together or event whether or not it has anything to do with city business. Without including healthcare benefits or deferred payments, she’s pocketing $30,000 to $40,000 a year in taxpayer dough.

Kelley first ran in 2002 on a promise she would serve only one four-year term. Since she seems unable to walk away from the public trough, voters will have another opportunity to remove this self-serving incumbent in the Nov. 2 General Election.

High Cost of Attorney Fees

During the July 6 council meeting, Mission Viejo resident Larry Gilbert talked about attorney fees in his public comments.

Here’s information he was able to compile as a result of his Public Records request:

“For calendar years 2005 through 2009, we have paid our city attorneys just over $3.5 million dollars.

”Our total through April of this year is $220,304.99.

”Just to remind everyone, the city attorney has a month-to-month rolling contract. As such, he can be replaced at any time, should a council majority feel we can find a qualified firm that will also save Mission Viejo taxpayers some sizable bucks.

“If my memory has not failed, Councilman Frank Ury was involved in the decision to retain Richards Watson and Gershon over other qualified firms after Peter Thorson departed as our RW&G representative.

”Just sharing some city-related data as we strive for transparency in Mission Viejo government.”

Responsibility Isn’t Transferable
Letter to the Editor

At the July 6 City Council meeting, City Manager Dennis Wilberg stated that the spalding off of the road surface on Olympiad Road, installed by All American Asphalt, was scheduled to be fixed. Scheduled ??? When ???

Mr. Wilberg said the problem was with a material supplier and not All American. I might remind council members that in the contract All American is responsible for the installation and application. This is NOT a transferable problem to the material supplier. It is All American's responsibility to fix the problem. 

For example, when Toyota ran into the acceleration and braking linkage problems, they did not pass the buck to their supplier in Indiana. They stepped up and addressed the problem. When GM had paint problems with their vehicles six years ago, they fixed the problems – not PP&G.

I will not let this issue go untended.  Please get Mr. Wilberg to commit to a specific date when this defective work by All American gets fixed.

Joe Holtzman
Mission Viejo

Tennis Center Becomes a Make-work Project

In Joni Mitchell’s song, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. It applies to the city-owned tennis center at Marguerite Parkway and Casta Drive. Tennis players (who pay a fee to use the facility) asked for one more court, bringing the total to eight, so they could host tournaments. City staffers are pretending to fix the tennis court situation by breaking everything else.

Mature trees and a riparian habitat are casualties of the project. Incredibly, city hall’s gurus will bring in 4,000 truckloads of dirt to fill in a ravine. The plan also calls for creating an intersection on Casta Drive by cutting the median at the entrance to the parking lot on the south side. Another impact is on the city’s treasury, $3.7 million for a project that largely benefits consultants and contractors.

Mission Viejo residents – including some of the tennis players – question the point of such expense. Who added two basketball courts, and what was the reason? As another issue, the city intends to build part of the project on private property (owned by American Golf). If that isn’t illegal, how do they explain this gift of public funds?

City Manager Dennis Wilberg seems confused about the number of parking spaces. Do the numbers represent a net gain of 51 spaces as he says or a net loss of six spaces?

Missing is the premise that tennis players need more parking spaces. Street parking is available except when the Nadadores host a swim meet (six times a year, according to city data). Have attendees complained that they have to walk from an adjacent street to a sporting event? City code would require only 418 spaces for this facility.

Current parking spaces total 557 (from the July 6 Council Agenda Item No. 37), with the number of parking spaces on dirt added in on the basis of an estimate.
 

Future planned parking zones and numbers follow. However, the 20 spaces on basketball courts in Zone 1 might be unavailable as parking if the court is fenced.

• Zone 1 – behind the Aquatics and Tennis Center, provides 276 spaces, including the 36 overflow spaces and the 20 questionable basketball court overflow spaces.
• Zone 2 – adjacent to the tennis clubhouse and Marguerite Pkwy will be eliminated despite tennis players’ request to preserve these spaces.
• Zone 3 – a YMCA lot provides 44 spaces.
• Zone 4 – a YMCA lot provides 27 spaces.
• Zone 5 – on-street parking on Trabuco Circle/Via Santa Clara provides 126 spaces.
• Zone 6 – on-street parking on Marguerite Parkway provides 98 spaces.

The projected total for all six zones is 571. With the current total of 557, that’s a gain of 14, not 51 as Wilberg claims. If the basketball courts are unavailable for parking, that’s a net loss of six spaces.

In 2003, city watchdogs successfully shut down Wilberg’s make-work project for a city contractor after activist Bo Klein discovered that Granich Construction was moving dirt around in Lower Curtis Park. The city council had not approved the $200,000-plus grading project, and Wilberg (who was Director of Public Works back then) couldn’t come up with valid reasons he had decided to enrich an otherwise idle contractor. Ultimately, Wilberg made excuses that were laughable, including a “danger” of the weight of debris on waterlines. Water district officials scoffed at his statements.

Mission Viejo is maintaining a city staff of approximately 150 throughout a global trend of downsizing. This built-out, contract-based city does not have enough legitimate work to keep 150 people busy. By comparison, Rancho Santa Margarita has fewer than 25 full-time employees.

Since the city council majority has ignored residents’ pleas to limit the tennis center project to what is reasonable, the next time residents will have an opportunity to react is the Nov. 2 General Election.

The Buzz

By following seismic activity on http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv , Mission Viejo residents can see that south Orange County is relatively quiet. Residents can also view areas that are prone to liquefaction and shaker-related landslides at http://gmw.consrv.ca.gov/shmp/html/pdf_maps_so.html . Except for areas near creeks, especially Oso Creek, the city is a relatively safe place to build. As another exception, look at the Casta del Sol Golf Course.

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The Mission Viejo Chapter of ACT for America will meet on Mon., July 12, at the Norman P. Murray Community Center, Sycamore B room. Doors will open at 7 p.m., and the meeting begins at 7:30. Guest speaker will be Larry Greenfield, whose topic will be “Jihad vs. America: Threats, Defenses and U.S. Policy Options.” Greenfield is a Fellow in American Studies at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. A $5 donation is appreciated to help cover costs

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Saddleback Republican Assembly does not hold its monthly meetings in July or August. SRA’s next meeting will be Sept. 16.

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Why did a member of the Casta del Sol homeowners board switch sides on the Mission Viejo Right-To-Vote Initiative (Measure D on the June 8 ballot)? Email from a Casta insider: “After our homeowners board took a position to protect the Casta Golf Course from housing development, I was surprised to see a board member at council meetings telling people to vote against Measure D. Then I learned that the board member’s husband has suddenly had a surge of activity in his real-estate related business. In the middle of a real estate slump, he is suddenly so busy with work he has resigned from volunteer activities. I would like to know the names of people who privately benefited from all the money pouring in from out of town to defeat Measure D.”

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In his new book, In Search of Governance, pollster Scott Rasmussen says, “The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century.” Rasmussen’s Website posts include a daily presidential tracking poll, http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking _poll