A Call to Action
by Voters United

Following is a copy of a presentation given to the City Council recently. It highlights several topics that have been happening during the last couple of years. These are items that the city council has been pushing for the minority of voter groups and/or special interest groups wanting entitlements that will cost us tax payers too many dollars.

This information is provided to remind our concerned Mission Viejo majority that we need to do something about what is happening before it is too late. The following are expansions of the material contained in the attachment [original message].

1. Our planned population of 90,000 citizens has been exceeded by more than 3,000 citizens. Our city council is taking steps to increase the size of the city. That means increased need for area use, more traffic, more security, more firemen and so on. They are even talking of annexing a development to our city, giving those members all the facilities and amenities that we worked hard to achieve. The LUK-ie members (Leckness-Ury-Kelley) of the city council are pushing our city into an un-LUK-ie future. We need to stop it.
2. It doesn't take a genius to notice that when a city gets too large, it gets overcrowded and draws too many to work and live in the area. Ultimately, the city will get denser, causing home values to sadly diminish. And for what purpose would that serve for the citizens who made this city so wonderful?
3. The city has provided great facilities and wants to continue doing so in the face of needless requirements. For instance, we have many, many tennis courts within our city. How come the city needs to build an additional tennis court at great expense to the tax payers.......just to satisfy members of a small tennis club who would like to make their infrequent tournaments run more efficiently? That is not the city's problem. There are lots of ways to conduct the tournaments without needing to bring in 4,000 truckloads of dirt that will provide the additional court area.
   
   The council justifies the spending by reminding us that we have good reserves and good bond rating. So what! In this time of financial problems our revenue has gone down and is expected to go down even more. We need to stop spending now and modify our efforts to ensure we will still be viable in the future. Note that the council is changing fees to try to make extra money for the things we already have. In the face of spending $3.7 million for the tennis court expansion the council is not going to raise the usage fees for the modified tennis court. Once again we taxpayers will be subsidizing the minority of citizen players. How LUK-ie can they get?
   
   What if golfers asked the city to build a driving range for golfers near Marguerite Tennis Center to make it more convenient to practice before their tournaments? Would the city do that? No; they would say to use other facilities. Well! We demand that the tennis players back off also.
4. On the matter of dog parks, the city wants to give in on that also. In their review of acceptable places, no neighborhood wanted a dog park near them (even though many of the dog owners lived near the suggested sites). So the city selected an area away from those homeowners that would cost a million dollars, at a minimum. The dog owners explain that it is not a dog park but a people park, a place to meet other people. Assuming the park was built, it would be used quite frequently early on, but as with all things like that, its use would diminish because most people become too busy to keep up that effort. Therefore, it is a no-brainer to have the dog owners build their own park. Note that the dog owners came to city council meetings with their T-shirts and stuffed animals to get the council's attention. It apparently worked. The tennis players club did something similar to that also.
5. 5. Speaking of parks, Mission Viejo has 52 parks. This makes Mission Viejo virtually a huge park with many homes built within it. Let's keep it that way. It makes us feel good.

It goes on and on. What can we do about it? Well, so far we have not been able to get the attention of the three LUK-ie council members who vote to spend and give to those who don't need it. It was shown in the election that too many ran against the incumbents. Most of the votes went to the non-incumbents, which diluted the votes and allowed the incumbents to win their seats back.

The small groups that pushed for the tennis court and dog park got organized enough to attend the city council meetings with their colored shirts to make themselves noticed. Well, it worked. Guess what! That means we have to do the same thing, except we don't need shirts and gadgets............we need to give good speeches.

We need to go to the next city council meeting that discusses those subjects and make ourselves heard. We have been too complacent and assumed that our elected officials would support the majority of the taxpayers and not the selfish few who shed alligator tears to make their case.

Did you know that when we asked friends and neighbors who live in the vicinity of the Marguerite Tennis Center what they knew of the additional tennis court and its associated cost, the answer was........They knew nothing about it........They were appalled that the city council would do that.

It is obvious that, unless citizens attend city council meetings, watch the proceedings on Channel 30, or read the Mission Viejo Dispatch website, there is no simple way of communicating what is going on.

If you can reply to this message and let us know if you:
    1.  Attend City Council meetings
    2.  Watch City Council meetings on Channel 30
    3.  Read Mission Viejo Dispatch (missionviejodispatch.com)

Think about it! Forward this to your friends so they understand the wants of the majority. If we don't, then we have no one else but ourselves to blame.

Thank you,
Voters United

Editors Note: There are two council members, Cathy Schlicht and Rhonda Reardon who are on the side of the citizens. We need to let them know that they should oppose the big government habits of the majority.
Missionviejoca.org is another way to keep up to date on city events.