The Buzz

Act for America will meet on Mon., July 9, at the Norm Murray Community Center in Mission Viejo. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. The meeting starts promptly at 7:30 p.m. and ends at 9:30 p.m. Bill Warner, Ph.D., director, Center for the Study of Political Islam, will be the featured speaker. His topic will be “Gentle Persuasion – Opening Closed Minds: How to Convince Skeptics that Political Islam is a Grave Threat to America.”

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For Republicans in Casta del Sol who want to get involved in the November election, the Casta leader for the Republican Party is Dorothy Wedel. There seems to be some confusion because of a social group, the Casta Republican Club, which is unrelated to the Republican organization to Get Out The Vote. A Casta resident explained, “The HOA club went off track more than two years ago following a lack of volunteers to lead, and it now operates outside its own bylaws with a termed-out ‘president’ and no elections.” The HOA club was taken over by an Iranian woman from Irvine, with a shill in Casta who has no connection to the Republican Party. As for an outsider having a foothold in the HOA, it would be up to the Casta homeowners to end it.

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Casta Republican Chairwoman Dorothy Wedel has a stellar record as a leader, and she was mayor of La Habra prior to moving to Mission Viejo. Among her many accomplishments, she was president of Capistrano Valley Republican Women Federated, a city co-chair of Mission Viejo for the Republican Party, a Mission Viejo Planning Commissioner, 2005 Legislative Woman of the Year, and currently a Delegate to the State GOP, appointed by State Senator Mimi Walters.

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The Mission Viejo council majority has painted itself into a corner over fire hazard zones. Why would four council members (Ury, Kelley, Leckness and Reardon) go to such great lengths to perpetuate a myth that Special Fire Protection Areas are different from Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones? Orange County Register writer Chris Boucly is responsible for covering Mission Viejo, and his articles come across as press releases issued by city hall. Villa Park also renamed its Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones as “Special Fire Protection Areas.” According to the state fire maps, Villa Park’s Special Fire Protection Areas continue to be identified as Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. The terms are interchangeable, and the categories are one and the same.

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Anyone looking for information about the community will not find it in the Saddleback Valley News. The back half of the paper continues to be foreclosure notices, and SVN’s classified ads contain in-house ads for the OC Register and little else. Those looking for a garage sale or an apartment can turn to the Pennysaver. Meanwhile, city hall is dutifully buying full-page ads, such as the one in the July 6 SVN. In 2009, the city staff, led by city administrators Dennis Wilberg and Keith Rattay, pressured SVN and OCR not to publish any coverage unfavorable to city hall. Before OCR fell on hard times, it would not have bowed down to such demands, but that was a long time and a bankruptcy ago.

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Excerpt from an email forwarded by Bruce M. regarding the contrast between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. “Mitt will show us his birth certificate. He will show us his high school and college transcripts. He will show us his Social Security card. He will show us his law degree. He will show us his draft notice. He will show us his medical records. He will show us his income tax records. He will show us he has nothing to hide.” As of July 7, the Rasmussen daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama attracting 45 percent of the vote. Four percent prefer some other candidate, and six percent are undecided. Isn’t it amazing that an incumbent president who has refused to disclose his background can still attract 45 percent of the vote?