CM PRESS # 389

ENDANGERED ILLEGAL ALIEN ORDINANCE

COSTA ANA--2010--Return to no-Reason candidates now control the City Council.

One of the first things they do, after changing the name of the city to Costa Ana, to indicate that the city is the sister city of Santa Ana, is pass the Endangered Illegal Alien Ordinance to restore the illegal alien habitat on the Westside and make it a permanent Barrio

New No-Reason Councilmember Ms. Krazy Katlady, in an exclusive interview with the CM PRESS, said that in the recent past too many citizens of the old Costa Mesa had been polarizing the issue and they were helping destroy the habitat of illegal aliens in our city. "We're all stakeholders," said Ms. Katlady.

"Before these divisive citizen activists started improving the Westside," Ms. Katlady continued, "the area had many wonderful slums and teemed with illegal aliens. It was a wonderful and amazing sight. It was a real Barrio."

"Every time I drove to the Westside from my home in Mesa Verde, I felt a real thrill about the humanity of it. Now, there are too many citizens living on the Westside and fixing up their homes and demanding even more changes. They're gentrifying the area so it'll be like Mesa Verde. I call that mean, racist and divisive.

"Look, if citizens want good schools, they should just send their kids to private schools as many of my neighbors in Mesa Verde have done. And, if they don't want gangs and crime and graffiti and lower than they should be home prices, they should move out of Barrio Westside. These citizens should know their place and they should stay in their place and not be uppity.

"Before I became involved in this important issue, I spent most of my time rescuing stray cats. They're so cute and helpless. They're my children. They need me and give meaning to my otherwise meaningless yuppie life.

"Now I rescue illegal aliens and take care of them. They're so cute and helpless. Next to my cats, I love them best. They also help give meaning to my otherwise meaningless yuppie life.

"The illegal aliens look up to me so much, when I give them free bags of groceries from the trunk of my Bentley, that it brings tears of joy to my eyes. Why, they even have a pet name for me. They call me Gringa Tonto. Tee hee, tee hee. I think that means Beautiful White Princess.

"Yes, I am the reincarnation of an Indian Princess even though I have hateful blond hair and blue eyes. In my prior life as an Indian Princess I was known as Princess Buffalo Patootie.

"Anyway, in the past, in Barrio Westside, there used to be glorious lines of illegal aliens up and down Placentia Avenue soliciting work from drivers of cars stopped at traffic signals.

"And, the many amazing and wonderful charities had lines out the doors. Inside the charities, the nice Great White Mothers and Great White Fathers from Mesa Verde, the Eastside and Newport Beach were handing out free bags of groceries, rent checks, providing free medical and dental care, and giving out free clothes to illegal aliens.

"And, because of all the good work of the GWMs and GWFs, more and more needy illegal aliens came to Barrio Westside. There are many needy people on earth, and we wanted to bring them all to Barrio Westside where we could mother them and still be able to commute back to our own homes when the sun went down.

"Then, the terror struck. Citizens started demanding that the old City Council actually enforce our laws. I could see the fear on the faces of the illegal aliens as they hid in the shadows instead of being fine upstanding illegal alien citizens of Costa Ana.

"Why, no human is illegal. We're all citizens, even illegal aliens. It was a horrible and dark time. Homes were being painted, streets were being cleaned, graffiti was being removed, illegal aliens were being turned over to ICE for deportation. It was the worst kind of oppression.

"Now that we have a progressive majority on the City Council, we intend to restore the habitat of illegal aliens in Barrio Westside. We are planning on erecting permanent signs at 19th and Harbor and some other intersections, indicating the area is now officially known as: "BARRIO WESTSIDE."

"We are going to remove the invasive species--citizens--so the illegal alien habitat, Barrio Westside, can be protected and restored so that illegal alien citizens can live free of the terror of hearing an English word on the streets.

"The Eastside and Mesa Verde are the proper habitats for this invasive species, so they should all move there or they should move out of Costa Ana.

"Of course, members of the invasive species are welcome to visit Barrio Westside to support the roach coaches, the taco stands, the shoe stores the wedding dress stores and similar businesses, just as though they're tourists in Tijuana.

"They should just dress up in loud Bermuda shorts with clashing shirts and visit Barrio Westside and practice their Spanish. I mean, we want these touristas from other parts of Costa Ana to support the local economy of Barrio Westside.

"As part of the ordinance, we're going to ensure that no one builds any expensive homes on the Westside Bluffs or removes any slum buildings. This would erode our efforts to restore the illegal alien sanctuary."

