In the world of local politics there will always be those who will beat the drums louder each election cycle, especially when a special interest leader panics about the outcome.
In 1994 when I ran for the Mission Viejo city council, council member Sharon Cody, who was very active in promoting the creation of our Mission Viejo animal shelter before construction of our city library and city hall, spread the word that if elected I would euthanize all the animals in our shelter. One of the early volunteer leaders at the shelter, who received that message from her, eventually shared that successful strategy with me. He still lives in Mission Viejo.
Fast forward to Sept. 13, 2010 where I just received a copy of her latest email blast, courtesy of councilman Frank Ury, containing a similar message to her minions and his email contacts as well.
It was a lie at that time and is surely a lie today. Apparently Sharon Cody has read Saul Alinsky’s dozen “Rules for Radicals.”
Fourteen (and 13) years ago we purchased two pure breed Cavalier King Charles spaniels for thousands of dollars each and have spent more time and money in their vet’s office than check ups for ourselves. In fact Dave Leckness recently visited our neighborhood to look at a street with huge cracks and weeds growing through the cracks. He walked with me, and one of our dogs, to see that neglected street for himself.
To say that I would oppose providing care for animals is an outright lie and a tired old smear tactic by Sharon Cody, the head of DAWG. Simply ask our vet who has virtually provided for their care since their births. Having spent upwards of $10,000, and many hours in his office, and an eye surgeon’s office, clearly confirms the love we have for our dogs, one of which passed away earlier this year after suffering with multiple health issues for several years. We never denied Lord Remingtonn any health care which extended his lifetime. As our vet may have business relationships with the shelter I will refrain from providing his name to this post. I have sent him a copy of the below email so that he knows the kind of person running our local DAWG volunteer group.
Following is the latest hit piece from Sharon Cody. Let me also point out that I do not have any council candidates in my pocket as alleged in her email attack piece. While I do know most of the city council candidates I have not heard any of them express any plans to slash the animal shelter budget. So once again Sharon
Cody falsely yells fire where there is none.
Ms. Cody. When you attack our love of animals it becomes personal. Hopefully you are not using any city resources or employees to spread your lies.
From: frankury@cox.net
To: frankury@cox.net
Sent: 9/13/2010 6:57:20 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: FW: The Animal Lovin Candidate
Please pass on to your lists. Frank
From: Sharon Cody [mailto:sharoncody@cox.net]
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 7:17 AM
To: Bob Cody
Subject: The Animal Lovin Candidate
“Hi guys, I know some of you hate politics but if we don’t get this job done, getting Dave Leckness, Trish Kelley and Rick Sandzimier elected to MV city council, our animals will be in jeopardy of not getting the care they need. The “gilbert gang” has the remaining candidates in their pocket and they are ALL promising to slash the shelter budget. Please help me make sure that all we are doing for our orphaned animals continues. I give you my word that all of the candidates in this email, will fully support our shelter now and in the future. They are smart reasonable people who love our city and are already doing good things in the city.Sharon”
When Sharon says “ALL promising to slash the shelter budget” she is a Liar, Pure and simple. I challenge her to point it out when I have “promised to slash the budget”, my guess is she can not, but this is the typical behavior from these clowns.
FYI, I have 2 Dogs that were rescues. This is the type of lying and fearmongering that makes most people quit in disgust when dealing with politics.
Larry, You and your buddies just hate it when I have an opinion. But guess what. I have as much of a right to have an opinion as you do. My group email consists of people interested in my opinion. It is not part of DAWG or the city. In fact, if someone requests to be on my email list, they receive a note from me saying I will be giving my opinion about political matters and that my email is a personal one and has nothing to do with dawg or with the shelter. It’s my right and you know it.
I have very little doubt that you adored your dog that recently passed away. That is one area we can agree on. You were a devoted dog owner and I completely understand your pain with the loss of your precious dog.
Larry, I have a great many statements by you trashing the shelter and me as well. Your supporters including a currently council person has said insulting things about the shelter volunteers and the shelter.
