(Wednesday, 6:36 pm)
We thought we had explained a possible scenario about the Fairgrounds in our earlier articles, but we've received a few comments from folks who apparently didn't get it.
So, here it is again in different words.
If you're a developer with a secret plan to build homes, retail stores and maybe an office building or two on the Fairgrounds site, you want to be able to go to the State of California and tell them, that because of the restrictions on the property, you can only pay, say, $30-50 million for it. To do this, you'll want the Costa Mesa City Council to make a lot of noise (right now) about how the City is, in fact, going to put such restrictions on the site.
Then, once you get the site on the cheap, you simply get three people elected to the City Council who will get rid of the restrictions so that you can build as you want.
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Frankly, the surest way to keep the Fairgrounds as a Fairgrounds is to have another government entity buy it. The other government entity could be the City of Costa Mesa or the County of Orange or a partnership between them or maybe even with some Newport Beach involvement. On this last point, remember that we do have a joint school district with Newport and this angle could be massaged.
Of course, even having a government entity buy the place is not an absolute guarantee that it will remain a fairgrounds.
One of the problems we have at this time in our history is that the center of gravity of Orange County has switched to the south of us, and an annual Orange County Fair held at the Great Pork is just around the corner no matter what happens with the Costa Mesa Fairgrounds.
So, would we see competing annual fairs? Maybe, but probably not for long. Our guess is that the one held in Costa Mesa would quickly go out of business.
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IT JUST TAKES THREE
Q. How many Costa Mesa City Councilmembers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Three.
Q. How many does it take to change zoning, screw up a city, ruin the Westside, let the airport grow, let the Fairgrounds be developed, put in an IKEA, give your money to charities that welcome illegal aliens and comfort gang members, waste your money on expensive projects, and keep the city full of illegal aliens, gangs and slums?
A. Three.
Now do you understand why the CM PRESS goes to as many City Council meetings as possible?
Now do you understand how local politics works? Count the ways: 1, 2, 3.
All it takes is 3 votes to change the direction of Costa Mesa.
Be sure to read the article right below this one about a slow moving train wreck that is about to hit Costa Mesa that is going to be difficult to stop.
And, if you think the dithering class is on top of this, you'd better remember back to when the same dithering class said they were going to put a commercial airport in El Toro. The joke was on Costa Mesa and Newport Beach citizens as we got snookered.
We're here to tell you again: The snookering continues.
If you want something done right, you better do it yourself by getting involved.
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ORANGE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS--HOW REAL ESTATE FORTUNES ARE MADE!
(First publshed in slightly different form in CM PRESS # 771, August 4, 2009)
Maybe there really are some folks who want to buy the OC Fairgrounds and keep it as a fairgrounds forever. Well, it's possible. But possibility is not the issue. Probability is.
You see, there have to be some who see it as a chance to make many millions of dollars with very little risk.
Here, by the numbers, is how the gravy train can run for those who want to make a killing in real estate (in simplest terms). Note that the first step can be used both by those who really do want to keep it as a fairgrounds forever and by those who want to make a big profit:
1. Set up a non-profit corporation and buy the fairgrounds as fairgrounds,with fairgrounds zoning--the land is valued much less for such uses than for some other uses--so you'll get it for a song. Tell everyone who will listen that you intend to keep it as fairgrounds forever to help with your charitable causes and to serve Costa Mesa. You especially want to help the kids.
2. Once you own the fairgrounds, land bank it for a couple of years while servicing your debt (at least in part) by intensifying its present fairgrounds uses.
3. Work to elect a friendly Costa Mesa City Council.
4. Once you have a friendly City Council (you only need three of the five to be on board with you) claim that the fairgrounds is not bringing in the money you thought it would and you need a zoning change for a large portion of the land so you can maintain the remaining part as a reduced size fairgrounds in order to continue helping poor children who will all become gang members unless you help them with after school programs, etc.
5. Have your pals on the Costa Mesa City Council vote to change the zoning on a large part of the land to residential, office, retail or even a few institutional uses. (Laugh silently to yourself as you hear your Council stooges talking about Costa Mesa being a city with a heart, and how we have to help the children.)
6. Sell those rezoned parts of the land at the much higher price you'll get with the new zoning. In public, shed [crocodile] tears for the loss of the land but claim that, gee, you need the money to help the poor at risk children. Also say that the new smaller fairgrounds will be much better than the old larger version because you're going to bring in some new activities for children and families.
