The Buzz

Council candidates for the November 2014 election are posturing at nearly every council meeting and city event. Wendy Bucknum hasn’t stopped campaigning since her loss in November 2012 when voters said no to electronic billboards, her campaign centerpiece. She benefited from partnering with Councilman Frank Ury, infusing her campaign treasury with special interest money. Bucknum produced an $8,000 mailer attacking Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht. An Orange County Register editor endorsed Ury and Bucknum and gave them free advertising in his political column. Saddleback Valley News continues to promote Bucknum, and SVN’s July 26 edition filled half a page with its other chosen council wannabe, Bob Breton. Breton stepped down from the council years ago after architects accused him of coercion – demanding donations to a campaign during a bid process http://www.missionviejoca.org/html/buzz75.html . Demonstrating his other political skill, Breton currently is telling half the people he’s running for office while telling the other half he’s not.

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City Hall broke ground on July 24 for the world’s most expensive dog park. They did it with a two-prong approach – hiding costs while using a resident to push the project. The main dog park enthusiast attacks anyone in front of her – homeowners who live near the site, elected officials or impartial bystanders. Even following the council’s 3-2 decision to use the city’s reserves to pay for a dog park residents don’t want, she wrote a nasty letter. Given that every taxpayer in the city is paying for HER dog park, how about saying thank you? City Hall has a new campaign, asking residents to come up with a name for the park. Just call it what it is, the World’s Most Expensive Dog Park. It formerly was known as the Million Dollar Dog Park, but the cost will be well beyond a million.

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City staff has never shown genuine support for a dog park, and its poll of residents also found that Mission Viejo taxpayers don’t want a dog park. The group of people who initially asked for a dog park said they don’t want an expensive one. Staffers, however, saw a golden opportunity, using the dog park theme to create a million dollar parking lot next to the sports fields on Felipe.

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In Frank Ury’s campaign for the Board of Supervisors he’s touting his business-friendly nature and saying he’ll create jobs – a replay from his first campaign for a city council seat in 2004. His prior experience in elected office was in the early 1990s on the Saddleback Valley school board. After one term on the school board, voters threw him out. To this day, they talk about his hostility toward teachers, administrators and public schools. Contrary to his campaign of being business-friendly, he has demonstrated self-dealing ( http://www.missionviejoca.org/html/article376.html ) and service to special interest, developers and other sugar daddies. His voting record is poor ( http://www.missionviejoca.org/html/article128.html ), and he frequently changes jobs. A report recently emerged regarding a harassment claim against Ury by a co-worker.

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For an update on the controversial Cadiz project to supply Orange County with water from the Mojave Desert, read http://ocpoliticsblog.com/republican-congressman-asks-the-feds-to-review-the-cadiz-water-project/ The blog article includes the following summary of arguments against the Cadiz Project.

The project, located near Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave Desert National Preserve, proposes to pump over 16 BILLION gallons of water, every year, for 50 years from desert aquifers. This is at a rate of over 150 percent more than natural replenishment, even if you accept Cadiz’s biased and overly-optimistic projections of water recharge rates.

Desert ecosystems in danger include rare plant and animal life that will virtually become extinct should this project move forward.

According to many sources, including the National Park Service and MWD, the Draft Economic Impact Report (DEIR) is grossly flawed. It didn’t even include the entire project area.

The SMWD’s analysis significantly downplays, and in many instances completely ignores, the projected water demand required within the “local” and “regional” areas.

The cumulative analysis in the DEIR barely touches on the enormous water demand for the numerous renewable energy projects, primarily solar projects, located within the local and regional assessment area.

The DEIR does not discuss how anticipated South Orange County population growth and associated secondary air quality impacts will have a significant environmental effect on Joshua Tree National Park.

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The Dana Point Theater Company will host its annual Shakespeare in the Park, presenting the "Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)” on August 23, 25 and 26 at 6:00 p.m. at Lantern Bay Park in Dana Point. For more information: (949) 291-5083 or dptheaterco@hotmail.com