REPORT FROM THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF 3/20/07
SEAT CHANGE
The Council voted 3 to 1 to give Mayor Mansoor the authority to make the seating arrangements on the dais and as a result from now on Linda Dixon and Katrina Foley will be seated next to each other on the left side of the dais as seen from the audience. Dixon voted against the move and Foley abstained.
MORATORIUM ON INDUSTRIAL CONDO CONVERSIONS
The Council voted 5-0 for an urgency ordinance to stop conversion of industrial properties to industrial condos. The urgency ordinance lasts for 45 days. At the end of that time it can be extended or a new ordinance can be enacted with permanent language.
JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT
Two women from the Air Fair group trotted out all the uglies about John Wayne Airport--increasing number of flights, pollution, increase in size of the terminals, etc.--but, as in the past, they had no good solutions except some fuzzy talk about maglev trains to Ontario.
Hey, Air Fair, the answer is to focus your attention on getting an airport built at Camp Pendleton. Stop already with all the mumbling about putting in caps on flights. That's a fool's errand. The ONLY answer is to come up with a realistic alternative and that realistic alternative is Camp Pendleton.
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ON LEADERSHIP
All the know-nothings and lefties who have ever read one of the thousands of books on leadership all seem to be saying that Mayor Mansoor isn't a leader. Such books by instant experts and suede shoe operators are as much a glut on the market as cook books. Some are successful for a couple of months and then they fade away.
We've got a couple of scribblers down at the Pilot saying that Mansoor is a poor leader, and we have some crackpots who we think probably sit around in front of their TVs wearing their dirty underwear saying it, and last night we had Linda Dixon saying it.
The usual thing said by these people boils down to something like this: a true leader isn't heavy handed.
Why do they say that about Mansoor? Some of these people (maybe not all of them) are caught up in effete nerdy ways of doing things. It's all mumble, mumble, mumble and let's seek consensus. They don't understand leadership that goes straight for the goal without all the mumbling. You know the type. Some call them "yuppies," and some are calling some of them "metrosexuals."
Mansoor wanted a seat change on the dais. So, he simply asked for a seat change. Simple. Direct. No offense was probably intended to anyone. A one minute deal. Dixon then took offense and blew the thing out of proportion and we've been treated to the slack jaw musings of her giddy gang of galloping galoots ever since.
Here's three stories that might have some relevance to this. Maybe not. See what you think.
STORY 1
A great religious leader--a very renowned Guru--was walking by a small lake in India one day when he heard a monk chanting from a tiny island in the center of the lake. The Guru was immediately angered because the monk had the chants all wrong.
The Guru then got in a rowboat and rowed out to the tiny island and told the monk that he was doing it all wrong and that he should chant in the manner of the Guru.
The Guru then started rowing back to shore full of self-satisfication that he had taught someone the correct way of doing things. As he was rowing, he heard a plip, plop, plip, plop sound on the water behind him. He turned around and saw the monk walking across the surface of the water toward the rowboat.
When the monk got to the rowboat, and was standing there on top of the water, he said: "Oh great Guru, I am just an ignorant and humble monk and I've already forgotten your instructions. Could you repeat them again for me so that I can be as worthy as you?"
STORY 2
During the Civil War, General Grant was winning battles left and right and other generals weren't doing so well. When some mumbling backbiters went to President Lincoln and told him that he should remove General Grant because Grant had a drinking problem, Lincoln is reported to have said: "Find out what Grant is drinking and send a case of it to my other Generals."
STORY 3
It was prophesied that whoever could untie the Gordian Knot and remove it from a chariot would become king. Many tried, and many intellectualized about the nature of the problem and the knot, and how rope was made, and on and on, but no one could untie it.
Alexander (soon to have "the Great" added to his name) took out his sword and cut the knot in half.
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Now, don't get us wrong. We're not pleased with some of the things that Mayor Mansoor has done, and we're not always keen on the way he's done them. But as we observe what's going on in the city, we see that he is doing things. He often goes right to the nub of many problems and gets them solved.
While some in this city might spend months discussing the fine points of, say, driving a nail, it seems to us that Mansoor has the type of direct action personality that would lead him to simply pick up a hammer and bang the nail in.
And, direct action is not a bad thing so long as the one doing it has given it some thought before doing it and so long as what he ends up doing helps improve our city.
Of course, those who are results and action oriented will never please the mumbling do-nothings who would rather hold endless meetings and talk about things until Costa Mesa really becomes the new Santa Ana.
Watch now as some bad brain blogger says that the CM PRESS is saying that Mansoor is a new General Grant or a new Alexander the Great. Geez.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
