CM PRESS # 586

RUSSIA AWARDS PARENTS FOR HAVING BABIES

(The rest of Europe needs to do the same thing)

In the face of the demographic crisis hitting Russia (and European indigenes in the European diaspora, we might add), the Russians now award parents for having children. LINK

Whenever we read positive stories like this, we're reminded of that deadender--the Lonely Old Man--a dried up, hate-filled, yuppie husk who has never learned even the most basic laws of existence.

What is the future of the Lonely Old Man? He has no future. He is extinction walking.

To survive into the future and be the "fittest" requires that you have children.

Of course, the Lonely Old Man is just a fictional figure we use as a metaphor.

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CM PRESS # 585

POLICE HELICOPTER--WORTH THE $ OR NOT?

(Expensive toy or necessary tool to keep Costa Mesa safe?)

Jim Righeimer has a good column in the DP today about Costa Mesa's police helicopter program.

It's nice to see someone offer some facts and figures on the program so the public and the City Council can think logically about the subject and so the latter can do a cost/benefit analysis as they prepare to cut costs in Costa Mesa.

LINK to Righeimer's column.

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 584

IT'S THE BUILDING THAT MATTERS

Here's a link to a letter from a Barbara Galkin of IRVINE, who says the Costa Mesa Senior Center is swell.

Galkin also repeats the line that the City of Costa Mesa only pays one-third of the expenses of the center.

This one-third business is one of the lines that those who oppose oversight from the Costa Mesa City Council (not the Irvine City Council, by the way) constantly use in a PR attempt to convince the City Council that it shouldn't have anything to do with complaints from our senior citizens and shouldn't have any oversight over the Senior Center.

Here's the reality

The Costa Mesa Senior Corporation--the company hired by the City of Costa Mesa to run the Costa Mesa Senior Center for the City on a contractual basis--not only receives direct monetary funding from the City of Costa Mesa, but also occupies a prime building owned by the City of Costa Mesa and is only charged a dollar a year in rent. The City also provides maintenance and janitorial services for the building free of charge.

The building is where the value lies

It seems to us that without that perfectly located and virtually free building at 695 West 19th Street, which is directly across the street from Bethel Towers with all its senior citizens, that it would be difficult for any corporation to operate a viable Senior Center in Costa Mesa.

Thus, the contribution from the City of Costa Mesa is far more valuable than just the oft repeated one-third monetary contribution. It is the essential contribution of the building that is important.

Of course, if the board of the Costa Mesa Senior Corporation doesn't want the City involved, they can vacate the City owned building and try to find another facility in the private sector.

If that were to happen, our guess is that the City of Costa Mesa might put some parks and recreation employees into the building to run the Senior Center or would have people waiting in line to get the same deal that the Costa Mesa Senior Corporation is getting.

Hopefully, the Costa Mesa Senior Corporation board will agree to the committee idea of Councilmember Monahan, will allow City Council oversight, and will answer Mayor Pro Tem Leece's reasonable questions concerning complaints and operations.

Here's a link to the Senior Center's web site, which has apparently been updated recently.

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LIFE ON MARS?

According to a new report from NASA, there's a lot of methane on Mars. Methane is produced by living things and by some natural processes such as the oxidation of iron.

In the latter category, and given the reddish color of Mars, the methane could just be from rust.

It might also be that this speculation about life being floated by NASA may be because the agency is nervous about funding with a new administration about to take office in Washington and wanted to get this story out there to show that what it is doing is important and should be funded.

If there is life, it is more than likely microbial and lives deep underground. The importance of finding life on Mars is in an analysis of its DNA or whatever passes for DNA. If it does possess DNA and if the DNA is close to what we find on Earth, then it may give credence to the theory of panspermia as well as many other things.

Link to NASA's website.