Pretending you are not working to get candidates that agree with you elected to city council is just silly.
Loving your own dog, can be a completely different matter than being in support of the work I and hundreds of my personal friends have done to help animals who were abandoned in deplorable condition at the Mission Viejo Shelter. When I agree to continue my work on behalf of animals I don’t surrender my right to have an opinion as an individual. That’s what’s great about our country. I am pleased to have you and your group say very mean-spirited and nasty things about me. That only helps the mission of getting reasonable people who are both smart and able to lead our city elected to city council. People who are both capable and kind and who are in complete 100% support of the shelter operation and the shelter budget. I thank God we have 3 such people running for office with Trish Kelley, Dave Leckness and Rick Sandzimier. Sharon Cody
Anonymous. If you are Sharon Cody why didn’t you use your real name?
Assuming it’s you, you surely are entitled to disagree with my policy positions.
How quicky you now credit me for loving our pets but that is not your former or current message.
As to controlling candidates. Perhaps you should contact the nine other candidates whom you did not list to see what they have to say about a relationship with me, no less my power over them. It’s BS and you know it.
While we are each entitled to express our opinions, fearmongering is one area in which you excel.
Dave Leckness just called me. He did receive an email copy of this post. Perhaps you might contact him to verify what I wrote.
Larry, interesting that the only person you could get to agree with you is our own version of Sarah Palin, the quitter, DumVillageWitch.
annoyed at the lake.
Sorry to learn that you are annoyed at the lake. Is it due to our mandatory membership or is the concert music too loud?
What exactly are you saying? Who is the Dum Village Witch?
That “anonymous” note certainly appears to have been from Sharon since she signed the bottom of the message!?! Did you bother to get to the end of the message to see it was signed Sharon Cody? Or were you too mad and did even finish it? This election has to be hard for you since Mark bowed out (one of your clones), Eugene Tyler didn’t even run again (another one of your clones) Kathy Schlock (who is not up for election is still your puppet on the council), Bill Baker appears to be in your pocket since there have been pictures of him with your group during the recall along with another one of those running for city council Neal who claims to march to his own drummer. Why is it you and all your wannabes who have run (and lost) for city council (two of you now write for blogs that keep blasting everything when it comes to MV Politics) keep making it difficult for those fine folks that want to help out city and those who are elected who do an outstanding job? You remind me of a bunch of school yard bullies who can get their own way try to beat everyone else up (as a figure of speech) Why is it the city council make thousands of decisions for our city yet you never give them credit for it and only like to nit-pick on a few. Then your group complains about events that you don’t even personally show up to? If anyone is starting to panic, it is your group. Your little click that runs for offices who don’t get elected run on and on about all the bad things (which isn’t that much) but never talk about the good things. You all sit on little committees appoint each other to different groups and act like the city just bow down to you. To put it in your own words, “It’s BS and you know it.” Take a break; take time to smell the roses. Relax enjoy life as it is too short.
Larry, Larry, Larry.
Would you like me to send you some photos of myself with Trish Kelley, Frank Ury and Lance MacLean? You are the city clown.
Almost forgot a Nov 10th 2006 SV News front page story and photo including myself, Diane Greenwood, Cathy Schlicht, Joe Holtzman, Frank Ury and Barbara Anderson in a very tight city council race with Diane neck and neck with Lance MacLean. In that council campaign Frank Ury lined up and supported 3 candidates. Barker, McCusker and Greenwood.
Frank Ury’s objective. Dump JP, Lance and Trish. My point is that there are many photos of myself with local elected officials and candidates going all the way back to our 1st mayor Norm Murray.
To claim that Bill Barker is in my pocket is a sick joke. After getting a copy of the post this morning he called to say he was not happy with Sharon’s email in that her statement of being controlled by me is simply not true. I expect him to respond.
My group. What group? The seniors in our Prime Timers Ministry at our church? That’s my group.
