Why Didn’t Chumley Accept My Invitation to Fight for the Judges’ “Recommended Plan”?

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Hey, cupcake — learn about the maps (and the local politics) before you write about them!

This post is in two parts.  Only the most curious or masochistic among you will feel any need to read the second one; it’s only here because that way I have a much better shot of ensuring that it survives to the end of the year intact.

This deals with the Anaheim Districting process, of course.  Chumley posted a story by Oscar Reyes, proponent (and probably other things as well, but “proponent” is the key one) of the “Reyes 2” map, which last week achieved the status of becoming the judges’ “Recommended Plan.”

For those who haven’t been following, a map that I drew based largely on the insights of Brian Chuchua about Anaheim (and some others) and my own enjoyment of tinkering with how to create formulas about how to put those insights into place, finished more or less tied for second place after the Reyes 2 map.  That was fine with me; Reyes 2 was a good map, regardless of whether I felt that I could slightly improve upon it, with vigorous and persuasive community support.  The Chuchua maps’ purpose, as advertised from the very beginning, was primarily to “keep the City Council honest” as it considered whether to accept or reject the judges’ recommended map(s) by presenting an alternative that hewed painfully closely to the legal requirements for such maps.  (It may yet come in handy for that purpose; I hope that it never comes to that.)

Regarding the Reyes 2 Map, I’ve already conceded: it’s the “Recommended Map,” it satisfies the legal requirements quite well, and it should easily be the Council’s choice.  I have endorsed it before; I endorse it again now; I’ll probably endorse it against next time I right about it because certain critics will probably pretend that I haven’t.  If Tom Tait opposes it for some unexpected (and unlikely to manifest) reason, I will argue against that decision strongly.  The same goes for future Council swing vote James Vanderbilt.  (It should go without saying that the same goes for the Council majority, which is the real threat to the Reyes Map.)

One would think that, having been chosen to publish Oscar Reyes’s gracious victory statement in his “Liberal” OC blog, Chumley would also endorse Reyes’s map and commit, as I have, to fighting against any City Council who may try to mess with it.

One would be wrong.  He hasn’t.

This surprised me, given the circumstances — and I’m the one who challenged him in the comments section of Oscar Reyes’s post.  I asked him point blank what he would do if Brandman joined Kring (very likely) and Murray (somewhat likely) in rejecting the Recommended Plan.  He changed the subject, spouting some ignorant drivel about how he, in his blissful ignorance, thought that Tait was one who might ally with Kring in rejecting the map.  (You can see the exchange below, if you must.)  I was so stunned by the shining brilliance of this stupidity that I overlooked, for a time, that Chumley had never actually made a commitment to fight hard for the Recommended Plan, even if it meant slamming his political love object Jordan Brandman!

Well, we have to clear this up, don’t you think?  Trudge over to the post in question, take a look at my reply to Vern Nelson’s initial comment (which is the first one in the comments section), and leave your thoughts there if you are so inclined.  Remember, he doesn’t cap the indentation at five comments, as we do here, so don’t follow him on a race to the right border; comment in reply to Vern’s comment or to my reply to it, so that people will find it easier to read.

Now, if you want to see the crap he spouts and what I do with it — and only if you do — you may read on.  (I don’t know that I recommend it, though!)  The numbers are my attempt to impose some order on his reply, and they will appear as separate comments there so as to afford easier discussion (and this way if he eliminates a response, as he sometimes does in his “all-or-nothing” world, most of the rest of my reply remains.)

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We begin here:

1. Blinded by rage? Over what?

Over years now of being called out on your bullshitting and your increasingly less and less watered-down trickle-down economic Republicanism, “cupcake.”

2. I didn’t put 10 or 11 maps together and lecture retired judges on why they were wrong…that was you cupcake.

Putting aside that lecturing non-retired judges on why they are wrong when an adverse tentative ruling comes out is part of what lawyers do — so much you don’t understand — I have felt exactly zero “rage” or even irritation towards the judges.  I think that they did a very good job — and, as I said in my public statement two weeks ago, if I had to choose only one map to recommend to the Council I think that, given the community involvement in it, it would be Reyes Map 2.