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INVENTOR OF BIRTH CONTROL PILL NOT HAPPY WITH EUROPEAN DEMOGRAPHIC CATASTROPHE

Humans who do not reproduce die out. LINK

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 583

GOOD ARTICLE ABOUT THE HOMELESS GUY SHOT IN THE EYE

Here's a good article in the OCR about Gregory Dahlgren, the homeless guy who was attacked and shot with paintballs.

It turns out, according to the OCR, Mr. Dahlgren once made a pretty good income and then things fell apart.

The CM PRESS is still surprised that the CMPD hasn't caught Dahlgren's attackers. Our email inquiry to the CMPD about the case was unanswered.

We're also surprised that there are still two different versions of where he was attacked.

Dahlgren says he was attacked at Lions Park, but the CMPD, according to the OCR, says he was attacked in the alley behind the Vista Center.

Hopefully, with all the publicity this case is getting, we'll soon have all the facts.

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CLOSING IN ON THE CREEPS

The local creeps are starting to squirm. Stay tuned. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Maybe we'll soon see another one suddenly leave the area.

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 582

MORE CRIMINALS DEPORTED FROM COSTA MESA!

The CMPD reports that there were 18 ICE detainers issued in the month of December 2008. That's 18 more criminals off our streets.

In December 2007, there were 21 ICE detainers issued.

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Thanks for reading the CM PRESS.

CM PRESS # 581

POLICE TAKE STALKING CRIMES SERIOUSLY

Here's an article about stalking that deserves a read.

The CM PRESS has received reports of a stalker in Costa Mesa who may be targeting some local politicians and others.

If you are a victim of telephone, mail, Internet, or personal harassment or smears, be sure to report it to the CMPD at (714) 754-5252 or email the CMPD at PDADJUTANT@ci.costa-mesa.ca.us.

The harassment may start with subscriptions to magazines that you never subscribed to or similar seemingly minor things, and then escalate to hang-up telephone calls and on and on.

If you're on our email list, feel free to send us your tips in this regard. Be sure to document everything as much as possible in case of legal action.

Generally, stalkers are cowards with psychological problems who try to remain anonymous.

Some of these nutcases start blogs in order to harass others. It is important to drag these slime balls out from under the rocks where they hide, and shine some bright light on them. Some may then face criminal charges as well as civil penalties.

Phony letter on the Westside
According to an article in an alternative weekly newspaper recently, a phony letter to the editor was composed and sent to the newspaper falsely claiming it had been written by someone involved with the Minutemen anti-illegal immigration group.

The letter contained various ethnic smears and said the letter writer had defecated in the trash can of a restaurant near 19th and Placentia.

To the credit of the weekly, they checked on the facts and quickly realized that the letter was phony and was meant to discredit the supposed writer.

Some activists in Costa Mesa believe the letter was written by a local Costa Mesa blogger and/or his associates who go to great lengths to remain anonymous.

This anonymous blogger has implied that he has contacts within the CMPD, and he seems to have inside CMPD information that the general public doesn't have.

Perhaps internal affairs should look into this.

--DEVELOPING--

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 580

MORE GANG GRAFFITI=MORE GANG PROBLEMS

The CM PRESS is receiving messages from many activists, mainly on the Westside, but not only from that part of the city, about more gang graffiti that seems to be popping up.

Unfortunately, some on the City Council seem to consider the graffiti itself to be the problem as though we live in a Disneyesque world and the graffiti is sentient and just put itself on walls. Their attitude is to cover it up as quickly as possible and pretend we don't have a gang problem that the Council is not adequately addressing.

Hey City Council, the problem is the people who put the graffiti on the walls. And many of these people are gang members. The graffiti is only a symptom. It is not the disease.

Rid the city of the gangs and the graffiti will go away.

To those who have asked the CM PRESS if the gang detail is doing the job it should be doing or if it is still laboring under the delusion that Costa Mesa has a white gang problem, we can only say that we don't know

We know that liberal mindsets are very resistant to change and they are sometimes reinforced by liberal newspapers which hide the race/ethnicity of violent criminals except when they're white and then emphasize the race of criminals when they are white. This causes some with the liberal mindset to be blind to the truth. To them, the Earth is still flat.
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ANOTHER BROWN RACIST TERM FOR WHITE PEOPLE
Here's your urban dictionary word for today. If you hear brown racists using this word, they're not being friendly toward you.

