CM PRESS # 287

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6:45PM--This corrects to SW corner....
Potential voter intimidation violations by the Costa Mesa Police Department will be revealed at a press conference held tomorrow, Saturday October 16 at 11:00am at the SW corner of 17th St and Superior Ave in Costa Mesa, CA with Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach and Planning Commissioner and City Council Candidate Jim Righeimer. Witnesses to the voter intimidation act will be present.
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GEERT WILDERS NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS
LINK
Dutch PC types tried to have the popular politician jailed or fined because he said some things about Islam they didn't like.
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Message to E....--leave your email in comments.  It won't be published. We'll then contact you. Do you have photos? Thanks.
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MESSAGE TO 'ETHICS...' PLEASE SEND INFO ON HOW YOU KNOW THEY'RE THE ONES TAKING DOWN THE SIGNS.  AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'OFFICIAL'?
 IF YOU HAVE PHOTOS, GIVE US YOUR EMAIL IN COMMENTS (we won't publish it) AND WE'LL CONTACT YOU FOR COPIES. Thanks, CM PRESS
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IF YOU LIVE IN COSTA MESA AND YOU VOTE FOR THIS GUY--PHU NGUYEN (KNOWN AS PHAT PHUEY TO US)-- OVER ALLAN MANSOOR FOR THE STATE ASSEMBLY YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR HEAD EXAMINED.

As a resident of Costa Mesa, Mansoor has a long time understanding of what we need in our city as well as a natural affinity for Costa Mesa.  Phat Phuey knows nothing about Costa Mesa.

Mansoor's website
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 RIGHEIMER SHINES AT EASTSIDE COMMUNITY FORUM

Jim Righeimer's website HERE

The Eastsiders put on a nice candidate forum last night with questions that clearly revealed what the candidates were made of.

The three know-nothing candidates--Sue Lester, Chad Petschl and  Chris McEvoy--once again showed that they know nothing.

Some questions were asked of all candidates and some of just one candidate.  Below is a sprinkling of what struck us the most.

On a question about what to do with John Wayne Airport curfews[as in, how do we keep JWA from growing?] Petschl, who admitted that he has only been in town since March 2009 (why in the world is this guy running and wasting our time?), showed he doesn't know a thing about our area when he went off into lala land and talked about adding more runways to JWA so we wouldn't have to have  curfews on flights and could have planes landing all day and all night.  No, dear reader, we're not kidding you.  This is what this guy thinks we want in Costa Mesa: a bigger airport,with more runways, running all night long.

The rest of the candidates all said they wanted no expansion of JWA.

On a question about how to control density on the Eastside, Lester swerved off into a stupid backhanded attack on Jim Righeimer and the Planning Commission (without naming either) when she said that the "city should have no appointed positions."  She repeated this at least one other time during the forum. 

Can it be that Lester doesn't understand that California law requires cities to have Planning Commissions? [Digression: By contrast, California does not require cities of have Parks and Recreation Commissions and the CM PRESS has repeatedly called for ours to be disbanded].

 And can Lester be unaware that the normal way of filling Planning Commissions, that are on the same page as our elected City Council, is to have the Commissioners be appointed by the Council?  If it weren't done this way, we could end up with a dysfunctional local government in which Councilmembers might be elected for, say, slow growth, and then Planning Commissioners--if not appointed by the Council--might all want fast growth.

The result would be that many decisions of the Planning Commissioners would then be appealed to the Council where most would probably be overturned.  This would be a very inefficient and costly way of doing the people's business.

On a question about what to do with the 55 Freeway dropping traffic into our downtown, McEvoy at first gave a rambling and mostly incoherent answer about making sure we don't have cut through traffic in our neighborhoods. Then, he must have realized he was missing the point and mentioned a tunnel--which is what most of us want.

When asked about noise levels coming from Triangle Square, Leece didn't say anything meaningful but just seemed to acknowledge that she had heard there was noise coming from the Sutra Lounge. Wendy does work hard at her job on the Council and she is approachable, and she really does mean well, but sometimes we wish she were more focused on the big picture of improving our city and could see how all the pieces fit together.  More of this in the next article below, because it would be too long a digression here.

Every one of Righeimer's answers was intelligent and showed that he does understand what we need in Costa Mesa and how we can get it.  Righeimer is no ham handed politician.  He knows that you sometimes have to get to your goal via an indirect route. When asked about what we can do about the proliferation of half-way houses in the city, Righeimer correctly said that under state law we can't do much in a direct fashion  but that we can control the impacts. 