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 388

COSTA MESA ICE STATS FOR MAY 2008

Total Booked 468

Total Interviewed by ICE 113

Total Detainers Issued 44

% Interviewed by ICE to Bookings 24%

% Detainers to Bookings 9%

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COSTA MESA ICE STATS FOR MAY 2007

Total Booked 484

Total Interviewed by ICE 252

Total Detainers Issued 53

% Interviewed by ICE to Bookings 52%

% Detainers to Bookings 10%

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EL CAMINO CENTER UPDATE

As of this morning, the only building left standing on the El Camino Shopping Center site is the gas station.

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 387

NEW JOB CENTER?
(Plan carefully, watch the details, have a bailout ready)

PROBLEMS WITH THE LAST JOB CENTER

1. It was on the Westside for far too long (17 years) and helped keep the area downscale. It was also part of the illegal alien "Barrio" infrastructure that some brown racists and their enablers wanted (and still want) the Westside to be turned into. They saw/see the Westside as an exclusively Latino city within a city.

2. Illegal aliens used the center. ID was not properly checked. The CM PRESS went undercover and stood in line with day workers one day. We wrote about this a couple of years ago. We could have written a phony ID card with crayon on a bubblegum wrapper saying we were Speedy Gonzalez and we would have been approved.

3. Approximately 50% of the employers were from Newport Beach (we checked the stats), yet only Costa Mesa citizens paid for it (in more ways than one).

4. It acted as a magnet for day workers from all over the county. Once they were here and saw how welcoming Costa Mesa was, many probably decided to move into the nearby slums. You may recall that a long time Daily Pilot employee was stabbed to death by an illegal alien who was living in the Shalimar slum and who presumably was finding work at the job center down the block.

5. Day workers still loitered on our streets and in parking lots looking for work.

6. It served as a communication center for illegal aliens who learned about non-profits in the city that would help them move to Costa Mesa, would help pay their rent, would help pay their utilities, would provide day care for their children, would give them free medical and dental care, would give them free bags of groceries, would give them free clothes.

IF A NEW JOB CENTER IS OPENED:

1. Put it at the end of East 17th Street near Newport Beach's Dover Shores. An attempt to put it there should be funny to watch as the NIMBYs who want the Westside to be a Barrio, scream and yell about not wanting their neighborhood being turned into a Barrio.

Remember, the old job center was on W. 17th and near the Newport Beach border and employers from that city, so E. 17th makes a lot of sense. It's the same street and just as close to Newport Beach employers.

2. Make sure that those who use it can prove they have a legal right to work in the U.S.

3. Pass the cost on to the workers and their employers, not the citizens of Costa Mesa.

4. Don't sign any long term leases on the property, so we can bail out if it doesn't work. And, if we do open a new job center, plan on rotating it around the city every couple of years so that no one neighborhood is unduly impacted.

5. This time, be sure the CMPD will actually enforce our laws and cite those who still seek work on our streets and from parking lots. And, if those cited can't show proof of citizenship, make sure the cops bring them to be interviewed by the ICE agent.

6. Don't let the job center undergo a mission creep to offer classes in English, etc.

7. Make sure the job center is a bare bones operation.

8. Be sure any new municipal codes are for a proper purpose, such as safety.

POSSIBLE LEGAL CHALLENGES

The legal challenges to cities and their municipal codes involving work solicitation and loitering are all based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as it has been interpreted by case law.

Basically, under current law, you can't simply tell people that they can't stand around and look for work anyplace in a city.

If you want to tell people that they can't stand around and look for work on streets and in parking lots, then there needs to be a "reasonable time, place and manner," for them to find work. In this context, this usually means some sort of job center.

Costa Mesa should have no problem with the "reasonable time," and "reasonable manner" requirements, because the City has experience from the old job center in meeting these requirements.

However, the "reasonable place," requirement is more knotty and is where the legal fight (expect one) will likely take place.

Such a legal fight might look a little like this: A day worker, cited by the CMPD for looking for work on a street corner or parking lot, will sue the city saying that he tried the new job center, but that not enough employers are using it--which indicates that it is not a reasonable place. So, to get work, this worker has gone back to where he has a chance of being hired--a street corner or parking lot.

Before a new job center is opened, we hope the City Council will consider all of the above and will make sure the legal work is done correctly.

We also hope that Mayor Bever is not being stampeded into doing something rash as a result of the false praise being heaped on him by the Return to Reason crowd who want the Westside to become a permanent Latino Barrio.

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 386

THE STATE OF OUR CITY

(Turn away from the shoals Cap'n)

The ability of some people to see negative statistics about our city and simply shrug them off as though they're an aberration, or not see them as symptoms of a larger problem, and look at them as though they're just isolated problems not connected to anything else, never ceases to amaze me.

How much of a pattern must one see to understand that it is a pattern?

The latest negative stats involve our two high schools which have now been ranked down in the cellar with the worst high schools in the county.