Bolillo
The term "bolillo" is a very racist term used throughout certain Latin American speaking countries to describe a white person. The word “bolillo” is almost always negative, implying that the person described is a small little white bread roll.
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STILL NO ARRESTS IN PAINT BALL ATTACK
As far as we know, there are still no arrests in the paint ball attack on a homeless man.

As you may remember, the attack either occurred in a gang infested alley behind Vista Center near 19th Street and Placentia or at Lions Park.

Maybe the problem is that the gang detail is trying to find white attackers and they're not white.
Maybe the gang detail should be looking for suspects in the Shalimar slum and in the slum on Center Street behind Vista Center. Just a thought.

Of course, as we wrote before, the suspects could be whites; maybe even fraternity types (from Harvard?), who just thought it would be fun to commute to the worst part of Costa Mesa on one of the darkest nights of the year and roam the dangerous alleys and parks looking for people to shoot with their paint ball guns (which are usually about the size of a small rifle and are difficult to conceal, especially if there are several of you carrying them) and no one saw them as they were roaming about looking for victims.

It seems more probable, however, that turf sensitive Latino gang types who live in that area and who hang out in the alleys and the park just took a few steps from their apartments, shot the guy, and stepped back inside their nearby apartments. This scenario seems to cover more bases than the other one does it not?

Naturally, probabilities don't prove anything, so we'll just have to wait until the CMPD makes some arrests to know exactly who shot the guy.

We will say again, though, that we're surprised that the CMPD hasn't made any arrests yet.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 579

SHOW DOWN LOOMING BETWEEN CITY COUNCIL AND THE COSTA MESA SENIOR CORPORATION?

The short version
This past week, the City Council voted to set up a committee to take a look at the Senior Center. However, the Council gave the Costa Mesa Senior Corporation the option to nix the committee.

If the CMSC does nix the committee, and in effect yells for the Council to get off the lawn, what will the Council do, since the City owns the lawn? Get ready for some drama.

The verbose version
Here's what you need to know about this to wade through the he saids, she saids:

Unlike most cities which run their senior centers with city employees, Costa Mesa decided several years ago to "hire" an outside corporation--called the Costa Mesa Senior Corporation--to run our senior center.

To make it a viable operation, the City leased the building to the CMSC for a dollar a year, does all janitorial and maintenance on the building for free, supplies transportation for seniors and also gives the CMSC more than $ 240,000 per year in cash. In other words, it's a sweetheart deal supposedly between sweethearts who tacitly agree to get along and cooperate for the benefit of the seniors.

So far so good. Then, a couple of months ago, some seniors; the exact number is in dispute--Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Leece says about 30 seniors, while some associated with the CMSC say it's about 5 or 6 malcontents--apparently had some complaints about the operation of the center and felt, rightly or wrongly, that their complaints weren't being handled correctly.

These seniors then took their complaints to Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Leece who had the thankless task of being the City Council liaison to the center and who was thus the City Council's Johnny-on-the spot.

Ms. Leece tried to get to the bottom of the complaints to see if they had any merit and she did this the same way any responsible person would do it: she started asking questions.

All that had to happen at this point was for someone to give Ms. Leece complete answers to her questions. That probably would have been the end of the issue and you wouldn't now be reading about this every day in the Daily Pilot or in various blogs.

Instead, Ms. Leece was apparently seen by some as an interloper. Also, at some point, City Councilperson Katrina Foley's law firm was apparently hired to advise the CMSC. We don't know if this hiring of Foley's firm was done before the present controversy or in reaction to it, but that fact will eventually come out if it's relevant.

The question that many observers are asking is why would Ms. Leece be treated as an interloper, if in fact, this is what is going on?

