CM PRESS # 460

POLLUTION ON THE WESTSIDE?

[photo of Rob Dickson--who should not be on the Planning Commission] 

The guy in charge of ClaVal--the big foundry/machine shop/valve maker on Placentia and 17th Street--got an award last night from the City Council.

In his comments when he was accepting the award, this guy showed photos of new equipment that had recently been installed. 

He said the equipment would produce less pollution.  Less pollution?   Pollution?

You mean a big industrial facility has pollution?  You mean all those acres aren't just used for people sitting around watching the grass grow?  They actually make things there? They use chemicals? Who'd a thunk it?

Say, someone ask that know-nothing, improvement obstructionist Rob Dickson on the Planning Commission if he still says there's no pollution on the Westside.

Folks, the reason we keep bringing this pollution point up is because it's just plain stupid to deny that there's pollution from manufacturing facilities. 

Almost every factory has to use solvents and various chemicals, and there is always something that escapes into the air or ground.  Look, if you open a can of paint thinner at your house, you release some pollution into the air.  That's just the way it is.

As far as we know, the manufacturing facilities on the Westside, including Cla-Val, try to be good neighbors and they try to stay within reasonable and safe limits--but that's not our point. We're not complaining about Cla-Val.

Our point, again, is that it's just plain stupid to deny that there's pollution or to deny that various medical conditions can be caused by various sorts of pollution.

Dickson also denied that illegal aliens (the ones you see hanging out by the factories) are employed in some of those factories. Geez, maybe those illegal aliens are just vacationing near those factories. 

But, wait a minute, we don't know for certain that they are illegal aliens, right Dickson?  Isn't that your position?

No, of course we didn't check their IDs. But, we can make reasonable inferences. 

Dickson has also been ducking us and trying to avoid some simple questions about improving the Westside.

You see, our issue with Dickson is that he seems to want to try to keep the Westside from improving in meaningful ways and he's trying to do this by denying anything negative about the area. Why?  Well, if there's nothing broken on the Westside, don't fix it. 

We think Dickson has also denied that there are slums there.

See the pattern with this guy? 

It's as though he's saying  "All is swell with the Westside.  Don't bother your pretty little heads with trying to fix something that isn't broken." 

Oh, he'll suggest some sweet nothings as improvements, but don't be fooled.  The Westside needs some major improvements. 

And, we need people on the Planning Commission with the brains and the guts to make the improvements in the face of the criticism they'll get from the usual creeps.

When Dickson was just mouthing off with no official position, we could ignore him.  But, now that he's on the Planning Commission he's too close to the levers of power.

If  Dickson disagrees with the above, or thinks we don't understand what he stands for, we'd welcome his comments. 

Come on Dickson, you know how to send comments.  But, try using your real name. Tell us what you think needs to be done to fix the Westside. 

We'll be happy to print any rebuttal you want to send us, but don't try to BS us, because we'll take your rebuttal apart line by line.

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NOTE TO COSTA MESA TV CREW
CEO Hatch  leans forward to his microphone when he speaks from the dais.  This puts the lights right in his eyes and causes him to squint.  Maybe the lights can be adjusted?
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NYC GOVERNMENT LOW ON MOOLA, MAY CLOSE 20 FIRE COMPANIES
Link
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UNKNOWN FORCE OF NATURE MAY HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED
Link

Hint is that is something beyond the Higgs-Boson.
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AN INTERESTING OFFER OF AN AUDIT LAST NIGHT

An interesting proposal was made by one of the employee associations last night when it said that it would pay for a let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may audit of the City's books.

The only problem with the proposal was that the employee association wanted to pick the people doing the audit.

A better approach would be to have the employee association and the City Council jointly agree on who should do the audit.
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CIVICS 101

We keep seeing posts from some who say "the people" are telling the City Council what the people want and the City Council isn't listening.

This is nonsense.

In the first place, we've elected a Council to ensure that Costa Mesa is a great city for the people who live here. 

We expect the adults on the Council to make the hard decisions and not be influenced by emotion (as is Windy (sic) Leece). 

We expect good, logical and businesslike decisions. We don't want people who want to be loved by everyone so they don't do what is needed to fix Costa Mesa.

In the second place, our form of government here in Costa Mesa is not based on town meetings as it is in some very small New England towns, where the whole town votes on whether to buy a City employee a new snow shovel this year or not.

For the first time in our memory, we have a true majority on the City Council that is working for the benefit of the citizens of Costa Mesa.
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ALABAMA LAWMAKERS APPROVE CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL ALIENS
Link
'Bama doesn't want to be a sanctuary state. 
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LOTS OF BACK STORIES NOT GOING TO BE MADE PUBLIC

Our guess is that we're going to see people resign from their City jobs as the authorities learn who has been behind threats, libelous comments and other problems. 

"Voluntary" resignation  is often an easy out in such situations for all concerned.

And, by "authorities" we don't mean the CMPD, as we're told that many people simply have little trust in the department because of the actions of a lefty clique of individuals in the department who are overly politicized and who seem to be using their uniforms to push a lefty social and political agenda.

In Costa Mesa, things really have gotten topsy turvy as a result of this overly politicized clique. 

The righties, who are traditionally the natural supporters and defenders of cops, aren't supporting or defending them as much as before because of the overly politicized lefty clique.

Meanwhile, the lefties,the improver obstructionists, the illegal alien supporters and assorted other lefty kooks who like to call cops "pigs," are supporting them.  That tells you something.

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BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, AND BLAH, BLAH BLAH

The people who want you to pay more taxes and fees, and who don't want the City to comparison shop to get City services done for the best price, were at the City Council meeting last night. 

Most of them were employees or relatives of employees. Most don't even live in Costa Mesa.

Their rudeness and ignorance was on display, and rather than gaining sympathy, we think they turned off a lot of citizens who just as a matter of principle don't usually like to even think about laying people off.

The CM PRESS joins those who don't like to think of laying people off.  We'd rather see the City right size itself through attrition and hiring freezes, but the City has already done that and it hasn't been enough.  Now, the layoffs must come.

Some citizens who actually live in Costa Mesa, and who are fed up with arrogant employees making personal attacks and threatening Council members, have contacted us to say the Council should lay off ALL City employees and start over fresh in a sort of Biblical Cities of the Plains scenario.

When the City Council members finally had an opportunity to explain what the Council is trying to accomplish, the four good Council members did a good job.

 In fact, they did such a good job that one imagines the out of town goons are probably hoping that all of Costa Mesa wasn't tuned into the meeting via television.

Here, in most basic form is what the Council members said:  We don't have any money.  Past Councils spent our bank account down to dangerously low levels while viewing a falling economy with rosy glasses.  Now, the present Council is left to clean up the mess and get the City on a proper financial footing or let the city go bankrupt.

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Those are our opinions.  Thanks for reading them.