City Circus Update

Councilman Dave Leckness wrapped up his year as Mayor Hee-Haw with a video, “State of the City,” which aired during the Dec. 5 council meeting. The cackling will continue, but not from the center seat. Councilman Frank Ury was selected to become mayor for 2012. Councilwoman Rhonda Reardon will replace Ury as mayor pro tem.

A primary message of the video was Mission Viejo residents like Mission Viejo. Does any other city spend so much effort telling its residents they should like where they live?

What residents don’t like is City Hall, not the city itself. Those paying attention see wasted tax dollars and an arrogant council majority. The parties continue, with a bloated staff of 150 employees focusing on frills while shortchanging residents on essential services.

City Hall administrators direct a handful of gullible shills to do their dirty work. Anyone asking for accountability can expect to be maligned – not by city employees – but by lackeys who read prepared scripts at the public microphone. A trail of emails (discovered through requests for public records) demonstrated City Manager Dennis Wilberg pressured Saddleback Valley News and the OC Register to censor articles and letters to the editor that are critical of City Hall. SVN and OCR readers will not see balanced coverage on Mission Viejo city government.

A blurb in the Dec. 9 SVN made reference to the city’s financial health, with “a surplus and reserve funds” but no mention of declining revenue, the enormous debt, increased operating costs and four straight years of deficit spending. When comparisons to previous years aren’t favorable, city spinners change the benchmarks or make irrelevant remarks about other cities.

The next opportunity voters will have to raise City Hall standards to those of the rest of the city is November 2012. Changing the council majority (Dave Leckness, Trish Kelley and Frank Ury) can be achieved by removing Ury, who is up for reelection in 2012.