Katrina says it’s important for each of us to contact ALL the Orange County legislators and ask them to unite in opposition to the needless and underhanded sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds – assembly leadership has told us that the sale can be easily reversed if the OC delegation leads on the issue.
Riggy on the other hand, at his “Save the Fair” site, says that it’s useless to fight, the sale is a done deal, the legislature doesn’t care about our fairgrounds, and don’t bother calling any legislators if you’re not from their district, and by the way, help Riggy “Save the Fair” his own way.
Which one do you trust? Right. Make these calls each morning, and click on their name to send the message via e-mail as well: Orange County citizens do not want their Fairgrounds sold to anybody, and we want AB 22 reversed!
Orange County Assemblymen
Curt Hagman, (909) 627-7021
Jim Silva, (714) 843-4966 [voted No on sale – thank him and ask him to continue to stand with us!]
Van Tran, (714) 668-2100 [promised some “Save the Fair” law, pretend you support him for Congress]
JOSE SOLORIO, (714) 939-8469 [the main man – we need our one Assembly Dem to lead!]
Chuck DeVore, (949) 863-7070 [pretend you support his Senate campaign]
Jeff Miller, (949) 598-7171
Diane Harkey, (949) 347-7301
Orange County State Senators
Mimi Walters, (949) 457-7333
Lou Correa, (714) 558-4400
Tom Harman, (714) 957-4555
Mark Wyland, (949) 489-9838
And if any OJ readers can think of ANY reason we Orange County citizens shouldn’t fight the sale of our Fairgrounds, I’d like to hear it in the comments.
UPDATE: This may be most effective of all: Send an e-mail to Jose Solorio’s very helpful legislative assistant John Nam at john.nam@asm.ca.gov (hat-tip The Pot Stirrer/Bubbling Cauldron)
I don’t think you will get many comments because… the best solution is to stop the sale. By the way, I don’t think many people trust Righeimer. Not because he’s a Republican, but because he isn’t very honest with the very things your article cites.
And where did you see Righeimer say this? Or are you just making this up? I’ve been to every Fair event – haven’t seen you there – but I’ve spoken to Riggy and he is not for the sale, he just wants to pass the ballot initiative to be prepared in case it doesn’t get stopped. Get the facts right and don’t attack people’s character without any basis.
SO glad you asked, CM Realist. Since your similar criticism of me last week (I take criticism seriously) I have signed up on Jim’s “Save the Fair” page and been corresponding with the man himself. Makes it harder to dehumanize and lampoon someone. But the second paragraph here is all reasonable paraphrases of some of his recent comments on Facebook. I’ll resist getting into too much detail in this comment because I’m working on a post just on Riggy, but I am happy to report he is no longer censoring anti-sale comments from his page as he did for a few days last week.
Let me add that when you repeatedly, month after month, tell people that there is no use fighting the sale, that we need to accept it as a done deal, when that’s not actually the case, I consider that being objectively PRO-SALE.
Hey wait a sec – I’ve been to every Fair event – haven’t seen you there what kind of nonsense is that, anonymous person? I was there Monday and Thursday, but how would I know if you were, I don’t know what a CM Realist looks like. On the other hand I got a name and face you can look up.
Let me add that I agree it’s an imperative to lock in the zoning as strongly as possible, or even better a “specific plan” as they’re talking about now, but that is only just a backup in case we ultimately fail in stopping the sale. Stopping the sale is the number one priority and it can still be done.
Vern, CM Realist probably didn’t recognize you because you had “the curl” hidden beneath the hat!
Don’t you just love the shots taken at you by anonymous cowards who hide behind a tree and shout at you? Keep up the good work.
Thanks Geoff, that was a great article you did yesterday in the Daily Pilot:
http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2009/11/15/opinion/dpt-soundingoff111509.txt
And a good tip the other day about e-mailing Solorio’s very helpful legislative assistant John Nam – which I did today and will now add to my story as an update. One thing though – you gotta get that period between John and Nam – that’s missing on your post.
john.nam@asm.ca.gov
You see, Geoff West and me, a conservative Republican and a progressive Democrat, are on the same page on this issue. It seems to me that the only reason anyone would support this sale is if they were personally benefitting from it.
We need a translation machine here, because some people are confused by the folks who bleat “Save the Fair”. That translates into “Sell the Fair to Us or Else” and it’s the meme of Dave Ellis, Dale Dykema, and the other fair directors. They conspired so they could turn the Fairgrounds back to what is was before – a patronage operation where Debbie Carona could get the best tickets to a sold-out concert for 300 of her best friends.
Even if you do not live in Orange County we can still call our local representatives. I told my assemblywoman in Pomona that my uncle lives in Costa Mesa and I go to that fair regularly and I would like to keep it as it is with a NO vote on ABX4 22.
Also Bob Huff also represents portions of Orange County add his name to the list too!
BREA, YORBA LINDA (909) 598-3981 That is his local district number.
Thank you CaliMatt – I went back & forth on Huff whose district is mostly Riverside and Mendoza who’s mostly LA but also has Buena Park – i guess I didn’t want to make the list intimidatingly long. Like much of Riggy’s advice, his instruction not to bother contacting legislators out of our district just seems calculated to immobilize us.
Vern, I actually read this post from my phone and thought it was written by someone else. I actually don’t know what you look like so I apologize for that.
I do, however, stand by the points I brought up re: you baselessly accusing Jim, and hope you thoroughly read his response on Save the Fair. I just read it and believe you owe him an apology for your attacks.
Where did he ever say “that it’s useless to fight, the sale is a done deal”?