I think that, as they themselves may well realize three months from now, they should not have trusted in the City Council to respect the output of this fair process.  I asked them for exactly two things last Wednesday:

(1) to substitute in Chuchua Map 6 (or even better, Chuchua Map 9) for Chuchua Map 4 as an official “semi-finalist” — which I asked to happen twice, to what struct me as assent, but somehow didn’t happen, making it easier for a Councilperson to go for a map that I have said that I think is inferior to Reyes 2; and

(2) to do a stronger job of making explicit the “findings” underlying their choice of Reyes Map 2 as “the Recommended Plan” on the pretty basic logic of legal opinions that presenting factual findings is a good way to hem in an appellate body.

Neither of those are even “telling the judges that they are wrong.”  It’s lobbying for a strategy that would better protect their maps — one that they think unnecessary because the Council would not be so politically foolish as to undercut this process.  They don’t understand that this Council’s motto is “if I arguably can, then I certainly will.”

3. I get paid to spin and lie? I don’t lie. Ask my peers. They’ll tell you I’m a very ethical public relations professional..my wife will tell you I’m a horrible liar (which is a good attribute in a husband).

Technically, your ability to convince yourself of absolutely anything the allows you to celebrate those you like may exonerate you from “lying.”  You’re more of a bullshitter: what is true simply has no bearing on what you’re wiling to say.  I can believe that you don’t lie to your wife.  That’s very different from lying to strangers for political gain.

4. You’re squishy with the truth and it pisses you off when you don’t get your way. Better to be pissed off than pissed on. Make no mistake, you’re being pissed on here.

Don’t even know what you mean about squishy.  Pissed off when I don’t get my may?  Sometimes, when I’m fighting to what’s just and merciful and fair.  It’s not a bad trait in a lawyer.  As for “pissed on,” I’ll try to say this kindly: perhaps I’m being pissed at, but not on.  I’ll do you a favor and refrain from clarifying.

5. Folks I’ve spoken with in Anaheim throughout this process tell me you repeatedly referred to the Chuchua map as the Chuchua-Diamond Map.

First, I doubt that you spoke with “folks in Anaheim” at all, let alone “throughout this process.”  I don’t recall calling it the “Chuchua-Diamond Map” at all — except perhaps once where I was quoting verbatim from the description given to Chuchua Map 2 in one place in the website.  So I think that you’re either being lied to, or making up a lie yourself, or doing something that would be a lie if done by someone with a superego.

But I suppose that it’s possible.  So if anyone thinks that they heard me say this — especially “repeatedly … throughout the process” — please let me know where, when, and in front of whom.  Maybe it will jog my memory.  Or maybe our host is … hallucinating?

6. You did 99% of the talking and likely 99% of the work

I did do 99% of the talking.  No way did I do “99% of the work,” unless you’re limiting “work” to mean simply twisting the Rubik’s cube of the mapping process enough times until a solution emerges.  The other half of the work involves knowing the city like the back of one’s hand, knowing what’s going on within it both publicly and privately, and being able to evaluate whether someone’s ideas are appropriate or not.  That’s where Brian’s applying his masterful knowledge of Anaheim came in so useful.  Starting back in the Angels Stadium days, he’s driven me around every region of Anaheim giving me its history, its current status, and its projected future.  That on-the-ground knowledge is absolutely key to the process: Brian told me that Euclid Avenue was the appropriate place to carve off the western third of Anaheim when I had thought that it was probably I-5.  But your certainty about something about which you know nothing is … echt “you.”

7. You’re so worked up about it you have to write a prolix comment about how you’re not the author of multiple maps. Sure Brian did everything. Sure he did.

I never said that “Brian did everything”; that’s a straw man argument. Your insulting Chuchua like you did is disgraceful — happily, lots of people seemed to response appropriately.  Not only is Brian well-loved in Anaheim, but he known far more about Anaheim than you do about Irvine, and even with the eyes of an old man he sees his own city far more clearly than you see yours.

8. I actually think Tait may not agree with the People’s map either because voting for it sort of hurts him with his Republican friends…

What did Tait say at the beginning of the process?  Well, of course you don’t know.  He fought hard for an independent judicial panel and indicating that he was strongly likely to defer to them.  Vanderbilt, while he likes to be an independent thinker, probably will defer to what voters wanted as well.  You know who won’t?  At least one, probably two, and maybe three of the members of the Council majority that you celebrate.

9. … the same ones you had pizza with last night because they were going to submit a map of their own; perhaps you wanted to sell them on yours? Yeah, I know about that.

