The Buzz

Newly selected mayor Dave Leckness may have recently changed his voter registration from Democrat to Republican. It has happened before in Mission Viejo when an elected official or candidate switched parties for political advantage. Didn’t Susan Withrow switch to Republican when she was a councilwoman running for the Board of Supervisors? There’s no indication Leckness has such ambition, but a resident forwarded information about the switch, adding, “I can imagine how it went, Frank Ury officiating at the baptism and immersing Leckness in ankle-deep Oso Creek. Picture Ury saying he didn’t support a Democrat, he converted one to a Republican.” Another RINO joins the herd.

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Mission Viejo residents should take note of what happened on Jan. 17 during the OC GOP Central Committee meeting. The group voted on a replacement for Jack Anderson, who left a vacancy as a Committee member when he moved to Illinois. It was up to the remaining five members who reside in the 71st Assembly District to recommend someone for the entire Committee to approve. As reported in the Jan. 22 OC Register, Tustin resident Walter Myers wanted to be on the Committee. Myers served the OC GOP last year as vice chair of ethnic outreach, and he describes himself as a strong black conservative. In the Register article, the topic became race after an obviously qualified and well-known black volunteer was bypassed for a white man with no history of working for the Central Committee.

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Summary of the Central Committee vote: Mission Viejo resident Greg Woodard was approved. According to longtime Republican volunteers in Mission Viejo, Woodard has no history of working for the GOP in his neighborhood, city or the 71st Assembly District, which he was chosen to represent. He surfaced during the Measure D campaign as an opponent of allowing voters to decide on major land-use changes in Mission Viejo. The Saddleback Republican Assembly endorsed Measure D, and its members have good recollection of those in real estate development who opposed it. Woodard is an attorney whose employer’s clients include those in real estate. By the way, a fellow employee of Woodard was the writer of a hit piece on a county blog last week, maligning Mission Viejo residents who are concerned about tax dollars being diverted from essential public services to entertainment.

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It just gets weirder at city hall. A resident asked, “Can anyone verify this? I heard a very strange story about Dave Leckness, our laughable mayor, throwing partially frozen waffles at the crowd during an event at city hall.”

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Email from a Buzz reader, “When I was stopped in traffic on La Paz last week, the holdup was caused by city contractors who are STILL removing lights from all the trees. After weeks of lighted trees, we have had weeks of disconnected electrical strings hanging from the branches. I’d like the watchdogs to check the dump for thousands of lights, and I would not be surprised if the decorations were treated in the same way as the easels.”