Of 63 high schools in Orange County, Estancia was ranked at 51 and Costa Mesa at 58. And, those aren't golf scores, folks. The worst high school in the county was Century in Santa Ana, which came in dead last at 63.

The sad truth is that the problem with our high schools is not a school district or a school or a teacher problem. And it is not a problem that can be solved by concentrating on "fixing" the schools.

The low rankings are just symptoms of a larger disease. These rankings are to our city what a bump on the skin is to skin cancer. We have a city problem. That's what needs to be fixed. Fix it, and the bump will go away.

The fact is that schools are ranked good or bad based on how well or how poorly the students do on standardized tests. If a city sends students to the school who don't test well, then the school is ranked accordingly.

And, Costa Mesa is sending too many students to our schools who are doing poorly on tests.

So, what does this have to do with Costa Mesa, generally?

Just this. So long as Costa Mesa remains an ersatz illegal alien sanctuary city with a seeming wish to become a new Santa Ana, we are going to have failing schools, high crime, loitering day workers, lower than they should be home values, gangs, graffiti, abandoned shopping carts and all the badges of slum cities.

Instead of fixing these problems, our City Council continues to put bandaids on them. And, folks, we're running out of room for bandaids.

The patient is now covered with them. Abandoned shopping carts? Hey, put the bandaid of paying $40,000 per year to have a service pick them up. Graffiti? Why, pay more than $ 200,000 per year to cover it up. Gangs? Hire more and more gang police officers. And so it goes.
We're constantly covering up the problems instead of solving them.

And, the maddening thing about this is that Costa Mesa should be trending more like our traditional slightly prettier sister city of Newport Beach instead of like Santa Ana.

But, dear reader, you're sharp as a tack and you're saying, okay so why are we the way we are and what do we do about it if we don't like it?

The answer is simple.

Our City Council has to stop hiding in the tall grass and needs to start doing the things that have not been done by prior City Councils. It needs to cure the disease. And, specifically, what are some of the major things that have to be done to turn our city around?

--We have to break the stranglehold of the mostly out of town industrialists who are holding 60 plus acres of ocean close Westside Bluffs land captive to downscale industrial uses so that land can rise to its highest and best use for homes that will attract upwardly mobile people back to our city. As these high achievers put their kids in our schools, our school scores will go up.

--We have to break apart the over concentration of slum buildings and start meeting our state mandated affordable housing requirements by building modern affordable housing to replace our present sardine-can, barracks style, functionally obsolete deteriorating apartments--our version of the projects--that are over crowded breeding grounds for gangs and crime.

--We have to pull in all the welcome mats for illegal aliens. This means, in part, that we have to stop funding charities with tax payer funds that are acting as magnets for illegal aliens and which supply them with everything from free medical and dental care to free bags of groceries.

There's more that could be written, but they are mostly lesser included things of the above that a competent City Council will automatically do, if the Council keeps its collective hands on the rudder and starts steering our city away from the shoals that loom ever closer.

Doubt that we're heading for the shoals? Go back and read about our low High School scores. Do you need to feel the salt spray from the waves crashing against the rocks to understand that's where we're heading?

I've used some terminology of the sea for a purpose. Costa Mesa is a coastal community. We should never forget this, and we should use this geographic fact to help our city improve. Once again, that means we need homes on our close to the ocean Westside Bluffs--not factories.

Costa Mesa is not a landlocked inner city with little going for it, and we should stop acting as though it is.
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ARTISTS SPUR GENTRIFICATION IN THE BRONX (ARE YOU LISTENING, COSTA MESA?)

LINK

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MAYOR BEVER ON THE RIGHT TRACK WITH NEWPORT BEACH

The CM PRESS has long believed that Costa Mesa and Newport Beach should cooperate on just about everything.

We see the two cities as natural sister cities and we believe that almost every link between the two cities can provide benefits to both cities.

So, we were pleased to read that Costa Mesa's Mayor Bever and Newport's Mayor Selich are working together on a possible sports complex on the Westside Bluffs. LINK

Politics is a people business. Building relationships of trust and friendship (and, we're just assuming that this is what is developing between Mr. Bever and Mr. Selich) can only, in our specific situation in Costa Mesa, benefit the citizens of our city as we try to make Costa Mesa a nicer place to live.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 385

AWW GEEZ--WE HAVE TO CORRECT THE ALMOST-DAILY, DAILY PILOT AGAIN

Last week, we had to tell the almost-daily Daily Pilot that it is improper to refer to Marines as soldiers. They are Marines.

Now we have to tell the Pilot that the machine being used to demolish El Camino Center is not a backhoe. It is technically an excavator. A backhoe is usually smaller and has wheels. An excavator is bigger, usually has tracks, and has a cab and arm that pivot.