There are several possible explanations. Here's three of them.

1. For some unknown reason, the CMSC doesn't want the City Council to know much about the operation of the Center and wants the Council to let the CMSC handle everything--including complaints from seniors. In this last regard, don't forget that the Council became involved because some seniors said their complaints weren't being taken seriously and they "appealed" to the Council for resolution.

2. The CMSC is afraid the City Council will decide that the City or some other corporation should run the Senior Center instead of the CMSC.

3. Politics. Two of the CMSC board members--Bruce Garlich and Mike Scheafer--were defeated in the 2006 election by Ms. Leece and her political ally Mayor Allan Mansoor; and several other members of the board were vocal supporters of Garlich and Scheafer as well as Katrina Foley.

No doubt, we'll see pro forma denials that politics is involved now that we've broached the subject. Still, it would be naive to not at least raise this issue for a public airing.

At any rate, it seems that once Ms. Leece started asking questions, things began going sideways. Letters and blog posts (mostly anonymous) started appearing in the Daily Pilot claiming that Ms. Leece was on a witch hunt and that the complaining seniors were just a few malcontents.

Then, this past Tuesday, the City Council voted to set up an ad hoc committee, as suggested by Councilmember Monahan, to take a look at the Senior Center.

Mr. Monahan went to great pains to say that this proposed committee had nothing to do with the controversy as outlined above, but that it was just time to take a look at the center.

Notwithstanding Mr. Monahan's comments, and the perhaps coincidental timing of his committee idea, there is still a chance that more drama is forthcoming in the days ahead since the City Council staff report on the committee formation has the following proviso which allows the CMSC board to unilaterally put the kibosh on the committee: "Should the City Council choose to support the implementation of the proposed Committee [it did with its vote on Tuesday], it will only move forward with the support of the Board of the Senior Corporation."

So, as we say in tennis, the ball is now in the CMSC's court. Will the CMSC go along with the committee idea? Or, will they open a second floor window at the Senior Center and yell down to the City Council: "Get off our lawn!"

And, to ask again what we asked at the top of this column, if the CMSC does tell the City Council to buzz off, what will the Council do?

Stay tuned.
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CM PRESS # 578

[NEW STORY ON THE SENIOR CENTER--7:15PM, Saturday--Scroll down]

ADAPT OR DIE

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper has been put up for sale. Owner Hearst Corp. says if no buyers show up in the next 60 days it'll shut the paper down or only let it continue online.

Most owners of newspapers like to make a profit. That's not happening with many newspapers these days as those who run them seem to be having a difficult time in adapting to modern realities.

Take a look at the Katrina Foley Almost Daily Daily Pilot as an example of a newspaper that is simply not adapting or is adapting too slowly. It seems those running the KFADDP still think they can bore people into reading the paper and that they can move things as slowly as they once did.

For example, the newspaper is carrying blogs to attract readers, but at least one of these blogs is dated June 25, 2008 and another one is written by a local crackpot who most serious people don't read.

When people comment on stories at the KFADDP it's usually the same five or six people who do so. And, this includes some who are clearly barely literate.

Come on KFADDP, you can do better. We're rooting for you to adapt and stay in business. We really do like having an almost daily newspaper in the twin cities of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

(Okay, so one twin is slightly prettier than the other--hey, we didn't say they were identical twins. Maybe, like, they're fraternal twins. Well, geez, maybe they're not really twins but are sort of related like cousins or maybe they had different fathers. Come on, you get the point.)

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THE LATEST ON THE SENIOR CENTER (Saturday, 1/10/08, 7:15 PM)

In a column today in the OCR about the Costa Mesa Senior Center and the committee that the City Council approved to take a look at the center (but only if the Senior Corporation's board approves of the committee), we read this:

Board member Scheafer said the board never had a breakdown in communication with the city until Leece stepped in and that having a committee may be a lost cause."Gary (Monahan)'s comment was that he wants to do it to enhance and maybe increase the funding from the city - he's not getting any support for that," Scheafer said. "There's already animosity for us among the big three (referring to Leece and councilmen Allan Mansoor and Eric Bever)."