I had pizza in the City Hall plaza Wednesday evening with Cynthia Ward and Benita Gagne, because (a) I had skipped dinner due to a client call keeping me at home late and (b) Cynthia was nice enough to have procured one vegetarian pizza for her Republican flock, and of course it had gone uneaten.  Benita’s map, like mine and Brian’s, did not make it beyond the semi-finals; no maps were submitted on Wednesday the 16th, making your statement especially bizarre.  For the same reason, there was no reason to try to “sell them on mine”; the process had ended.

As for your “Yeah, I know about that”: someone who has as much of a head start on creepiness as you do should take real pains to avoid sounding like a stalker.

10. Did you read what you wrote here: “I don’t believe that I ever sought out (or talked to) Reyes about collaborating or anything else. I think that I’ve said “good job” to him once and once (when I was sitting behind him when he was at the podium) tried to slip him my phone, which had some records on it that he was being asked about and didn’t seem able to find.  I did talk to people around him about what I considered to be weak points of his plan — nothing that bad — but I did my own revision of his plan on my own. See Chuchua 9 and 10.”

10a. So you stalked the kid. 

YOU THINK THAT I STALKED HIM?  I’ve barely interacted with him.  Once, when we were all invited to defend our plans and he seemed unable to access the figures that he needed to answer a question posed by the judges’ panel, I found the necessary figures on my phone and then tried to hand it to him with the screen on, allowing him to answer the question.  By the point, he had just located it.  That’s a courtesy, you imbecile!

11. People kept him away from you. People protected him from you. You just don’t get that do you?

Oh, bullshit.  Again, I doubt that anyone even told you that.  I’d certainly dare them to acknowledge it.  If they said this, they were either mistaken, or someone did so foolishly and unnecessarily, or they were lying.  Did these supposed sources say why?  Were they worried that I was going to knife him?  This is shameful idiocy on your part.

12. Your own revision of his plan — voila! The Fusion Plan!

There was a “Fusion Plan” — but it didn’t involve Reyes 2.  When the “Ponderosa Community” came up with their map for the South District, I drew a map that adjusted Chuchua Map 2 to accommodate their preference.  This was Chuchua Map 4 — which I referred to as “the Fusion Plan”; apparently one of your sources (if they existed) mangled up what I had said at different times.  At the same meeting where I presented Chuchua Map 4, the Ponderosa Community representative came forward and said that they were changing their mind because they were convinced that the Reyes 2 map could do a better job.  So at that point the Chuchua 4 map lost its reason for existing.

Why so?  I’ll explain this to you carefully: as I stated several times both verbally (to the judges) and in print, the purpose of the Chuchua Map was not to strive to be selected, but to keep the City Council as honest as possible in its deliberations by ensuring that a competing map that met the legal criteria for selection as strongly as possible was present in the mix.  One of those criteria is deference to what the local community identified as “communities of interest.”  Once the Ponderosa people changed their mind, the Chuchua 4 Map no longer reflected the local community’s community of interest.  It was at that point significantly inferior to the Reyes 2 Map.  That’s why I thought that it should be withdrawn as “semi-finalist” in favor of Chuchua Map 6 or Map 9.

By the way, we were all invited to use things that we liked in other people’s maps.  The point wasn’t to win glory, it was for Anaheim to get the best map.  Once it became clear that Reyes Map 2 had so much popular support, you’re damn right that I tried to see if I could tinker with it and improve it.  I think that I succeeded; those promoting it didn’t want to mess with success.  That wasn’t unreasonable.

13. “But Brian’s the co-author of the map” I thought you said it was *his* map; so he’s the *co-author* (and you’re the other one) but your name doesn’t appear on the map and you did 99% of the talking???!!! You’re an attention whore. Blah blah blah.

Yes, Brian is the co-author of the map — the map is imbued with his knowledge of Anaheim, supported by my technical skills doing districting and public speaking — but he is the official proponent of the map.  Why does one make that distinction?  Because, as the Anaheim resident, he is the one who would have standing if a lawsuit became appropriate.  If Reyes had gotten help from people in Los Angeles or Sacramento to do the technical part of the mapping, would it no longer be “his map”?  Of course it would still be “his map”!  If you think that there’s something wrong with that, you’re absurd.

14. “Did he “think things through” himself? Of course not — he was part of a huge community data-gathering project, and that’s BETTER than if he’d done it himself.” Sell this kid short huh?

Oh, wow.  This is amazing.  Look, I was there at meetings with OCCORD and OCCCO and other groups where they talked about the enormous and amazing project of getting information from the local communities.  That’s what makes the map so impressive.  Do you think that Oscar Reyes knocked on all of those doors and interviewed people by himself?  That’s insane.  Why would they do it that way?

