CLUE TO THE ELECTION IN COSTA MESA THIS YEAR
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GIRL WITH TAIL MAKES CHEER SQUAD?
Look at the girl on the far left. LINK
Say, maybe the almost-daily Daily Pilot can check some of these photos and photoshop them a little before publication.
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JIM RIGHEIMIER--A POLITICAL OPPORTUNIST?
As reported in the almost-daily Daily Pilot today, no-Planning Commissioner Jim Righeimer is goin
g to make a run for City Council this year. LINKThis is no surprise to Improvers who have long realized that the bigs in the GOP have noticed with increasing interest that Improvers have been helping elect unelectable candidates in Costa Mesa against overwhelming odds since the Improvers first came on the scene in 1999.
We find it ironic, however, that Righeimer is Congressman Dana Rohrabacher's campaign manager.
Back when Improvers first came on the scene and were working to elect Chris Steel, the CM PRESS contacted Rohrabacher's office and asked if the Congressman would endorse Steel. Rohrabacher's staff member told us that the Congressman wasn't interested in backing people who didn't have a chance of winning.
Then, as you may recall, with the help of the Improvers and their grassroots campaign, Steel won with more votes than anyone else in the race that year. This was after he had been trounced in his nine prior runs for the Council. The only thing different in Steel's winning campaign as opposed to his earlier failing ones, was the Improvers.
The experts scratched their heads and decided it was a strange fluke.
Come the next election, the Improvers helped an unknown AllanMansoor get elected. Just another fluke, they said.
Then came Bever. A fluke? Well...there sure are a lot of flukes in Costa Mesa these days.
Then came Mansoor 2 and Leece.
Geez. Maybe it's not a fluke at all. What are these Improvers doing?
And, along the way, the nobody candidates backed by the Improvers, learned the political ropes and made the bigwig contacts that candidates must make, and ran increasingly more professional campaigns.
But out in the streets, it was still the Improvers doing the grassroots work.
So, knowing a little of the history of local politics, it was no surprise to the CM PRESS that Righeimer moved to Costa Mesa where political magic seemed to be the order of the day; even though most people couldn't (and still can't) explain the mojo at work any more than they can explain why electricity works.
We've listened and watched
The CM PRESS has listened to and watched Righeimer since he came to the city. In that time, we've seen him start to understand what the Improvers are all about and we've seen him vote the right way on improvement issues without any prompting that we know about. In other words, it appears that he may have his head screwed on right to help Costa Mesa improve.
And, since he does reportedly have a Rolodex full of contacts with some of the bigs, having him on the Council could be helpful to the improvement of our city.
However, we weren't pleased about some of what we read in the almost-daily Daily Pilot today
(Pilot story in blue italics, [CM PRESS comments in red with brackets]:
A real estate developer by trade, Righeimer’s main agenda is to encourage new development in the city. [OK, good so far, so long as it's the right kind of development.]
He said friction among council members has kept the council from uniting to achieve goals.
[Dead wrong. This is a tired cliche. The truth is that it only takes three votes to achieve goals and the majority on the dais right now generally vote for improvement goals.]
“There has been a lack of a big vision as to where the city should be. [Right to a point. The majority generally have a pretty good big vision, but seem to lack the sparkplug personalities and focus to know how to really get moving by putting certain pieces in place.
In other words, the majority on the Council seem to be playing a game of tactics rather than one of strategy and they're more on the defense rather than offense. Or, to put this in even more colorful terms, it's like the picture above where one buzzard says "Patience my ass, I'm gonna kill something." Unfortunately, our present majority are like the buzzard who has too much patience.]
I don’t think the City Council gels together.
[It doesn't have to gel. Again, it only takes three votes to get things done. Foley and Dixon are philosophically very different from the majority, and to try to gel with them would require compromises that would hurt improvement.]
I get along with everyone up on that dais,” Righeimer said.
[Ah, that's too bad. We're not electing a kumbaya chorus. To get along with everyone means that one has to compromise on some very basic issues and we don't need that.
That was one of our problems with Gary Monahan (who is also running). While politics is the art of compromise, some things can't and shouldn't be compromised just to get along and be everyone's pal. We don't need people on the Council who want to be voted most liked by lefties.
We need hard headed, pushy people who don't want to be politicians and who have a clear vision of how to improve Costa Mesa and who won't give up until that's done.
Also, Righeimer's statement seems to indicate that Righeimer wants to run a Lone Ranger campaign and wouldn't care if he knocked Bever or Monahan off, because he'd get along just fine with Foley and Dixon or any other lefty who might get elected. Big mistake. That's not a winning strategy this year and it won't help improvement. See the first article in this issue for a clue.
We don't mind a little political opportunism so long as it works for the improvement of Costa Mesa. But, if it's just to advance a single person's political career, and to hell with improvement, we're not for it.]
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SON OF LATINO ACTIVIST ARRESTED IN SHOTGUN ATTACK
Salvador Hilario Burciaga, 19, the son of failed City Council candidate Mirna Burciaga was one of three individuals arrested in connection with last week's shotgun wounding of a 15-year-old girl in the Shalimar slum. LINK
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