Maybe we have it wrong, but does it sound as though failed City Council candidate Scheafer doesn't want to go along with the committee idea?

You may recall that Scheafer and Bruce Garlich (who is also on the Senior board with Scheafer) were defeated in the 2006 City Council election by Wendy Leece and Allan Mansoor.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS # 577

PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY QUITS SCHOOL FOUNDATION AFTER HE ADMITS STEALING CLIENTS 'MONEY

Here's a story from the OCR today about a pillar of the community who volunteered his time to serve on a public schools foundation.

Now he's admitted stealing $2.7 million from his clients in a case that is not related to the foundation.
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OVERSIGHT IS NEEDED WHEN PUBLIC MONEY IS INVOLVED

How many stories do citizens have to read about various pillars of the community being caught with their hands in the till to understand that proper oversight is needed and that "trust me" being said by respected pillars of the community who are near piles of citizen money is not enough?

Remember the case of Stephen A. Wagner the pillar of the community and chief finance officer of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District who stole $3.7 million from the district? That was OUR money that this crook put in his pocket to pay for his lavish life style.

Where was the oversight? Why wasn't somebody asking questions?

Be especially wary when some pillars of the community get upset and rude when you ask a few questions about public money.

It is your right to know that your money is being handled correctly and is being used for proper purposes. Don't let them blow you off because they think they're big shots.
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THE COSTA MESA SCHOOLS FOUNDATIONS

The CM PRESS continues to ask when the Costa Mesa High School Foundation will file its tax returns. The Foundation is two years behind and may face huge penalties from the IRS.

We also continue to ask when the Foundation will start filing its required annual reports with required independent audits--which it has never done.

As you may recall, it was the CM PRESS asking a few questions that led to the discovery that the Foundation wasn't doing the required paper work that would give transparency.

The City is supposedly now trying to get both this foundation and the other one at Estancia/Tewinkle up to speed on what needs to be done.

We'll have more to report on this later after we take a look at what the City has been doing relative to the foundations.
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THE SENIOR CENTER

Hmmmm. Is the City Council trying to run Latinos out of the city by setting up a committee to look at the Senior Center?

Sound absurd? Of course it is, but that's what some local crackpots trot out every time improvement minded citizens try to make our city nicer or when they try to get transparency from our institutions. So, don't be surprised if you hear that nonsense again.
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COAST COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT

Here's a curiosity piquing story that popped up in the OCR today about the district's chancellor, Ken Yglesias, suddenly being sent home on administrative leave while investigators have been hired to look into unnamed allegations concerning Mr. Yglesias.

Sometimes it's just better to reveal in very general terms what the unnamed allegations might be. Do they relate of financial matters or something else?

All we can piece together at this time is that one of the investigators is big on computer forensics.
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Those are our opinions as we continue to do the job that local newspapers used to do. Thanks for reading them.

CM PRESS #576

HERE'S ONE SENIOR CITIZEN THE CITY COUNCIL SHOULDN'T LISTEN TO (He doesn't live here and he's wrong)



Newport Beach resident and uber-liberal Joe Bell has one of his predictable columns in the Katrina Foley Almost Daily Daily Pilot today in which Bell shuffles to the defense of the corporation that is currently running the Costa Mesa Senior Center for the City of Costa Mesa. Yawn.

You've seen Bell's opinions before. They're the typical liberal laundry list of likes and dislikes. You know what this guy thinks before he even taps out a word on the page.

Bell doesn't know much about the Costa Mesa Senior Center and apparently hasn't researched the subject, but that doesn't keep him from opining.

What he does is cobble together some things he's seen in the Katrina Foley Almost Daily Daily Pilot along with some things said by his fellow libs, as he argues, essentially, that the seniors at the center who are complaining about conditions there don't have legitimate gripes and that the City Council shouldn't listen to them and should butt out. Bad seniors, bad, bad, bad.