15. Honestly, the kid deserves way more credit than you give him. He led a huge community; he brought people together. He sought consensus. He researched. He did everything you did not. No one is going to follow you Mr. Pied Piper….it’s not happening. Shame on you for belittling Oscar’s leadership and work. It’s beneath you.

Honestly, neither you nor I have any personal knowledge of exactly how much credit he deserves, but he deserves a lot of it.  But I find it offensive — and typical of PR bullshit — to downplay the contributions of the broader community so as to celebrate a single figure. Lots of people “brought people together” and “sought consensus.”  From all accounts, he was certainly a rallying point and a good representative of the movement — so I’m not going to argue about what doesn’t really matter.

I note that you say that “He researched” and I “did not.”  This may encapsulate your willingness to bullshit better than anything else you’ve said.  I didn’t research?  I showed my work, you cretin; publishing my conclusions and their basis both in OJB and in letters to the judges.  That’s called “research,” you bullshitter.

16. Greg, I have spoken with no fewer than 15 people closely associated with this entire process. If you have eyes in the back of your head when you speak, you’d see others rolling their eyes at you, checking their smart phones wishing you’d shut up or your time would expire, and many seated behind you shaking their heads waiting for you to shut up.

I honestly don’t care about the opinions of people who would seek you out to listen to their confidential hatchet jobs.  Those people, like you (though less so), are part of the problem.  I don’t care whether their heads shake, their phones rattle, or their eyes roll.

Partly, I don’t care these 15 or more because, given your fanatical devotion to bullshit, there’s a good chance that most or all are fictional.  Partly, I don’t care because I’ve seen you (and read emails from you) threatening people who don’t give into your bullying as a “citizen-hatchetman-journalist” and they may be willing to tell you anything you want to escape.  And partly I don’t care because the legalities, technicalities, and political context of this process is pretty complicated — and if people get bored because they can’t understand the discussion that’s the price of sitting in a room where people are supposed to figure out how to construct the best map possible for the city.

17.  I’m sure you invested hundreds of hours in this effort and it must be frustrating to come up empty. Imagine if you spent that time recruiting new legal clients and doing billable work? Maybe you could take your family on a nice vacation.

I challenge anyone to watch the videos of the meetings where I testified, from the first one onward, and listen to other people as well.  The points that I was making to the judges early on were eventually the ones that magically matched where they ended up: particularly the call for compact and geographically identifiable districts, Euclid Ave. as a full border, and — most critically — the importance of having three districts with substantial Latino pluralities (one a majority), in part because even a strong Latino majority district could be beaten by tactics that have been common in Anaheim for quite a while.  As I wrote — you didn’t read it, most likely — after the Western High meeting where semi-finalists were chosen I felt that I’d won most of what I wanted.

But, again, the purpose of the Chuchua map — as I said publicly and in print WAY before this month — was not necessarily to be chosen, but to fundamentally keep the Council honest if it screwed around by maintaining a threat of litigation with a map that followed the rules scrupulously.  So that’s what we wanted.  We may yet have to use it.  (But not against Reyes Map 2 — the Recommended Plan — which is fine!)

18. But you do bully people; it’s probably why Chuchua says so little around you. Oh, he spoke once at one meeting. Bet you weren’t drinking water when he did.

I remember when Florice Hoffmann accused me publicly of “bullying” while leading a lynch mob against me at the DPOC as I stood there and — yes, loudly and without capitulation — demanded my procedural rights.  Your accusing me of bullying, while funny, is still not as funny as that was.

You should just not talk about Chuchua at all.  He spoke at more than one meeting.  He’s spoken — for years — on many important issues at City Council.  As for your going back once again to claim that I’m Brian’s ventriloquist — you are a low, low life form, or an effluent from one, and I’m going to enjoy reminding people of how much so.  News flash, already reported elsewhere: most of what CATER has done has originated with Brian.  Because, unlike you, he understands his city.

19. Mrs. Kring is one of five votes; I suspect you’re right that she’ll vote no on the map. The notion of you coming down like a ton of bricks makes me laugh, especially the ton part but it will be a pile of shit and not bricks; Council members will likely vote based on how well they think they’ll do in the next district.