The top right picture is an excavator. The lower left picture is a backhoe.

In the future, Pilot, maybe you should have us fact check for you.

Some might be asking why it matters whether it's a backhoe or an excavator mentioned in the Pilot article.

The answer is that given all the foot-dragging on this center over the years, it's important to note that the machine being used for the demolition is not some puny little backhoe, but a powerful excavator that is up to the job.

Here's the LINK to the Pilot's article about the backhoe that is not a backhoe.
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UPDATE--MORE AWW GEEZ

Now the almost-daily Daily Pilot has a headline that "Construction" has resumed at El Camino Center. LINK

Actually, there is no construction going on at all. There is, however, a lot of destruction going on. In the biz, we usually call that demolition. You see, when you are constructing, you are...ah, never mind.

So, here's the scene at the El Camino site according to the almost-daily Daily Pilot: a puny little backhoe is involved in constructing something or other.

This, of course, as you no doubt have already guessed, leaves us no choice but to quote Humpty Dumpty who apparently works at the almost-daily Daily Pilot:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 384

PROP 98 LOSES BIG TO PROP 99!

What this means generally

Prop. 98--The one that failed-- would have prohibited the government from taking any private property--homes, apartments, shopping centers, raw land, industrial buildings--and giving them to another private party.

Prop 99--The one that passed--only prohibits government from taking owner-occupied homes and giving them to another private owner.

What this means for Costa Mesa

If the City of Costa Mesa decides it wants to remove slum apartment buildings or misplaced industrial buildings to help improve the city, it can use eminent domain to do so. And, it can give the land to developers for uses that will benefit the city.

Vote Percentages--June 3, 2008 election

Prop. 99 got 62.5% of the vote vs. 39% for Prop. 98.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 383

EXCAVATOR AT EL CAMINO CENTER THIS MORNING
(stock photo)

An excavator similar to the one in the photo was seen getting ready to demolish the buildings at the El Camino Center at about 8 a.m. this morning.

UPDATE--Hmmm. Let's see, first you start tearing down the building and then you disconnect the utilities. Or, is it the other way around? LINK
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IS THE CITY COUNCIL INCAPABLE OF SEEING THE BIG PICTURE?

The CM PRESS tried again at last night's City Council meeting to get the City Council to understand that a relatively small city such as Costa Mesa can be screwed up in many ways if the Council doesn't see the big picture and act accordingly.

What we see happening is that the Council seems to consider each item that comes before the Council as though that item is in a vacuum and that it can be voted up or down on its merits as though it exists someplace isolated out in space.

In fact, however, our city is more like a chess board. If you move a piece over here, it affects everything else on the board and creates a trajectory and probabilities.

To illustrate this interconnectedness, we used the horrible rankings of Costa Mesa High School and Estancia High School which ranked respectively 58 and 51 out of 63 high schools in Orange County, with 63 being the worst and 1 being the best. See CM PRESS # 381 for more details).

We told the Council, again, that these schools are not bad because of the school buildings, the school district or the teachers. They are bad because the City Council is letting Costa Mesa be turned into a new Santa Ana (the worst high school in the county--# 63--is Century H/S in Santa Ana).

We also, and also once again, pointed out that the Council has approved plans submitted by the rich developers in South Coast Metro to put in hundreds of high-end housing units in the South Coast Metro area without having to do their fair share to supply affordable housing.

Why is this important and how does this relate to the chess board?

The State of California mandates that every city have a certain percentage of its housing stock be affordable housing. Cities don't have a choice. They have to do this.

So, if the South Coast Metro developers build more housing, Costa Mesa's requirement for affordable housing goes up.

And, if the South Coast Metro developers are given a pass on supplying any of that affordable housing either in their development or elsewhere in the city, the city will have to find ways to supply that affordable housing on the backs of its ordinary citizens.

In addition, the city won't be able to remove any of our existing slums because those slums are part of our affordable housing requirements.

And, if we continue to have slums, we're going to continue to be an illegal alien sanctuary city.

Illegal aliens will put their non-English speaking children in our schools. Then, our schools will start being ranked very low.

Next, upwardly mobile parents will take their kids out of our schools and put them elsewhere.

Then, the school rankings will drop even more.

With the low school rankings, Costa Mesa won't be able to attract or keep upwardly mobile citizens, and our home values will drop, crime will increase, we'll have more gangs, more graffiti, more abandoned shopping carts.

It's all connected, folks. This is the stuff of a downward spiral. Reversing that spiral requires much more than just planting flowers in the middle of W. 19th Street.

We live in a cause and effect universe. Gangs, crime, low school rankings and all the rest of the problems we see in Costa Mesa are effects. Can you see the causes?

