MV. Where Integrity is on vacation
Does the Mission Viejo City Clerk have two sets of guidelines in performing her duties as our Elections Official?
What a difference an election cycle makes. In the 2008 city council campaign, Karen Hamman, Mission Viejo’s City Clerk, accepted an email challenge dated Friday, August, 15, 2008 10:49 AM from councilman Lance MacLean.
Lance’s email opens “Karen, I Lance MacLean, as an individual resident of the city of Mission Viejo, am filing a formal challenge to you as the City Clerk, serving in the capacity of the official elections officer regarding the ballot statements submitted by Cathy Schlicht and Neil Lonsinger….” As Karen was going on vacation she turned Lance’s challenge over to our city attorney firm of RW&G which filed a Writ of Mandate with the city taxpayers paying their legal expenses related to some minor debatable points.
In the city blog entry of August 25, 2008 it reads: On Thursday, August 21, 2008, the Office of the Election Official, by and through her legal counsel, filed a petition for a Writ of Mandate intended to result in corrections to issues established by specified candidates’ statements.”
The MacLean objection to Neil Lonsinger’s statement is Lance’s disagreeing with what he described as “false and slanderous unsubstantiated claims and declarations…etc.”
Fast forward to Friday, August 6, 2010 when I sent an email challenge to our city Clerk with my first challenge against mayor Trish Kelley’s candidate statement.
On Saturday morning August 7th I added a second challenge based on the mayor’s falsely reporting of our city reserves.
That same day I received a response from our City Clerk stating that “I as the City Elections Official, reviewed the candidate Statements prior to my upcoming vacation and did not find the statements to be in violation of the California Elections Code.”
Let’s go back to the August 25, 2008 city blog article which reads in part that “The California Elections Code regulates the permissible content that may be set forth within candidate statements. The intent of the law and the duty imposed upon those officials responsible for the conduct of elections is to ensure that the voters are presented fair, accurate and relevant information to assist their voting decision-making. If prohibited or inaccurate information is presented in a written statement the elections Official, as the guardian of the voting public, must follow the statutorily defined judicial process to test the validity of the statements…” etc.
So we provide cover for incumbents when they go after challengers and retain our city council at taxpayer expense to oppose a few words yet refuse to go after the mayor’s false statements including financial data that is simply a lie. My challenge is backed up by financial reports from Irwin Bornstein, our Assistant City Manager/Finance Director.
My first challenge against the mayor’s statement related to her taking credit for saving the Casta Del Sol golf course from development even after Judge Luis Rodriguez acknowledged that housing could be built on part of the course but I will simply fast forward to an email response from City Manager Dennis Wilberg where on August 9th he writes “Larry, This is not a City matter. Karen Hamman has handled the matter in her capacity as the Election Official. Dennis.”
I recognize that any citizen can file a ballot statement challenge within 10 days. The difference here is that our City Clerk looked the other way when accepting bogus information from our mayor yet immediately passed the baton to our attorney in August 2008 when that challenge should have been filed and paid for by Lance MacLean, not the taxpayers of Mission Viejo.
And to repeat her August 2008 words where it reads that her responsibility is to challenge inaccurate information she elects to drop the ball even after I pointed out the discrepancy. Did the law change as it relates to the duties of election officials since the last election cycle?
And some question why many Americans are turned off by the political process.
Note: A few years ago, at the suggestion of our City Manager, Cathy Schlicht and I wrote letters of commendation for Karen which played a role in her being recognized by her peers as City Clerk of the year.
One would think that MV, being so close to the recall capital of Orange County, would be responsive to this type of political suicide. It seems that our electeds just turn a blind eye until the voters rise up, as in the City of Bell, and say they have had enough! Several weeks ago I was reviewing proposed budgets for the County before they were approved by the Board of Supervisors. I noticed that the Public Guardian John S. Williams proposed to save the County big bucks by reducing the number of Deputy II positions in his department from 27 to 23. He only has 17 deputy II positions currently on staff! This will not only NOT save the County any money, since this budget was approved by the supes, it will allow him to hire 6 more deputies without the supes approval. I brought this up to the Board and the CEO. They did nothing! Its time to rise up people and demand better from our elected officials!
Thank you for persuing this Larry. I hope someone at the Register or OC Weekly cares enough about another scandal in MV to write something about this. Yes, you are correct, there ARE two or more standards for people here.. Unfortunately, I was just another one of the little people that are trampled on in this city. The city manager runs things his way, and he makes sure that he keeps at least 3 persons on the city council on his side by doing little favors and giving special treatment to some like he did for Lance when he wanted to challenge two statements two years ago. In a way, I can’t blame Karen, she works for Dennis. That little change from working for the city council to only working for the CM happened while I was on council. That can be changed back if we can get three people who are not afraid of the truth.
With the money TK, LM and DL are collecting from the vendors and unions, they are not the least bit worried that the 60,000 voters in this city will ever hear about the freedom’s they took with their candidate statements. And the fact that they can use the city attorney to do their personal bidding and make it look official if they want. They have the power of three.
At least they do for now. I so hope that the voters will wake up and vote NO INCUMBENTS which also includes Lance. He had his 7.5 years to mess things up. None of them deserves another day!
