At the June 19th city of Mission Viejo Budget Workshop the Council approved, on a 4-1 vote, adding $300,000 to the operating budget to enter a float in the January 2009 Tournament of Roses Parade in honor of the City’s 20th Anniversary.” Mayor Gail Reavis, again the voice of fiscal reason, vote NO.The float proposal is contained in tonight’s city council Agenda package.
Anaheim is the only city in Orange County to participate in this annual event seen around the world. It a tourist destination that can surely justify having a float in the parade.
Not to be left out our brain trust is looking for creative ways to spend taxpayer dollars. As we recently approved a golden toilet CIP in one of our parks for $430,000 I guess this proposal should not come as a surprise to anyone living in Mission Viejo.
Participating in the Tournament of Roses is typically not a one time event. Once you enter it represents a commitment of sorts. This is not Term Limits.
Perhaps the majority of our city council need a longer summer vacation. No, not to think of other ways to spend taxpayer revenue, but to take a cold shower. Quoting from Pastor Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life’s opening words. “It’s not about you.”
Many years ago the former Mission Viejo Company sponsored both a float in the Rose Bowl parade and a St. Patrick’s Day parade in our city. It’s called marketing 101. They did it for mass exposure to sell property while our California Promise was in it’s infancy. Today, Mission Viejo is a bedroom community that is now built out. We do not have the Anaheim Angels, Anaheim Arsenal, Anaheim Ducks, Disneyland, Downtown Disney, The Honda Center and a Convention Center to promote.
Anaheim has 19,128 hotel rooms who last year generated $76 million in bed taxes. Their annual participation is a great “return on investment.” The city of Mission Viejo has a grand total of two motels with 261 rooms.
Winners need to do something spectacular to set themselves apart from the pack. As such, our float, decorated with real $100 dollar bills, will be disqualified as we are not using live flowers for the decoration.
And to believe their campaign literature, claiming to be fiscal conservatives, is a joke.
E-mail just received from a long time Mission Viejo resident who is a retired local industry executive.
Larry:
As i read this, my lips were silently mumbling “you must be kidding me.” Did the council supporters give rationale for their decision? If so, what?
Thanks and Best,
I think the M.V. Council did the right thing. Past Santa Ana Councilwoman Patricia McGuigan was very active during the years that Santa Ana had a floot in the Rose Parade and she will be the first to tell you how great it was for our city! Mission Viejo is a great city and the rest of the world should know about it. The political gadflys will never be happy so there is no use trying to please them. Instead, spend a little money ($300,000 is a drop in the bucket when it comes to the overall budget) on a parade and enjoy the great things that will come from it! With so much sadness and negativity in the news why not have some fun and enjoy life! Way to Go Mission Viejo!
Regarding the headline – I believe the float(s) have nothing to do with the Rose Bowl, but rather with the Rose Parade.
To my knowledge there is no such thing as a Rose Bowl float, but there are Rose Parade floats! (also known as Tournament of Roses floats)
anonymous 5:43 p.m.
“Way to go” while we just reduced our reserves by several million dollars tonight?
Hey, the majority of our council members are clueless with regard to the concept of “invest to make” especially when you are holding somone else’s checkbook in your hands. Even Irvine, a much larger city tham Mission Viejo with the Great Park coming on line along with thousands of new residences, does not waste taxpayer money for a self satisfying float that you might see on T.V. for two or three minutes.
Mission Viejo is not now, and never will become, a destination. Some ego’s are bigger than life.
I said my piece tonight and move on to other policy decisions.
Let me remind you that in 1992, the same year we received an award for being one of the finest planned communities in American, we declared a huge section of our city “blighted” but that’s another story.
The rest of the world already knows about our city. We have the world famous Nadadore swimming team that won many Olympic medals and hosted the cycling event in the last Olympics held in LA. So what. We were the training location for the US World Cup soccer team and didn’t even have stands on their field for the residents so to watch them have any practice matches.
Anonymous 8:27 p.m.
You are correct. My headine is not 100 percent accurate. The event is the Tournament of Roses parade as spelled ou in the text.
Thanks for catching that error.
our city council is more interested in limiting public participation than limiting its spending sprees.
are they too afraid to ask the tough questions, or is it because of their lack of foresight, they can;t?
time will tell what effect their lack of insight and their inability to look at the longview will have on our community. cathy schlicht
does MV have their own city parade? will the float have more than one use?
Larry,
Make sure they put a tsunami warning horn on your float…..we
spent $200,000 bucks for a horn
system that will wake the dead
every time “we test”! The least
your MV council people should do
is put a cell phone on board the
float..in case their is a tsunami
in Pasadena on January 1st.
How can you fault them?
They were just “floating” another
idea….to use taxpayers money!
hey ron, the mission viejo float will have powerlines, cell towers in parks, an electronic digital sign, hign density housing, a roger faubel alert system and everything else that demonstrates the influence special interest has had with our city council. cathy schlicht
Cook.
No, we do not have our own city parade. This float entry is for one year, or so they tell us, to recognize the 20th year since incorporation on March 31, 1988.
They have no other planned use for same or so we are told.
In fact our annual 4th of July celebration is sponsored by the Mission Viejo Activities Committee and not by the city directly. Yes, the city does close the road and covers some of the expenses with in-kind and partial financial assistance.
As to the float. I seem to recall that Edison International’s float, when they had a serious financial black eye, cost upwards of $one million dollars. Let’s see what the actual costs be if and when Mission Viejo participates. Not to show my age but my oldest son worked on the Mission Viejo float when it was paid for by the Mission Viejo Company.
The city council approved a budget last night that included this item.
We should also note that our “tax and spend” city council on July 2 authorized without any public discussion, $300,000 for a rose parade float while at the same time, authorized without any public discussion, across the board increases in rec center user fees. This increase is expected to generate about $165,000 anually.
So what government “gives” us with one hand, they “take” with the other.
Thank you Gail Reavis, JP Ledesma, Frank Ury, Trish Kelley and Lance McClean for your continued slight of hand spending. cathy schlicht
Hey Cathy, why don’t you run for city office instead of always badmouthing everybody. You and the old man should go help blind kids and do something productive.
badmouthing? hey anon 9:08, i am only the messenger! check the council’s record of bad decision making. they want to spend money so they voted to reduce the city reserves and at the same time voted to increase rec center fees.
and by the way, i do support children thru world vision. how about you?
maybe when you have something relevant to say you will sign your name?? cathy schlicht