Mission Viejo Buzz - 12/29/12

The Buzz

Buzz readers reacted to last week’s post about the defective section of Olympiad Road. Here’s an example: “Good thing the city is adding a lane at the intersection of Olympiad and Alicia. It will give drivers a place to stop after they have driven a couple blocks on Olympiad. They can check to see if they have a flat tire.” Another comment: “People are talking about Olympiad Road near Stoneridge, but look at all the cracks in the road going south to Oso. The streets in my neighborhood were resurfaced two years ago, and they are already cracking. The city goes with the low bidder to resurface every seven years, as if there is no cost to patch roads for four of the seven years.”

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Some residents say they are entitled to a dog park, with a price tag likely to reach $2 million. The land swap was a big net loss, plus extensive grading and stabilizing, plus strings attached to restore grasslands as part of the swap. The make-believe funds for such projects as a dog park are to come from $8 million park fees (which the city doesn’t have, after tennis resort expenses and paying $4.8 million to the state) and/or a “surplus” that exists only on paper. The city spent all the revenue it took in last year and went right on spending until it reached a $5.3 million deficit, http://www.missionviejoca.org/html/article242.html . The city’s financial holes are now so deep that no amount of happy talk can hide them.

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Mission Viejo residents can compare two council members, Frank Ury and Cathy Schlicht, whose guest columns appeared side-by-side in the Dec. 28 Saddleback Valley News. Schlicht indicates the city should tighten its belt, and she used city hall’s own numbers to document five years of deficit spending. Ury says the city should spend more money on lawyers and lobbyists to fight with Sacramento. It is ironic that Ury wrote about finances, particularly after he led the failed effort to hide $4.8 million in redevelopment money that belongs to the state. The city received the bill with a deadline of five days to pay. During a special council meeting on Dec. 21, Ury cast the sole vote against paying. He said he was protesting, and the city should have instead filed lawsuits against the state.

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As usual, city hall applied its spin regarding the $4.8 million. Readers should first know that the city entered an agreement with a developer, Watermarke, AFTER the cutoff date to enter redevelopment agreements. According to City Manager Dennis Wilberg (SVN Dec. 28 front page), the agreement came before the deadline. The article has so much false information it is not easy to distinguish Wilberg’s spin from what was written by an uninformed reporter. For example, (next to the last paragraph) “The agency paid Watermarke $4.8 million to build the affordable units.” The payment came from the Mission Viejo Housing Authority, not the Redevelopment Agency. MVHA was the entity formed by the council majority when attempting to hide more than $5 million in redevelopment funds from the state. Gov. Brown had already issued a demand that cities protect the assets -- redevelopment funds regardless of deceit by changing the name – no new contracts and no amendments to existing contracts. The city anticipated it would get busted for defying the order. Why else would it create a Letter of Credit whereby Watermarke would repay? Good luck getting repaid anytime soon.

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Save the date – ACT for America will hold a chapter meeting on Mon., Jan. 14. Doors open at 6:45 p.m., and the meeting starts promptly at 7:30 p.m. Jesse Petrilla of Rancho Santa Margarita will present “The Afghanistan Diaries,” revealing what’s really going on in the war with the Taliban. Jesse serves on the Rancho city council, and he recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan as a member of the California Army National Guard. ACT for America meets at the Norm Murray Community Center, 24932 Veterans Way, Mission Viejo.