Show up at city events? Ask former mayor Bill Craycraft if he and I did not walk down the center of La Paz Road carrying the Rotary club banner in the Walk against Drugs. Or perhaps my joining other Rotarians by the library as we read the names of every American GI who lost his or her lives in Vietnam at a special Memorial Service.
Perhaps you don’t attend the Memorial Day or Veterans Day celebrations where others see me every year.
Let’s skip politics and address my service as an advisory board member for the non-profit Fun With Chalk event that I attend and have supported for a decade.
Don’t get me started about community involvement.
Almost forgot. For a brief period I handled publicity for the MV Activities Committee and helped paint the fence and set up at the Santa House. Should I bore our other readers with the full list?
How about changing the community sign for 18 months before we went electronic.
Why I continue to react to your negative dribble amazes me.
Drivel, Larry. Drivel.
Vern.
While I prefer not putting my personal life in the blogosphere, that email was a lie and impacts nine city council candidates in Mission Viejo. As such it is not drivel
So let me get this straight? You’re not backing any of these candidates who are not in your pocket? Then who exactly are you working to elect? Or are you just an objective reporter? Maybe they aren’t in your pocket…maybe you and them are all in Brad Morton’s pocket and you’re just the one Morton sends out to look foolish.
Anonymous’ response wasn’t hard to figure. The way it was worded made it clear that it was Sharon Cody by the end of the first paragraph. You really need to read more closely, Larry.
Little man.
I truly like Larry Gilbert. We worked together defending councilman Bob Curtis from a recall in Feb of 1990. Sharon Cody
Little man.
Anyone can sign off with whatever name they choose. While the response was probably from her I cannot prove it from my keyboard. Please find a hobby rather than your ongoing attacks on me.
Little man.
According to anonymous I am working to elect nine candidates for 3 open seats
You make a lovely couple
Sharon Cody has a propensity to put her foot in her mouth ! I quite volunteering at the Animal Shelter because she was/is such a ” budinsky” !!
She did all that flapping about Connie Lee going to jail during the recall campaign and also the Measure D vote. Guess what ???? Connie Lee is sitting at home eating Bonn Bonn’s while Sharon is hysterically writing tripe to her supporters–most likely using the e-mail list she secured from her DAWG bunch.
One other note–maybe Sharon needs a lie collar–you know like a bark collar to keep her from so many lies. !!
Sandy. Welcome to the Orange Juice.
While we appreciate comments from new readers we prefer that you stay on topic.
That said, Connie Lee is not in any jail. I saw her last night at an event with two high profile OC names in the gathering. John Williams and Todd Spitzer.
Looking forward to more of your thoughts.
Larry:
I order that EXTRA LARGE lie collar for Sharon Cody.
Larry, I didn’t know you had so much money that you were able to buy politicians now. You started a gang to. The “Gilbert Gang”. Wow, you have some people say some funny stuff about you.
Sharron, you are not very smart and I hope you are really not considering running as it seems like you will just be wasting money. Like Larry said, why sign anonymous as your name and then sign your name at the end of the post.
Why don’t you find a real issue to worry about. I doubt anyone in MV council is going to cut back on the dog shelter. Maybe you should be out there promoting more volunteers or how to get some of the animals out of the shelter and into homes.
You just made sure you don’t get my vote by showing lack of intelligence. Larry keep your “gang” off the streets. We still want to be the safest city in America!!! 🙂
Paulie Shore.
Thank you.
The only gang the Gilbert family supports is “Our Gang” at Teen Challenge International where we hope to keep these teens out of gangs and away from activities that will negatively impact their adult lives. In fact 500 of us hung together at a 9-11 dinner event in Santa Ana.
Sharon Cody is not a candidate for our city council. At least not this year. She is promoting two incumbents and a commissioner.
that sounds like a good group to support, I hope its working!!!
oh sorry about that. i figured she was running. well either way she should find something more productive to do. anything on the ballot thats gonna raise taxes in the city this year larry, i’ve been out of the loop. and if so who is supporting it so i know not to vote for them