REPORT FROM CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF 6/17/2008
Why does one city prosper and have great schools, low crime and a high quality of life while another nearby city goes in just the opposite direction?
It comes down to leadership.
You need good leadership in private industry and you need it in government.
Speaking of poor or no leadership, the Costa Mesa City Council pretty much rubber stamped the budget as proposed last night. This means more money to hire more cops and more money to repave some streets.
Ho hum.
Why do we need more cops? Because we have more crime and more gangs. And, next year we'll need even more cops, because we'll have more gangs and more crime. And, the year after that we'll need more cops....
And, what about our failing schools?
Why do we have more crime and more gangs and why do we have failing schools?
The answer is that successive do-nothing City Councils have not done the things to truly improve our city in important ways and our city has become a welcoming habitat for illegal aliens, criminals and gang bangers.
Right now, we don't seem to have any real leaders on the City Council.
Instead, we have five clerical employees who do a good job of signing whatever is put in front of them, but who don't seem capable of seeing the big picture and proposing things to quickly get our city back on track.
The nature of our local government and the part that should be played by the City Council shouldn't be difficult to understand, even for Councilmembers.
The nature of our local government and the part that should be played by the City Council shouldn't be difficult to understand, even for Councilmembers.
Costa Mesa has a line and staff organization.
The "line" is our City Council. The Councilmembers are supposed to be the generals, the leaders, the visionaries, the big thinkers. They initiate.
The "staff" are all the employees of the city. They are supposed to be the privates and sergeants who carry out the orders of the line. They implement.
Unfortunately, staff seems to be leading the City Council. This is because the Council has created a leadership vacuum and staff is filling it.
Let me put this in other terms.
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy told the nation:
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
That's the type of leadership we need in Costa Mesa. We need a politician who will say:
"I believe that this city should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of ridding our city of functionally obsolete sardine can apartment complexes that are the breeding grounds and safe havens for gangs and that we should work with the private sector to build modern affordable housing distributed around the city instead of being overly concentrated in various neighborhoods."
Foley doesn't get it
After the CM PRESS suggested to the Council that the budget should be prioritized so the City can buy up slum apartment buildings one here and one there and either put in some pocket parks or use them for senior housing, Councilmember Foley said that she doesn't support eminent domain.
Sigh!
The CM PRESS hadn't suggested eminent domain. Our suggestion was to have the City buy properties on the open market the way any investor would buy them. The difference is that the City would then raze the properties it owns instead of stuffing them with twelve illegal aliens per bedroom.
In other words, the City should thin out the slums using free market principles. Over time, as slum neighborhoods are thinned out, the problems associated with these over crowded neighborhoods will disappear.
Removing a building here and there will reduce the critical mass needed to maintain gangs and a viable criminal element concentrated in various neighborhoods.
Sigh!
The CM PRESS hadn't suggested eminent domain. Our suggestion was to have the City buy properties on the open market the way any investor would buy them. The difference is that the City would then raze the properties it owns instead of stuffing them with twelve illegal aliens per bedroom.
In other words, the City should thin out the slums using free market principles. Over time, as slum neighborhoods are thinned out, the problems associated with these over crowded neighborhoods will disappear.
Removing a building here and there will reduce the critical mass needed to maintain gangs and a viable criminal element concentrated in various neighborhoods.
There is even a precedent for this in Costa Mesa. Several years ago, the City bought a slum building in Shalimar, tore it down and put in a pocket park.
All the CM PRESS is saying is that the City should continue with that Shalimar precedent.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