If any City Council members want a further explanation, you know where to find me: last row, end seat.
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IF YOU SEE THESE INVISIBLE SUSPECTS CALL THE CMPD

We've noticed that the last two CMPD press releases on crimes in the city give almost no information. We wonder why the CMPD even bothers to send such things out to the public.

Here's one about an attempted kidnapping from 5/31. LINK

Here's another about a sexual assault from 6/1. LINK
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UPDATE ON ALLEGED PEEPER FROM CM PRESS # 378

Here's the entry from the Daily Pilot's crime logs on the above incident: LINK

Baker Street, 1100 block:Arrest, May 30. Hilario Hernandez-Lopez, 28, of Costa Mesa, was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct involving loitering in or about a toilet and use of false citizenship/documents.

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 382

RED-LIGHT CAMERAS ALL OVER THE CITY--MAY BE A BAD IDEA

The City Council is going to vote tonight on whether to install red-light cameras at Harbor/Gisler; Harbor/South Coast Drive; Victoria/Placentia and Harbor/Baker.

We can't speak to most of the locations in detail, but the Harbor/Baker location may be a bad location for a red-light camera.

We won't belabor this, but at the Harbor/Baker location it might be better to lengthen the time of the yellow light where there are left turn arrows and stop allowing U-turns.

Harbor/Baker is a minor Chinese fire drill with fast yellow lights on the green arrows and a jumble of movement of cars and pedestrians in a driver's field of vision, so we can see why the city wants to do something. However, the something that is done should be carefully thought out.

What happens at Harbor/Baker is:

1. Drivers heading west who attempt to turn south on Harbor often get stuck behind large slow moving trucks turning on green arrows, and often can't see the green arrow change to yellow because the light is blocked by the trucks. These drivers then get stuck in the middle of the intersection as opposing traffic starts moving toward them.

You'll usually see three or four cars caught in the middle of the Harbor/Baker intersection this way. And, for the most part, these aren't drivers speeding up to rush through the yellow light. They are drivers caught behind trucks who can't tell the light has changed.

2. Also, because U-turns are allowed at this intersection, a driver wanting to legally turn right on red almost develops tennis neck trying to figure out which cars are going to be coming his or her way.

If the red-light goes in at this Harbor/Baker intersection, there may be a lot of red-light citations issued that won't be just.
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SLUM NEWS--GRAFFITI

There's more gang graffiti this morning in the Fillmore-Coolidge slum.

We won't say exactly where it is because we want Stepford People to see it and wake up to the problem we have in this city.

"Look at that Harry; graffiti in our neighborhood. Who'd a thunk it? Now that we've seen this graffiti, we're starting to wake up to reality. Maybe we should start asking the City Council some hard questions about gangs and crime and failing schools and why they're letting Costa Mesa become a sanctuary city for illegal aliens."

Okay, we'll give you a couple of clues about the location of this graffiti. It's about 50 feet south of the two abandoned shopping carts sitting on the parkway, and 15 feet east of the piles of food wrappers in the gutter. Want another clue? It's about 200 feet from where a man was killed in a gang shooting about two years ago.
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MORE STALKER NEWS

The difference between sanity and mental illness is often a matter of degree.

For example, disciplining a child for, say, playing with matches, is the correct thing for parents to do for the child's own safety. That's what sane people do.

However, seriously injuring the child for playing with matches is not the correct thing to do. That's what a mentally ill person might do.

Turn now to stalkers.

Stalkers are often categorized as being neurotic (mild mental illness) or psychotic (serious mental illness).

The classic and easy way to remember the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic is found in the saying that a neurotic dreams of gingerbread houses but a psychotic lives in them.

It's fairly normal to have a mild interest in movie stars, for example, but when the interest crosses the line into obsession and fixation, it's a mental illness.

Here's a good quick-read about celebrity stalkers and their famous victims. You might find this interesting. LINK

Of course, not all stalkers are celebrity stalkers. There are many of these mentally ill stalkers who stalk ordinary people.

Stalkers, no matter how mentally ill they are, will often function in society such that, except for their obsession and fixation with another individual, they are difficult for most people to spot.

Could you know a stalker?

If you know someone who seems to be obsessed and fixated on some other individual such that the obsessed person can barely say or write a few sentences without mentioning this other person, you may have discovered a stalker or one or more of his dupes.

And, if you have spotted such a stalker, you can be pretty sure that when the stalker is in private, he may be making harassing phone calls, sending threatening letters, and doing all the things that these whack jobs do.
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WRITE IN CANDIDATE

Oh, when you vote today, and if you don't know who to vote for, you can always write in the name Martin H. Millard for the Republican Central Committee or for Member of the State Assembly--68th District.

