(Pictures Courtesy of Rick Moore)
Kudos to a group of concerned Mission Viejo citizens who had an idea and put it into action. To make it easier for regional residents to participate in an April 15th Tea Party rally they decided to hold theirs at the intersection of La Paz Road and Marguerite Parkway in the heart of Mission Viejo. This location is at the corner of our library and our city hall which is right behind it, within view of our gathering.
Having attended the noon to 3 p.m. Santa Ana rally by the courthouse I found the same level of enthusiasm and signage in both non-partisan crowds. One major difference is that Mission Viejo did not have close to ten OCSD deputies on horseback to disperse the crowd if it got out of hand.
Mission Viejo was a better testing ground of the different event locations in that thousands of motorists drove by our event blowing their horns and waving. Others put hand made signs or small flags out their car widows.
The organizers had everything under control. As the crowd began to grow, and to avoid blocking any specific street corner from pedestrians, they marched across to each of the corners across form the Arco station with lines of people up and down Marguerite Parkway.
You could not have ordered a better day for these events. The weather was perfect for the crowd that, at its peak, was around 400. By the end of the evening there were over 500 who stopped to show their support of this national message to our elected officials.
The MC for the Mission Viejo rally was Mark Dobrilovic, Chairman, Mission Viejo Investment Advisory Commission. Between guest speakers we were entertained by singer Tom Steiss who did a remarkable rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” at a podium in front of the Arco station. During the next few hours he sang a variety of Neil Diamond songs to the delight of the crowd, many of whom stood on the four corners for two hours or longer.
In Mark’s opening remarks he asked attendees to sign three petitions, one to be sent to DC, another to Sacramento and a third calling for the recall of councilman Lance MacLean. He then introduced Michael Ferrall, President of the Saddleback Republican Assembly, SRA who commended the attendees for their appearance and encouraged them to continue the fight. SRA is a chartered unit the statewide CRA.
Brian Anders representing Assemblyman Jeff Miller addressed the crowd as did Cathy Schlicht and John Paul Ledesma, the only two fiscal conservatives on our current city council.
At the Mission Viejo rally I spoke to several attendees including former Mayor Bill Craycraft, Steve Thornton, local Chief of Staff for Congressman Gary Miller, MV Planning Commissioner Richard Schweinberg, former SRA President Phil Steinhauer, Holtzman Commission Chairman Joe Holtzman, Larry Collins, VP Republican Club of Laguna Woods, Connie & Pam Grundke of Residents Voice and several others.
The expression “walk the talk,” or said another way “walk it like you talk it” comes to mind as I write about the Tea Party rally in Mission Viejo. Its an insult to read campaign literature from local candidates who think we are blind as they label themselves as “fiscal conservatives” and don’t even show up at a rally to protest a massive tax increase. Just something to think about. They are Lance MacLean, Trish Kelley and Frank Ury.
At both the Santa Ana and Mission Viejo rallies over 90% of the participants carried signs or American flags. I even saw a few flags which read: “Don’t tread on me.”
And now for a sampling of the hundreds of Mission Viejo signs:
Tax and spend has got to end;
extremism in the pursuit of financial liberty is no vice;
Just Say NO! To Socialism;
R.I.P. U.S.A. Crushed by taxes;
Vote NO on 1A;
TAX A FORNIA;
TAX AND SPEND HAS GOT TO END;
Traffic Mess Compliments of City Hall Recall MacLean;
Give me liberty, not debt;
CLEAN HOUSE IN 2010! FIRE CONGRESS;
STIMULUS-The Audacity of DOPES!!;
Democracy By the People NOT Socialism by the Gov’t
Return to the intent of our forefathers FIRE the “POLITICIANS” ELECT STATESMAN.”
As I recap my thoughts about today’s rallies one might ask what impact will these events have on our current or long term financial decision making. When Register reporter Martin Wisckol interviewed me in Santa Ana today I told him the impact would be stronger in California in regard to the Statewide Special Election that is one month away.
Attendees and readers alike need to tell every registered voter they know to participate in this election and simply vote NO on every one of the six Ballot measures. As this will be a Special Election without any candidates for elected office my guess is that the turnout will be between 20 to 30 percent of the registered voters. We need to get the word out before we get hit with another $16 billion in taxes.
This is not the time to sit on the sidelines assuming you can’t stop the runaway tax train. Yes we can!
Stellar event in Mission Viejo! Great comments from the microphone, and the enthusiasm from the crowd was awesome. Everything I love about America can be found in these hardworking people who took time to protest a government that has grown out of control.
