City Council Update

Although it’s too late to withdraw from the Nov. 2 election, a council candidate announced last week that he won’t be campaigning for city council. The names of all 12 council candidates who completed the filing process will appear on the ballot.

On Sept. 8, Mark Dobrilovic sent a letter to his key supporters that began: “Due to personal, family and rapidly expanding business obligations, sadly I am forced to suspend my campaign for City Council.”

Dobrilovic’s friends include National Rifle Association members, Republican and other conservative groups and PTA members at his children’s elementary school. He emceed the April 15 TEA Parties in Mission Viejo in 2009 and 2010, and he ran for the GOP Central Committee in the June Primary election. Dobrilovic recently started a business as a financial advisor, and he and his wife have two sons.

The two council incumbents who are running for reelection, Trish Kelley and Dave Leckness, broke the campaign ice two weeks ago by distributing their flyers in the Sept. 1 Casta Courier. The two are benefiting from vendor donations, which began streaming into Leckness’ campaign treasury mere weeks after his election in the successful Feb. 2 recall of Lance MacLean.

Three candidates either made false claims in their ballot statement or have since been caught in lies. Leckness on his Website falsely claimed Councilman John Paul Ledesma endorsed him. Ledesma read about it on a blog and told Leckness to remove his name. Instead of removing Ledesma’s name, Leckness first indicated he didn’t know the difference between his nomination paper (which Ledesma says he signed as a courtesy) and an endorsement. Leckness changed his Website to state that Ledesma signed his nomination paper – perhaps thinking that others won’t know the difference between a nomination paper and an endorsement.

Trish Kelley got caught by the OC GOP Central Committee on Aug. 31 when she tried to cover her tracks after endorsing Leckness, a Democrat, in both the recall election of Feb. 2 and the upcoming election. The GOP endorsing committee reacted by unanimously rejecting her application. Kelley also got nailed on blogs for falsely claiming she “saved” the Casta golf course from housing development when the course is still for sale.

Brad Morton writes, “Kelley is said to falsely take credit where it isn’t due. Observers cite the Casta Golf Course, where she claims to have stopped a developer, but the Council’s temporary actions expired, leaving the Course now open to the same potential high-density housing threats posed in 2007.” Morton summarizes Kelley’s other fabrications in an article on the Mission Viejo Dispatch, http://missionviejodispatch.com/politics/republicans-turning-away-from-mayor-kelley

A third candidate entering the liar’s contest is Brian Skalsky, who also claims he “saved” the Casta golf course. When questioned on how he saved a golf course, his story includes attending meetings between the developer and representatives of homeowner associations that are contiguous to the golf course. His role evidently was to create a Website for one of the HOAs about the development. How this saved anything remains a mystery, particularly when the developer proceeded with alternative housing plans after residents circulated informal petitions to object to housing development.

In the category of political oddities, Skalsky, who has a longstanding association with ex-councilman Bill Craycraft, is courting Bill’s old rivals among conservatives. Skalsky began attending council meetings in 2003 with the supporters of Craycraft. On occasion, Skalsky sat next to Steve Guess, who criticized then-councilwoman Gail Reavis during her disputes with ex-city manager Dan Joseph and his secretary.

Guess and Skalsky often sat on the front row in the audience during council meetings, and Guess frequently made his attacks from the public microphone. Guess managed Skalsky’s unsuccessful council campaign in 2006, and Guess and Hamid Bahadori signed Skalsky’s nomination paper for his current council run.

The last person who tricked conservatives into carrying him around was ex-councilman Lance MacLean, who got Saddleback Republican Assembly’s endorsement in 2002. When in the company of Republican conservatives, MacLean touted his intent to do a “top-down audit” of city hall and sell the city manager’s $6,000 desk on eBay. Immediately after being seated on the council, MacLean announced that he would be using his “own ideas” on the council. His own ideas included embracing the bureaucracy he pretended to oppose and voting in lockstep with Craycraft.

Despite a change of personnel from the old guard of ex-council members Susan Withrow, Sherri Butterfield and Bill Craycraft in 2002, not much has changed in the way city government and council candidates operate.