Actually, I should be careful in suggesting that. I once won an election for a film/actors union on a similar basis. After I won, I didn't know what to do.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 381

ORANGE COUNTY'S TOP HIGH SCHOOLS--AREN'T IN COSTA MESA

Here's the LINK to the OC REGISTER'S feature on the 63 public High Schools in Orange County that appears in today's paper.

The Register has a lot of information about schools, so if you want to get things down to the nth degree, be sure to navigate around when you visit the paper's site.

For our purposes, it's probably enough to say that the worst schools in the ring of cities were in Santa Ana. Santa Ana's Century High School came in dead last at 63.

In Costa Mesa, Costa Mesa H/S came in at 58 and Estancia ranked as 51.

Corona del Mar came in at 12 and Newport Harbor came in at 37.

Newport Beach's rankings are driven down by having many Costa Mesa students in that city's schools. It's sad but true.

Irvine's High Schools came in as follows: Woodbridge 10; Northwood 9; Irvine 5; University 3.

Remember, the lower the number, the better the school.

WHY THESE RANKINGS MATTER

When upwardly mobile young families look for homes, the price of homes is not always the most important factor. They look for homes near schools that are high-performing so their kids can get a leg up on life.

Costa Mesa is losing too many of these families to South County. It's important, if we want to make Costa Mesa a nicer city, that we be the kind of city where these folks will want to live and raise their kids.

We need to get our school rankings up.

We can't do that, however, as long as we are an illegal alien sanctuary city.

Please don't make the mistake of saying that Costa Mesa has failing schools or bad teachers. We don't. The problem is that we have too many failing students and they're driving down the scores in our schools.

Costa Mesa's "bad school" problem is not a school or school district problem. It is a city problem. It can only be fixed by the City Council, not the School Board.

And, how can it be fixed by the City Council?

By turning Costa Mesa back into a First World City by getting us off the downward path to becoming a full-blown Third World City.

How many Santa Anas do we need in Orange County, anyway? Isn't one enough?
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GANG GRAFFITI COVERED UP

The gang graffiti in Katrina Foley's Mesa Del Mar neighborhood, that we reported in CM PRESS # 380, has now been covered up. If you missed it, don't worry, there will be more, maybe by tomorrow.
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NOMINATED FOR BEST FICTION BY MENSA

We just received notification from MENSA that one of our short fiction stories is up for another award from the high I.Q. society.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 380

MORE GANG GRAFFITI IN KATRINA FOLEY'S NEIGHBORHOOD THIS WEEKEND

(Technical problems with format. Will try to fix later.)

There was more gang graffiti in Katrina Foley's Mesa Del Mar neighborhood in Foley's Mission-Mendoza slum over the weekend.

As of 8 am this morning it was still there. It's all over the place, so if you want to see it, just drive near the slum. It's also on buildings in the Fillmore-Coolidge slum.

It seems that the flowers Foley planted in front of the slum didn't do much to stop the gangs. What a surprise. It seems all the tax money we're giving to feel-good, hug-a-thug programs isn't helping. What a surprise.

Here's the problem with graffiti that Foley and her fou fou Land's End galoshes wearing crew can't seem to understand: The problem is not the graffiti. Graffiti is just the symptom of a more serious problem.

To stop the graffiti you have to treat the disease, not cover up the graffiti so people don't see it.

Look, this isn't difficult. If you have a skin cancer, do you think it goes away because you put a bandaid on it so you can't see it? Wouldn't you rather know about it and treat the cancer, not just hide it?

So long as the Mission-Mendoza slum stands, there will be problems there.

Functionally obsolete slums don't get better with age, folks.

They're not like the wine and cheese at Foley's kumbaya parties for her liberal pals. Functionally obsolete slums get worse with age.

When you hear about some slum areas in some inner cities starting to gentrify and get safer and nicer, what you need to know is that those areas usually have classic brownstone buildings that are capable of being fixed up.

The slums in Costa Mesa are not classic brownstones. They are slab-sided, plywood, cheaply constructed barracks style tri-plexes and four-plexes crowded on to streets like military barracks.

As we've written before, they remind us of the barracks at Parris Island and Gitmo. They can't be fixed. That's what "functionally obsolete" means.

The only thing that can be done is to thin them out or tear them all down and start over with modern low income housing that is not concentrated in one or two areas. Sardine-can slums like the one in Foley's neighborhood can't be fixed.

Foley and her pals want the city to rush to cover up graffiti, lest the Stepford People wake up and realize there are some serious problems in Costa Mesa and demand real action and real improvement.

They don't want citizens to see the graffiti and realize the con job that they're being sold by Foley and her hug-a-thug crew of incompetent boobs whose answer to gangs and crime is to hide the problem and then give more of your tax money to their charity boss pals who will come in with the latest non-working plan to solve the problem and who may just end up making the problem worse.