Facts are: TRISH KELLEY IS A LIAR TO THE PEOPLE !!
LTMVO
As a former city manager once stated in open session. He only has to count to three. The same applies to our city attorney. The challenge for fed up voters is to change some of the council members who are in the majority. This is no small task but we did it in 2002 and can repeat that Revolution in Nov. if anyone cares to get involved.
Tens of thousands of our tax dollars were spent in the 2008 challenge from resident/councilman Lance MacLean but you will have a difficult time seeing the specifics as the city will redact the details of the RWG billings.
Note: When we changed attorney’s a few years back the vote was 3-2. Yes, Trish was one of the votes to give Bill Curley this post. So was Lance MacLean. As a result, for calendar years 2005 through 2009 we paid our city attorney’s just over $3.5 million.
That’s 3,500,000 reasons why Bill Curley will do everything he can to defend Trish Kelley, Lance MacLean and our City Clerk over one bald gadfly.
That’s more than the City of Bell City Administrator! I hope this story gets picked up by more media! Thanks for the info!
Here’s what I don’t get. You never establish that Maclean’s challenges were groundless. You offer no proof to that and no analysis of your proof. Likewise, you offer no proof that your challenges to Kelly’s statement are not groundless. While you do quote from election code, it doesn’t prove your main assertions. So it’s just filler.
End result: you sound like a cry baby here. The mean old Karen…ya da ya da ya da. If you really have a case why don’t you sue the city? It’s not like Brad Morton would charge you or anything. Oh wait…it never goes well for you folks when you sue the city does it?
Maybe ya all need a better attorney.
LMB
YOU ARE CLUELESS WINGING COMMENTS WITHOUT HAVING THE ORIGINAL TEXT. PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR AND GO AWAY
LBM
Your lack of historical Knowles is AGAIN showing.
Morton lead the legal thrust that convicted Butterfield, Withrow, and Craycraft of violations concerning the Brown Ac. Score Morton 1–opposition 0.
Round two–Morton secured an order from Judge Rodriquez to force Frank (your boy) Ury to change his false and misleading ballot statement. Score –Morton 2–opposition– 0.
So far Morton is undefeated–while those YO(U support take the tank !!
So far LMB–your score is 0—people who comment on your nonsense–167.
ALOHA JOE.
AS MY BRAIN IS NOT FULLY ENGAGED IN MV HISTORY I BELIEVE THE ATTORNEY REPRESENTING JP WAS JIM LACY
Mr. Holtzman,
You forgot to mention Morton’s stinging loss as the “drafter” and primary advocate of Measure D, but I’m sure it just slipped your mind.
Interesting article in today’s Register, can’t wait till Larry gets back. Its in Local page 2, about citizens filing lawsuits against the campaign statements of 6 candidates for school board. What I find particularly interesting is the heading of’restricted focus’. The article says :State election code REQUIRES that candidates discuss only their education and qualifications on their 200 word statement”.
Larry’s challenge to Kelley and Leckness , if this is correct, is very accurate and should have been dealt with differently by the city clerk. It is understandable why she did nothing, because her only boss is the city manager who is in the business of holding on to his three votes. What LBM needs to question is why the city attorney charged the taxpayers and became involved in Lance’s challenge to Schlict and Lonsinger.
There is no justice, and it usually is blind, Its the dumb and stupid part I am sick of.
Madame Mayor, by your leave…
I broke that story right over here, around the corner, two days ago:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/08/breaking-bad-news-for-the-clowns-on-the-capo-school-board/
Larry, I hope you enjoyed your vacation,
The irony is too great for me to not comment. The City Clerk won her lawsuit against Ms. Schlicht and Mr. Lonsinger in 2008, with the Court striking the entire first paragraph of Ms. Schlicht’s candidate statement because she included her party affiliation, a clear violation of the Elections Code law. The entire second paragraph of Mr. Lonsinger’s statement was struck because the Court found that he falsely accused the City of falsifying the costs of an anniversary photo display relating to the building of easels. To me, that’s hardly “a few words” and remarkably similar to the Measure D ballot statement challenge filed by Cathy Schlicht that you have supported. I guess what’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander, but I digress. I look forward to your legal challenge on the sufficiency of Trish’s candidate statement.
newbie.
What you are overlooking is the email from city manager Dennis Wilberg that says my challenge is not city business yet the city attorney, without direction from the council, sued Neil and Cathy in 2008 as our city clerk went on vacation. All I asked was for equal legal consideration to my challenge.
$26 million is NOT 51% of our revenues. Check it out.
Nor did Trish stop development at Casta del Sol. the project was stopped based on several factors including the economy but we can debate that as the election gets closer.
I have also notified the GOP that both Trish and Frank Ury have endorsed/support a Democrat for council. They are now on notice.
It was OK for Frank to lie in his 2008 candidate statement about the completion of Crown Valley Parkway that was not finished until one year after his candidate statement was submitted but that was only a small lie that the city clerk had no dispute over.
And to think that both Cathy S and I accepted the request from our city manager to write letters of commendation for Karen Hamman which played a part in her being made city clerk of the year as acknowledged by both Dennis and Karen.