7. Manipulate public opinion by having your dimwitted surrogates (on the Council, in the blogosphere, and in the local press) claim that those who see what you're doing, and who speak out about it, hate children and especially poor brown children, and that unless you can proceed, these poor brown children will turn to gangs and terrorize the city.
8. Laugh as you go to the bank to count your money.
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SUIT CLAIMS CITY REFUSED TO HIRE POLICE CHIEF BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN
He's white. LINK
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THE CM PRESS ON HEALTH CARE REFORM
The CM PRESS has been in favor of health care reform for many years--long before the present Sturm und Drang that occupies much of the public discourse these days.
Our reasoning with health care follows our reasoning about government generally.
Here's our reasoning in a nutshell. We, as citizens of this country, are members of the club. We should get a fair and honest return on the money we give to our government and we should get the benefits and privileges of being members of the club; not just the responsibilities. Our money should not be wasted, but should benefit us.
Specifically, we believe we should stop almost all foreign aid. It is obscene that we are giving away billions of our dollars while many of our own citizens are hungry and are not getting medical care, or are so worried about not having medical insurance that they're losing sleep over it. We also believe that we should not be running off into costly foreign wars that don't benefit us.
Right now, we're spending billions of our tax dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in gifts to foreign countries, and that money should be used right here in the U.S. to make life better for our citizens.
So, we come down strongly in favor of a better health care system in the U.S. for members of the club.
However, it has to be done right and all the pieces of such a better plan have to work toward making the whole system work. You can't just change this piece over here and not others or you're going to cause problems. And, we see problems with the present plans because none of them seem to really address the basic underlying structural problems of our present national thinking. Without addressing these underlying structural problems, a new health care plan will have problems.
What do we mean?
We believe that those who qualify for a medical education should get that education for free in exchange for a certain number of years working at a modest living wage while providing free health care to all U.S. citizens. After the free education is worked off, the medical professionals can opt out and open private practices. This will give us the needed doctors, nurses and other professionals that we need.
We also believe that an important piece of the plan must be serious tort reform. We don't want medical professionals throwing caution to the wind because they can't be sued, but at present most medical professionals are too easily sued. This is bad for health care and it's bad for our society.
Another important piece of any plan should be to keep those who are in the country illegally from receiving free health care.
To recap, here are the major things that we feel must be part, not only of any genuine health care reform, but also of any reform of the way the country is being run:
1. Stop wasting our money in phony wars and foreign aid and similar things and ALWAYS use that money to benefit U.S. citizens. They're the members of the club.
2. Free medical education.
3. Tort reform.
4. Citizens get the benefits of citizenship; illegal aliens do not.
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LIMBAUGH FINALLY CATCHING ON THAT TODAY'S GOP STINKS?
Link
Our whole two-party scam system needs revising to allow a realistic chance for third parties to gain some political power.
At the present time, the two parties are both pandering to the multitudes clustered under the center of the bell curve.
The reason is simple: That's where most of the votes are. It's just mathematically certain that most voters are going to be average. This makes the two-parties also want to be average in their positions.
Both parties want to be that just right porridge--not too hot and not too cold--just average.
Under a European system, by contrast, third parties standing firm on principles can stick with those principles and not pander.
To answer our own question posed in the headline: We doubt that Limbaugh will try to do anything to help create the political change we need. His whole subconscious is geared around stark opposites--two opposing teams. Listen to him for a couple of hours and you'll realize that he sees politics as Democrats vs. Republicans, Liberals vs. Conservatives, and our various wars as Our Side against Their Side. Limbaugh's view of reality is that everything is like a football game.
This is a serious and simplistic error in thinking. Reality is not just opposites. We do not just have hot and cold--we have a continuum. We do not just have light and dark--there is a continuum. It is also this way in the political views of voters--there is a continuum.
Of course, there has almost always been a problem with modern third party movements in this country in that they are usually little more than a flash in the pan. They come on the scene and run a big name at the top of the ticket who doesn't have a realistic chance of winning the presidency, and then they effectively disappear once the presidential election is over.
What needs to happen is a revision of our system, as mentioned above, and then the third parties need to build from the bottom up by winning local municipal elections all across the country so that there is a deep back bench of competent politicians on the way up who are struggling with each other to come to the fore based on principles that they believe in and which they want to have others also believe in.
The present system rewards mediocrity and sameness. One coin, two sides. We need some new coins.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
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