REPORT FROM CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF 4/3/07
PASSIVE PARKS
The CM PRESS once again tried to help the Silly Council understand the problem of soccer teams taking over our passive parks and endangering citizens who want to use them for their proper purposes.
To do this, we asked the Council if they would think it proper if soccer teams pulled up in cars in front of City Hall and started playing a soccer game on the sidewalk leading into the Council Chambers and told people, including the City Councilmembers themselves, to get off the sidewalk because there was a soccer game being played there and that the soccer players were there first.
We told the Council that this is what we're essentially experiencing in Paularino Park and reportedly also in Canyon Park and Vista Park and maybe others that we've not yet heard about.
We also told the Council that this problem that has been complained about at least since 2005 could easily be solved by simply posting passive parks with a notice of Municipal Code 12-45(a):
"No person shall fly a kite or airplane (driven by internal combustion engine) or participate in any games such as baseball, football, hockey, and the like in any park where such use has been prohibited by a sign posted at the entrance to the park as designated by the administrative services department or the public services department."
Once again, our comments elicited no response from the Councilmembers.
WHAT'S NEXT?
We did receive a message from Jana Ransom, Recreation Manager for the City (714) 754-5654 telling us that there is going to be a public meeting at Paularino School on Wednesday, May 2, from 7 to 8 pm to see what "residents" want in Paularino Park.
OUR SUSPICION
Based on past comments, we suspect this meeting may be a white wash and that it may be packed with suspected illegal aliens, or that petitions with names and addresses that can't be verified will be presented asking that soccer be allowed in Paularino Park. This is the same sort of thing we saw over on the Westside when we were meeting to try to revitalize that area of town.
--Developing--
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WHY AREN'T RELEASED CRIMINALS REGISTERING WITH THE CMPD?
One citizen asked the Council why people who have been convicted of various enumerated crimes such as rape, burglary, robbery and even graffiti offenses aren't registering with the CMPD as required by Penal Code Section 186.20--186.33 which was passed by the voters in November 2000 as Prop. 21.
This law requires these individuals to register for five years with the local police department in the city where they live.
According to this citizen, what is now happening is that instead of registering with the CMPD, those who were convicted and who are now back on our streets are registering (if they register at all) with the Orange County Sheriff's Department. This citizen contends that this is not adequate because the Sheriff's Department is too large and covers too wide an area and thus can't keep tabs on these individuals in our city and thus frustrates the purpose of the law.
This citizen also expressed his belief that the City of Costa Mesa may be breaking the law by handing off this responsibility to the Sheriff's Department.
--Developing--
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MEANWHILE, IN DANA POINT...
While citizens of Costa Mesa witnessed our City Council acting like a bunch of eunuchs and heard the earth shattering news that one of Councilmember Katrina Foley's sons is in some sort of snowboard event, the City Council in Dana Point was busy doing the people's business by enacting a new no-trespassing ordinance that allows private property owners to boot day laborers off their property and to place them under citizen's arrest if they refuse to leave the property. This ordinance is similar to ones passed in Lake Forest and Mission Viejo.
In an article about this ordinance appearing in the OC Register today, Jean Silva, a manger of business properties in Dana Point said, "They go there to drink, play cards, gamble and urinate and defecate all over the place. It's horrible. I think this is great. The families don't have to be afraid to walk through there anymore."
Well, why isn't the Costa Mesa City Council doing something like this? Check out the day laborers (probably including many illegal aliens) who congregate at the 7-11 on Placentia and Victoria, at the paint store at Harbor and 19th Street, at the paint store at Bristol and Baker, and near the old job center on 17th and Placentia.
And, what about the suspected illegal aliens who are urinating and defecating in our passive parks and who are chasing citizens out of those parks? Well, the Council is apparently happy to let City Staff drag this out for as long as they want.
Hey, City Council, this is a health and safety issue and it should not be a matter to be discussed at hug-a-thon meetings where everyone sings kumbaya and gives their uninformed opinions. Take action for the health and safety of citizens and stop acting like a bunch of eunuchs.
And, by the way, exactly where was Foley? She wasn't at the meeting. Our guess is that she was with her kid on the slopes. So, we're paying her for this? She should resign from the City Council and just be a full time PTA mother. If the CM PRESS can take the time to be at these meetings and not even be paid to be there, shouldn't a Councilmember, who is paid, be there?
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AND WHAT ABOUT THIS EUNUCH BUSINESS
It's starting to seem to more and more improvement minded citizens that once we elect people to the City Council, these individuals quickly become part of the status quo establishment that has been screwing up this city for many years instead of retaining something of an outsider, rock the boat attitude that got them elected in the first place.
Or, to put this in other terms. Citizens put these people in a position to score points, handed them the ball, and are now watching some of them drop that ball and not score.
How about some action City Council? Closing down the job center and having an ICE agent in the jail were good moves, but they're not enough. We're paying you each and every day to make this city nicer. Are you doing something important and meaningful each and every day to improve this city or are you just going through the motions and having staff lead you around by your noses?
Take the initiative. You're supposed to be leaders. We don't need eunuchs on the dais.
And, Council, in case you don't know what to do, here are some suggestions:
1. Remove slum buildings.
2. Stop trying to accommodate law breakers by penalizing citizens as you did with the shopping cart issue. Instead of citing those who steal the carts, you're forcing citizens to pay
$ 40,000 per year to pick them up.
3. Make sure street cops are really checking for driver's licenses, proof of registration and proof of insurance in cars they stop and that they're bringing those without papers to the station to be interviewed by the ICE agent.
4. Defund the charities and stop giving them taxpayer money so they can recruit more illegal aliens to come to this city to use their services so next year they can ask for more money because they have more people to serve.
5. Stop your no-Planning Commissioners from approving things that will keep the Westside bluffs mired in industrial buildings for the next fifty years.
6. Stop appointing know-nothing political hacks to commissions and committees. You're putting people on these things who don't know anything about how any government works, let alone our municipal government, and you're appointing some who don't even live in this city and who don't have a clue that we want to improve our city. Are you people nuts?
7. Do everything you can to encourage the building of upscale homes on the Westside bluffs.
8. Stop printing City brochures in Spanish and stop using Spanish on the City's Website. This is an English speaking country. Those legally coming here need to do as we do instead of telling us we must do headstands to make nice with them. Screw them. If they want things to be as they were where they came from, then they should go back there.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