If you have a swamp, you'll have alligators.

Get rid of the swamp, and the alligators will leave all on their own accord.

Foley and her pals think that if we plant flowers in front of the swamp, start charities for the alligators, talk about squishy intervention strategies for the alligators, and do all the other lefty non-working things, that these will solve the alligator problem. It's stupid thinking.

Remove the swamp and the alligators will go away. That's what works.

How many gangs are there in Newport Beach? Oh, perhaps, NONE! How many slums in Newport Beach? Oh, perhaps, NONE! See any pattern there? See any cause and effect? How many examples do you need?

Costa Mesa should not be like Santa Ana.

It should be more like Newport Beach and other coastal communities. Our natural destiny is our geography--our closeness to the Pacific Ocean.

We should stop fighting our geography, and use it to improve our city.

We should reject those who want to make Costa Mesa into an inner city and support those who want our city to look to the sea for our way out of the mess that has been caused by too many lefty and weak sister politicians who have helped stuff Costa Mesa with those things that are now causing our problems.

MESA DEL MAR HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION (LINK)

As you may recall, in CM PRESS # 369, we reported how LISA REEDY, the president of the Mesa Del Mar Homeowners Association, told the City Council that it's not helpful for people to talk about the slum in her neighborhood and that Mesa Del Mar is just one big [happy] community.

Well, Ms. Reedy, what are you doing to get rid of the gangs in your neighborhood? Your PTA level happy talk is useless. Your home values are dropping and your neighborhood has a large no-go zone because of the slum.

Go look at the graffiti this morning, Ms. Reedy, before the city covers it up. Then try to explain to your homeowners why it's there and why it keeps popping up all the time. No, Ms. Reedy, gangs are not commuting to your neighborhood. They live in that slum. They will always live in that slum so long as the slum remains. It is their habitat.

You wonder why no developer has stepped up to build expensive homes on the El Camino Shopping Center site, Ms. Reedy?

It's because it sits right across the street from one of the worst slums in Costa Mesa and that slum is in Mesa Del Mar--your neighborhood.

You may not know this, Ms. Reedy, but we became active in Costa Mesa after a gang attack on someone we know that happened in Mesa Del Mar. Shortly after that, we attended our first City Council meeting and started working to improve our city. That attack woke us up.

Hopefully, Ms. Reedy, you won't have to have that happen to someone you know before you wake up and realize that pretending the slum doesn't exist in Mesa Del Mar is a losing strategy.

Instead of working with your homeowners on ways to get rid of the slum, you seem to be following in the footsteps of do-nothing Foley who would rather do feel-good PC things such as gather food for people in South County or complain about an expensive spa closing at South Coast Plaza.

Because of the size and quality of most of the homes in Mesa Del Mar and the way the tract is laid out, it should be one of the best neighborhoods in Costa Mesa.

Unfortunately, it will never be so, as long as the slum remains.

You have a cancer in your neighborhood, Ms. Reedy. Trying to deny or hide the truth is only going to make things worse.

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STALKER NEWS
(Our new feature about the mentally ill stalkers among us)

Judge gives mentally ill stalker of Uma Thurman probation. LINK

Conan O'Brien's stalker a Catholic priest. LINK

Stalking is a crime in California and many other states. See Cal. Penal Code Sec. 646.9

According to experts, here are some of the things that mentally ill stalkers do: They fixate and obsess about some other person. They often set up blogs just to harass that person. They often send threatening letters. They will often make hang-up telephone calls to the victim. They will often subscribe to magazines in the victim's name. They will try to enlist others to help with their stalking.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 379

CAUTION: DON'T OPEN A NEW JOB CENTER UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO DO SO

As the Costa Mesa City Council studies the day worker ordinances from Orange, and hopefully from a couple of other communities, the CM PRESS suggests that the Council move very slowly 1n opening a new job center and that it only do so if no alternatives are available.

Once you open such a thing, you might find that you're stuck with it for 17 years--like the last job center.

And, if one is opened, do not put it on the Westside or in the north part of the city. Put it on the Eastside and have it run and be paid for by a private company, not the city.

Those pushing to have a new job center opened, such as Steve Smith, who writes a column for the Daily Pilot, seem to be exaggerating the count of loitering day workers around the city in order to make the City Council think it's a bigger problem than it is.

The only reason a new job center should be opened is to meet "reasonable, time, place and manner" requirements so that loitering day workers can be arrested by the CMPD if they do not use the job center.


HERE'S THE PROBLEM WE FACE IF WE OPEN A NEW JOB CENTER

Even when we had the old job center, the cops wouldn't arrest loitering day workers.