Larrt, a great time was had by all! A very wide range of people turned out from Children, to the Elderly, a lot of Republicands, but not surprisingly a large number of Democrats were there as well! I think this will have some “legs”!
Larry:
Good job on covering the essence of this tax/political protest.
The Mission Viejo turn out was well above the number the Register reported; as attendees came and went during the three hours. Your correct the Mission Viejo crowd exceeded 400 at it peak actually it was more like 435 when I did a quick check.
Thanks again for covering the real news–not the puff stories we are now getting from the main stream media.
We were there and got to meet Larry, what a treat! Other than the waves we got with the single finger, and one muttering disgruntled woman, it was a wonderful event. Mark Dobrilovic kept things lively and we had fun singing along with YMCA — no motions due to holding flags and signs. There was a lot of networking going on, so Bigmarkod is right, this does have legs and we haven’t seen the last of the protests. From babies, to Grannies and every size, shape and age in between came out to say “Enough”. I love America and that pesky 1st Amendment!
a great job by all yesterday who supported this . did any one see the STUPID LIBERAL media cnn and especially msnbc . making fun of the people who where out there . saying that this was a fox news gathering . if this would have been a illegal ailen protest . they would have been drooling over what a great thing it was .
Great One, you are completely off base with the comparison to immigrant protests. I was at the 2006 day without immigrant protest in downtown LA, and comparing that to the Tea Party protests is like comparing the World Series to a Little League game.
For one thing, the immigration day boycott was so well observed that driving to work on that day was about the least amount of traffic I have ever seen in 13 years of commuting from OC. Then the march itself took up several city blocks and attracted about a million people (seriously).
The whole event had the same festive, friendly atmosphere that you get when you go to a major sold-out sporting event and the home team wins.
If our system is so screwed up that we cannot assimilate new people, then it is the fault of the system and not the people who are coming here for the same reason we all came here, to have a better life.
ron one thing you left out . you said that we cannot assimilate new people .. what if the people who come here dont want to assimilate . we always hear they come here for a better life . well in that case the whole world wants to come here because this is the best country in the world . WE CANT HANDLE EVERYONE THAT WANTS TO COME HERE . day without a immigrant was great , no traffic and the hospital waiting rooms where clear .
The great one.
I think you might be mistaken. This is Larry Gilbert’s post, not someone named ron.
What does a tax protest have to do with housing?
PS: I spent the morning in Santa Ana at a ULI Mayors Forum that included a discussion of housing. That Juice post will go up later today.
Larry
My wife and I attended the tea party, and we were impressed by a number of things. First, there were PLENTY of folks there, maybe the 450 or so that some have estimated, maybe a few less than that, but PLENTY of people. Second, the mood was a happy, constructive one. We had great conversations with dozens of people. The signs were diverse, and mainly right on target (TAXES!) Third, the hundreds upon hundreds of cars that passed through the intersection were overwhelmingly supportive. Lots of thumbs up and lots of honking, even a few signs stuck out of windows as cars passed by. All in all, this was a great event, a typical small town America event, festive and happy, but with a definite agenda: let’s deep-six the socialism and get back to an America that operates on constitutional (federalist) policies!
larry i think their is a mix up on here . my post was for ron st john i anwsered back to his post . thanks .
I was only able to get to the rally for the last 45 minutes or so, but it was fun. I had my son go earlier and get a bunch of photos. Between the two of us we got some good shots which I posted here: http://holycoast.blogspot.com/2009/04/mission-viejo-tax-day-tea-party.html
Rick. Thanks for posting the photos. I have over a dozen of my own to upload and will be shairing yours as well as mine with the organizers tonight.
#9 Mike
As mentioned we were gathering signatures. As I was chastized for not having an official count when posting the Jon & Ken rally in Fullerton, I asked several people about the turn-out numbers. Something to pass on is that one of the petition gatherers notified us that he has counted over 500 signatures on petitions from yesterday’s Mission Viejo rally.
My fellow reporter Martin Wisckol, of the Register, was with me in Santa Ana as we both covered that event. He was not in Mission Viejo yet relied on someone else who gave him our participant numbers which sadly were mis-reported by the Register.
#6 St John is right when he said “The whole event had the same festive, friendly atmosphere that you get when you go to a major sold-out sporting event and the home team wins.”
Unfortunatly this is LA, they Celebrated, and rioted, looted and cost the taxpayers millions!