Let’s work through this masterpiece backwards so that we’re all clear on why you should never write about Anaheim politics:

You really think that “Council members will likely vote based on how well they think they’ll do in the next district.”  Let’s work through the math.

(a) Tait and Murray live in Anaheim Hills, in District 6.  There is no substantive disagreement about how District 6 should look, because its potential shape is limited by a choke point at the Anaheim Canyon.  So it’s not true of them.  Two down.

(b) Tait and Murray are also term-limited.  So it’s not true of them.  Still two down, but for twice as many reasons.

(c) Brandman is running for Congress, not for Council.  Now, many of us believe that he will end up dropping out of the race and endorsing Correa once he’s raised a bunch of money (and his profile) by being a Congressional candidate.  But that won’t likely happen by the time that the Council votes.

(d) Brandman has also let many people know that he’s willing to move if necessary (such as if he doesn’t make the top 2) to find the best seat for him.  (Probably, by the way, a Republican leaning one in the west.)  Vanderbilt has also indicated that he may move to a more amenable district.  (Possibly 1, 2, or 6.)  So this doesn’t really apply to either of them.

(e) It does apply to Kring, who doesn’t like what the Recommended Plan does to District 4.  By an astonishing coincidence, this is what I said.

Next: many things make you laugh, I’m sure.  I’m glad this isn’t a squirrel getting fried on an electrical line or something.  “Cupcake,” I think you called me: if Kring were going to laugh me off, she’d already have done it.  She’s not laughing.  Incoherent, perhaps, but not from laughter.

But most importantly: Kring is not merely “one of five votes,” she is “one of three members on the governing coalition.”  She has every right, every opportunity, and every motivation to call in her chits from Brandman and Murray to save her from having to campaign to a substantial plurality of Mexicans.

Now here is how that is likely to go.  Murray will likely go along with her, because — even though Kring has nowhere else to go (she gave up the chance to caucus with Tait when she betrayed him to cozy up to Curt Pringle), she’s a better coalition partner if she’s not abandoned.  Anyway, Murray knows that Brandman probably won’t go for Kring’s plan because undercutting Latino power comes across as sort of — well, “racist.”  So he will tell Kring that he’s SO SORRY that he can’t support her on this, but it would just WRECK his campaign for Congress — and we can all agree that that’s what’s most important!

But that’s only “probably.”  If Kring somehow gets Brandman to go along — I’m not sure how that would even theoretically work — then it is almost unthinkable that they would be in the minority while Murray sided with the Mayor.  So, essentially the decision as to the new district lines — at least prior to litigation — lies with Jordan Brandman.  (O happy day!)

20.  I believe you sought Kring’s support for your map because it gave her a better chance.

While you believe many things that are dumb and strange, this is among the best of them.  Hey, boyo — we have never sought Kring’s support for the Chuchua map.  She came up with this on her own.

21. do you really think than any member of the council will approve anything with your name (or Chuchua’s) attached to it? If you do, then you are dumber than I thought.

If it’s a choice between one of the Chuchua maps and the Reyes 2 map, I certainly hope that they won’t!  I think that at this point, the Reyes 2 Map — or, rather, the Recommended Plan — is the only reasonable choice.  This is despite the fact I like a few of my maps better — because Reyes 2 is a perfectly good map and I respect the community’s choice.

22. I’m not shielding anyone on the council.

There we agree!  Of course you aren’t!  That won’t happen until and unless Jordan Brandman decides to support the map Kring prefers.  If he does, you’ll immediately snap into line like a 1950s girdle.

23. Frankly, I think I already ripped *you* a new orifice and I must be close to the truth or you wouldn’t explode like you are now.

If you were ever close to the truth, it could cause a massive “matter/anti-matter type” explosion.  But I don’t actually believe that you think anything.  I believe that you say things that you think are useful for you to say, based on your own interests and aspirations.  You know: PR.

24. So who am I supposed to get permission from Greg? I have no government contracts. I’m not appointed to any government body. I’m not elected to any city position.

You’d need to get permission from Jordan Brandman’s campaign manager, would be my guess.

25. I don’t tell anyone how to vote. All I am is a Democrat who supports my party and my party’s elected and candidates … which is more than I can say for you.

Does that mean that you’ll commit right now to supporting Bernie Sanders for President if he wins?  You’re a Democrat who tries to prevent the Democratic Party from being anything more than the Republican Party with a fondness for reproductive and LGB (but not necessarily “T”) rights.   And if the party electeds do the same, more’s the pity.