Before writing his column, Bell should have contacted Mayor Pro Tem Leece to learn more about the complaints she's received from senior citizens and he should have done some research on the subject. Sometimes, when you write a column, even an opinion column, it helps to learn all the facts.

Instead of seeing the Senior Center as a business with customers and with complaints about customer service, Bell swerves off into flag-wrapped cliches about how the majority should prevail and about freedoms--both of which are no more relevant to this issue than they would be to a customer at Moe's Bar complaining about poor service. We were half expecting to read about Bell walking through 30 miles of snow in his bare feet to get to school.

According to Bell, the City Council should listen to failed City Council candidate Mike Scheafer and the rest of the board of directors (which looks a little like a meeting of Return to Reason and has more than a few members who are the political adversaries of Mayor Pro Tem Leece and the majority on the City Council).

And, speaking of Scheafer, here's part of what he apparently told Bell:

“I thought that we were doing a pretty good job of managing our own affairs and dealing always with valid complaints. If the city doesn’t think so — especially on the basis of these complaints — then we would have no other option than to dissolve our center and turn it over to the city.”

If the present corporation did stop running the center, the City could either run the place itself (as do most cities) or form another corporation to do it for the city.

Think about it this way...

As with any vendor that contracts with the City, it behooves the Costa Mesa Senior Corporation to provide good customer service and to listen to the wishes of the City Council.

And, let's be clear. Costa Mesa, as is the case with most cities, has decided as a matter of policy that it is desirable to have a senior center. However, Costa Mesa, unlike most other cities, decided to see if it would be better to have an outside corporation run the Senior Center for the City. That's right, the corporation is doing a job for the City. Hold that thought because we're coming back to that "job" concept in a few paragraphs.

To make it work, the City entered into a sweetheart deal with this outside corporation that gives the corporation a City owned building for a buck a year, free maintenance, free janitorial service, free transportation services and more than $ 240,000 in cash each year.

Because the City is so invested in the Senior Center, and because the present corporation is running the center for the City, the City Council has a right and a responsibility to make sure there is good customer service and that citizen money is being spent wisely. This means the City Council should listen to complaints from senior citizens to see if they're legitimate and should work to make sure our seniors are happy with the service and make sure that all is going well at the center. That's what responsible City Councils do.

Try this analogy...

Suppose you contract with a gardener to mow your lawn. Further suppose that you let him use your lawnmower for free, because he doesn't have a lawnmower. Suppose also that your wife isn't happy with the job the gardener is doing. Then, suppose when she complains to him he doesn't take her complaint seriously and ignores her. So, she next complains to you. Being a reasonable person, you'll probably try to speak to the gardener about it and ask him a few questions to learn why he's doing things a certain way and to see if he can change some things so your wife will like the job.

What would you do if the gardener told you that you shouldn't listen to your wife because she's a malcontent and she's just one person. "Hey, have your kids complained? No? See, your wife just doesn't like me. Don't listen to her. The majority should rule. This is about freedom."

And, what if he acted as though he's doing you a favor and told you that if you don't like the job he's doing, too bad?

How long would that gardener have your business or the business of anyone else? Gardeners are a dime a dozen.

The Senior Center needs to be thought of as a business, and as such it needs to remember two rules of most successful businesses: 1. The customer is always right. 2. If you think the customer is wrong, go back and read rule 1.

Our guess is that those who keep writing and saying things that the City Council might interpret as attacks on the authority of the Council aren't doing the present corporation any favors.

All that most people want is a cost effective, open and transparent Senior Center operation and happy senior citizens along with cooperation between the Senior Center and the City Council.

After the committee formed by the City Council completes its work, we may find that the Senior Center is doing a great job and that some or all of the complaints are unfounded. But, as with any business, the complaints should be investigated. Customer service is important.

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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.