So, if we open a new job center, will the CMPD now enforce our ordinances? Why? What's really changed?

In CM PRESS # 375, we recounted a recent incident where the CMPD ignored a citizen's call to enforce an ordinance that is in the same general category as the day worker ordinances.

And, to repeat. It's seeming more and more that the CMPD isn't being run by top brass but by mid and lower level personnel, with a Return to Reason agenda, who seem to decide all on their own which laws to enforce.

And, these mid and lower level personnel have all sorts of passive resistance tricks to not enforce our laws. "Unable to locate," is one of their main ones.

A couple of years ago, a citizen called the CMPD repeatedly over a couple of month period to report a problem vending truck. Finally, the citizen told the CMPD that he was going to observe and film the non-action of the CMPD regarding this truck and show the film at a City Council meeting.

Then, and only then, did the CMPD finally approach the driver of the truck, who was selling to a bunch of kids. And, guess what? The guy turned out to be a felon and was not supposed to be around children and there was a warrant out for his arrest.

IF THE COPS WON'T ENFORCE OUR LAWS, WE SHOULD NOT OPEN A NEW JOB CENTER. PERIOD. AND, IF WE DO OPEN ONE, WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO QUICKLY CLOSE IT AGAIN, IF LOITERING PROBLEMS CONTINUE. WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER JOB CENTER AND LOITERING AT THE SAME TIME AS IN THE PAST.

Last week, the Pilot ran a column about possibly opening a new job center. LINK

Then, the PILOT cheerleader for a job center, Steve Smith, chimed in with manipulative praise for Mayor Bever for the latter's talk about opening a new job center.

First Smith writes this:

Steve Smith wrote on May 29, 2008 10:42 PM:

" Eric, you are to be commended for jump-starting this program, but we have different memories of the Job Center. I was a Westside resident when it opened and I recall an immediate positive impact with almost no day laborers on Placentia. That's because the opportunities for work were centralized. The program worked. So let's open a new one. And sure, let's go ahead and require proof of the right to work. Anyone here illegally can get a good fake ID for a few bucks but the rule will make some folks happy. "

[Notice more praise for Bever who Smith says is to be "commended"] [Then notice how Smith seems to indicate that it's okay if people have false ID cards as he writes it "will make some folks happy." Read, it'll shut the critics up and, hey, the illegals can get phony ID cards and who cares?]
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Then Smith writes:

steve smith wrote on May 30, 2008 5:51 PM:

" Bottom line: Closing the Job Center was a mistake. Eric Bever is brave and smart for suggesting it may be worth re-opening. My comment on the ID's is not in jest, it is based on fact and on precedent. You see, there is no requirement to check the validity of the ID and so it will not be checked. The ID proof requirement is toothless. Again, not an opinion, a fact. Now, in stead of attacking ME, please address the issue and offer a realistic solution to the problem. I've been giving mine for 2.5 years. "

[Notice the bootlicking praise obviously written to try to manipulate Bever toward opening a new job center.

It's Smith's latest transparent attempt at child psychology.

We all prefer praise to brickbats, and Smith apparently thinks Bever is easily led with carrots and sticks. It's as though Smith is saying to a five year old kid: "If you do this my way, I'll give you a piece of candy. If you don't do it my way, I'll spank you. Now, which way will you do it?"
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Finally, Smith writes in answer to a post from another reader:

ssmith wrote on May 31, 2008 10:15 AM:

" Mike J.: The fake driver licenses and Social Security cards used by illegals are almost always fake & do not use identities of others. The names and numbers are made up. These IDs are not for theft, they are for getting work and so they do not have to be real. The users know that very few places will check authenticity. Stealing an ID is another class of crime these crooks want to avoid. Plus, it's too labor intensive and time-consuming for what they charge. This information's coming from me, an ID theft victim of about 24 months ago. "

[Notice how Smith indicates it's okay with Smith that illegal aliens have fake IDs, because "These IDs are not for theft, they are for getting work and so they do not have to be real"]

Folks, that comment is absolutely outrageous and shows the type of thinking we've been seeing in this city from the likes of Smith for many years.
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GANG ACTIVITY FRIDAY NIGHT IN THE FILLMORE SLUM

The CMPD reported gang activity in the Fillmore slum on Friday night. Here's your multiple choice exam about that gang activity:

The gangs were:

a. White gangs
b. Chinese gangs
c. Latino gangs

If you're a member of Return to Reason, you probably picked "a." Sorry, that's not correct. That's almost never a correct answer in Costa Mesa. The second choice "b." is also incorrect. That also is almost never a correct answer in Costa Mesa. Answer "c." is almost always the correct answer in Costa Mesa.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.