Also, regarding the ‘Specific Plan’ – while I agree that we need one, it is not nearly as strong as a citizen-passed ballot initiative that locks in the Equestrian Center, Centennial Farms, etc. A Specific Plan can easily be turned back by a future city council, whereas the initiative would take a vote of the people to overturn.
Also, calling Geoff West a conservative Republican is pretty funny. And Geoff, I do prefer to stay anonymous BECAUSE of the baseless attacks like the ones above. I AM a Costa Mesa citizen, I AM up to speed on the issues of the day, and I DO stay involved in my community. Regardless of if I put my real name or not, my voice should still be heard.
Vern, I’m Looking forward to your apology to Riggy and a continued civil discussion, which seems to be the new catchphrase. Hopefully it catches on and you stop your baseless attacks.
Keeping it real…
CM Realist
Okay buddy I’ll be back later tonight or tomorrow with a collection of Riggy quotes (by the way he specifically gave me permission to call him Riggy) that will plainly boil down to that summary “it’s useless to fight, the sale is a done deal.” And you got a bit of a strawman thing going, others have called him a crook but I haven’t gone that far.
If you wanna see what I look like tomorrow night, I’m the guy in the red robe and hood singing “Tainted Sale.”
Well, CM Realist, the council meeting went really well last night. (Were you there?) If you insist, I can waste an hour or two compiling Riggy statements and writings that counsel acquiescence in the sale and defeatism, but I’m more interested in looking forward. And here I’d like to reprint part of a “civil discussion” the Rigster and I have been conducting on his “Save the Fair” Facebook page. I feel that a public, on-the-record discussion like this makes it much harder for him to – at least publicly – sabotage the opposition to the sale (and who knows, maybe hundreds of us were wrong about him all along.)
VERN: Riggy, may I begin by asking you this. You realize there’s a widespread impression that you’re allied with the Board’s attempt to sell the Fair to themselves, and that your Save the Fair movement is an effort to divert opposition away from the sale and to locking in the zoning which is a good thing in itself but has t…he added affect of making it easier for the Board to afford the purchase. But in recent comments you’ve said both “We are not in favor of the Fair Board member’s non-profit buying the fairgrounds,” and “The Fair Board’s nonprofit will not, for many reasons, be able to buy the property.”
Could you expand on that? WHY do you not support the Foundation’s purchase, and why do you think it will be impossible?
RIGGY: Vern, I appreciate the civil discussion. First I would like to say that there are a lot of factors going on with the state’s sale of our Fairgrounds and for anyone to say someone is evil because they disagree is wrong (not speaking of you, but others who have attacked people’s character who are involved in this issue). It seems that if you want to do good for the community, the people that disagree with you think you must have an angle. And to reiterate, I truly appreciate the civil discussion you have begun here.
I myself am raising a young family in this community and it matters very much to me what happens to our Fairgrounds.
My first choice would be for the State to do an agency-to-agency transfer to the City of Costa Mesa. That is a choice we have not been given…. Read More
Your plan to just say no may work. But what if it doesn’t? And for how long? The budget in the State is not getting any better.
That is why my second (and most realistic) choice is for the city of Costa Mesa and/or the County of Orange to buy the property and lease it to a transparent Foundation that will take the place of the Fair Board. The foundation would need a charter that would protect all the constituencies that are now at the fairgrounds (Equestrian center, Centennial Farm, the County Fair etc.)
Writing this Charter would be time consuming and take a lot of work. The city would have the power to pull the lease or put pressure on the board if they did not, in the future, follow the charter.
To make it perfectly clear up front; I do not want to be on any Foundations or Boards that lease the land from the city. It may not be a legal conflict, but as Chairman of the CM Planning Commission I am already wearing one hat. It was as a citizen that it became clear to me to lock in the zoning with a vote of the people. That vote has not happened yet and I will believe it when I see it.
Lastly, though I am not opposed to your position, I have a great concern that if we do not have a team on the field to buy the fair on January 8th, it will be sold to someone that does not have the best interests for our community as we do. It seems disingenuous for me to say ‘kill the sale’ while supporting the city in purchasing the property.
So continue with you cause. I am not your adversary. We both have the same end goal, to save the fair.
Sincere thanks for your time and energy,
Jim (Riggy) Righeimer
VERN: Well, it seems that your rhetoric and message evolves over the weeks and months – and there’s nothing wrong with that! Situations are always in flux, and maybe some of us sale opponents are persuasive. Maybe it WOULD be “disingenuous” of you to oppose the sale while helping develop a city plan (and we hope you keep us abreast of that project.) It’s not disingenuous for US, however, to work on two tracks – stopping the sale and locking in the zoning just in case.
And I’m glad you say you’re not our adversary. You’ve made remarks in the past suggesting that the sale is a done deal and it’s a waste of time to try to stop it, and when you run a site called “Save the Fair” with 1800 well-meaning, modestly informed members, comments like that go a long way toward ENSURING that the sale proceeds.
Very busy day, I have quite a presentation planned for the meeting tonight; but tomorrow I’ll start a new thread, asking your opinion on the role of the Board/Foundation in this whole debacle…. Read More
Cheers! Save the Fair and Derail the Sale!
RIGGY: “It’s not disingenuous for US, however, to work on two tracks – stopping the sale and locking in the zoning just in case.”
Absolutely Vern, couldn’t agree more – but we have to be prepared in case it still goes through so we aren’t playing ‘catch up’.
Also, I never said the sale was a done deal, I simply said that as of TODAY it is scheduled to be sold by January 8th and we need to be prepared.
-Jim