SENIOR CENTER ON THE CITY COUNCIL AGENDA
At the January 6, City Council meeting, the council will vote on whether or not to set up a committee to take a look at the Senior Center and report back to the council. LINK
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STILL CONFUSED ABOUT THE SENIOR CENTER?
When people speak about the Senior Center, they usually mean the building located at 695 W. 19th Street across from Bethel Towers. That building is owned by the citizens of Costa Mesa.
Right now, the tenant in that building is an organization called the Costa Mesa Senior Corporation (CMSC). The CMSC and the building are not one. They are separate. The CMSC is a tenant like any other tenant except that the City of Costa Mesa is leasing the building to the CMSC for a buck a year instead of at the market rate of approximately $133,000 per year.
The City also gives the CMSC more than $240,000 per year in cash and provides most of the maintenance to the building.
In exchange, the CMSC is supposed to run a Senior Center with activities and benefits for our senior citizens to make life a little easier and fun for them.
As the landlord, the City of Costa Mesa has the right to terminate the present lease if it wants and to lease out the building to another corporation to run the Senior Center or to an art gallery or a college or whoever else may want to lease it.
The Problem
Sometime ago, some seniors who use the Senior Center contacted Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Leece with a list of complaints about things that they felt either weren't going right at the center or which could be improved.
Ms. Leece then did what a responsible city council member does. She started gathering facts to fully understand the situation. As part of Ms. Leece's fact finding efforts, she apparently put together a list of questions based on some of the complaints she heard, along with some other questions whose answers would provide a fuller picture of the Senior Center's operations.
Then, some of the "friends" of the CMSC started making intemperate remarks about Ms. Leece and the complaining senior citizens, and these were published in the Katrina Foley Almost Daily Daily Pilot.
That's where we are today. Ms. Leece wants transparency at the Senior Center and she wants complaints investigated and handled, and she wants the board of the CMSC to include some new people.
The Katrina Foley Almost Daily Daily Pilot (photo of Pee Wee Herman)
The KFADDP is no friend of Ms. Leece or the majority on the City Council and even endorsed opponents of the current majority in the last several elections.
And, wouldn't you know it? Two of the people the KFADDP endorsed in City Council elections (Bruce Garlich and Mike Schaefer) are sitting on the board of the CMSC along with some other liberal activists who supported Garlich and Schaefer and Katrina Foley.
So, it's no surprise that the ultra-liberal KFADDP is taking the side of the CMSC against the City Council on this matter and it's no surprise that the articles it runs on the issue and the comments it publishes are in favor of not having transparency.
Imagine that! Usually we hear about newspapers trying to force governments and institutions using citizen money and buildings to be transparent, but the KFADDP apparently doesn't want transparency and we're not seeing any stories or editorials in the KFADDP calling for such transparency.
Remember, folks, the CMSC is in YOUR building and is using YOUR money to help our senior citizens. YOU have a right to know that all is well over there. YOU have a right to know your money is being spent wisely.
Suppose you went to your bank and asked to see how much money you have in your account and the banker told you it's none of your business.
Would you complain? You bet you would. That's because it's YOUR money. Well, this Senior Center business isn't much different than that, really. It's YOUR building. And, a lot of YOUR money is being spent over there. You have a right to know that everything is being handled correctly at the Senior Center.
Wendy Leece should be on the board and she should be on the committee that the City Council will probably set up on Tuesday. She's a fearless advocate for the people of this city, including our senior citizens, and she's not part of the good old boys club. She'll do what's right, just because it is right even if it steps on a few political toes. We don't know about you, but we find that refreshing in politicians.
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AND SPEAKING OF CMSC BOARD MEMBERS MIKE SCHAEFER AND BRUCE GARLICH
Here's a link to a KCET Life and Times transcript of a show from 2006, in which Mike Schaefer and Bruce Garlich argued against having our cops check for legal status of arestees. LINK
We found this statement from Garlich to be interesting: Bruce Garlich>> Our chief estimated that this program might produce eight to ten, maybe a dozen, people a year that would be eligible to be deported as a result of it. That's a very small number when you trade it off against the cost of close to two hundred thousand dollars plus the time that it would take, a half shift almost of a police officer who was doing that work, to do what's basically a clerical job.
Actually, the ICE agent has been averaging about 30 illegal aliens a month to be deported.
More than a thousand illegal alien criminals have now been deported from Costa Mesa and our streets are getting safer.
Aren't you glad that Garlich wasn't elected to the City Council?
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