He then gave an example of this. If, for example, you are going to open a half-way house and intend to add another bedroom or two, the city may say that you also have to have a three car garage to keep all the additioal cars off the street.  Now, in Costa Mesa, there aren't many built out properties that will allow you to add a three car garage, right?  Sorry, you can't put in a half-way house.
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WENDY LEECE, THE BIG PICTURE AND HUMAN PETS

We like Wendy and we'd like to see her get re-elected. And, we have no doubt that she will be re-elected.  However, we do have some problems with Wendy tilting too much in favor of non-profits.

Now, let's understand right away that "non-profit" is not necessarily the stuff of Mother Teresa.  Many of the non-profits in Costa Mesa are businesses that make very nice salaries and provide good benefits for the bosses of these non-profits.  Some of these non-profits even get free rent from the city (that taxpayers pay for). 

To repeat. The business plan of some non-profit bosses is to get free rent and pocket the profits as salaries and then to be perceived as kind and compassionate souls.

Take the free use of some of our sports fields in Costa Mesa. Some non-profits (not all of them, though), that aren't even headquartered in Costa Mesa, get absolutely free use of sports fields that taxpayers must pay for.  But these non-profits charge their players to play on these fields.  Where do those player dollars go?  In some cases, right into the wallets of those who run the non-profits.

Some other non-profits are magnets pulling people to Costa Mesa who can't afford to live here, and then these non-profits help them  feel comfortable and wanted here by paying their rent, paying their utility bills, giving them free school supplies, giving them free bags of groceries, giving them free baby sitting services, and day care and free this and free that.  And, many of those receiving these freebies are illegal aliens who are working under the table and hiding their incomes.

What is the result of all these freebies?  Well, free things draw even more who want them. Feed a lone pigeon in your backyard and you'll soon find an ever growing flock of pigeons showing up. The principle is the same with humans.

In our view, Wendy doesn't always seem to see the big picture concerning some of these non-profits. She seems to have been drinking too much of the self-serving kool-aid press releases put out by some of these non-profits.  She doesn't seem to understand that not all of the non-profits in Costa Mesa are helping people who have fallen on hard times, but that many of them have been established to help illegal aliens feel at home in Costa Mesa and many of them are acting as magnets drawing people to our city who then become a permanent underclass driving down the quality of life of self-reliant citizens who do try to stand on their own no matter what is thrown at them.

And, when some of our stable citizens fall on hard times, they find all the non-profit gelt has been sucked up by those leeching off the system who probably shouldn't even be in this country.

There's also a reason why we have a growing homeless population in Costa Mesa. In fact, there were many homeless people in the park and in the library next to the forum last night.  The reason is the same as we wrote about above. It's because the non-profits here welcome them and fill their needs.  Homeless people feel comfortable here.

To repeat. Feed a hungry pigeon in your backyard and you'll soon have a flock of pigeons.  It's just the nature of life--including human life--that it works this way.

In several of my books I lay this out very simply as a precept: "All living organisms gravitate to where they feel comfortable."   The principle is the same for bacteria and humans.

Now, the comfort can be physical or it can be psychological or it can be  both.  Take some of the folks who we read about in the papers all the time for their charity work in Costa Mesa.  They're seeking  their own comfort just as the people they "help" are seeking theirs.

Scratch the surface of some of these compassionate folks a little and you'll often discover that it's not altruism, but a deep seated psychological need to mother others.  They find their comfort in doing this charity work.  It gives meaning to their lives.  It makes them feel, oh, swell, and holier than those who don't do this.

Unfortunately, many of those involved in this work commute to Costa Mesa (hey, it's closer than the Third World) to get their jollies doing this charity work and then they go back to Newport Beach, or where ever, when the sun goes down).  They may be helping some individuals, and they may go to sleep at night feeling smugly good about themselves, but they're harming the city as a whole, because they're pulling Costa Mesa down.

We'd like to see some of these compassionate folks from Newport Beach come to Costa Mesa and take some of the "needy" back to their own neighborhoods to care for them as the human pets that they make them into.  But, you know they won't do that.  They don't want the needy in their backyards, daaaaahling, they want them in Costa Mesa where they are close enough to swoop down on and mother for a few hours but far enough away so they're not a bother and so they won't ruin the quality of life where the compassionate folks live and raise their families.

Some of these compassionate folks are the slightly less loony version of the neurotic cat ladies we read about in the paper all the time.  But, instead of  collecting and mothering cats, these folks collect and mother humans.  Unfortunately, they don't fill their own neighborhoods with them the way cat ladies may fill their cars or homes with cats, they fill OUR neighborhoods with them.

What a life.  Have a neurosis but  have some others think it's compassion and then have them actually  praise you for your neurosis while you stand there with a beatific smile while casting your eyes heavenward.

"Why, isn't that the smell of roses? "

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Those are our opinions.  Thanks for reading them.