In one of my July 21st posts I mentioned Mission Viejo councilman Frank Ury promoting a change from General Law to a Charter form of city government. At that time I did not include any reference to Lance MacLean but will add his involvement below. Although I had planned to sit on the full story until after all candidates file their papers with the City Clerk, I am going to share this proposal today.
My first discussion of Charter cities dates back to a Jan 1998 property rights activists trip to Sacramento to support Assemblyman Tom McClintock on AB 923. One member of our group was from the city of Inglewood which has a Charter form of government. She mentioned their city council paying themselves $100,000 salaries. Brad Morton, Editor of the Mission Viejo Dispatch, was in our group and remembers that discussion.
At some point after that SAC. hearing I spoke to our first Mayor Norm Murray who told me we should never consider changing to a Charter form of government
Fast forward to the Sept. 21st 2009 meeting of the MV city council where you will find Agenda item #25 from Frank Ury relating to the state securitization of our redevelopment bank account. Here is how you can fall into the Pandora’s box trap.
After a few minutes in which Frank relates his discussion, of state borrowing of city redevelopment funds and mandated affordable housing, with other elected officials.
Frank then opens the item for council discussion.
Trish Kelley begins “when I spoke to Mr. Curley in the past he said there would have to be a legislative change. If there’s way to do this I think we need to go Gung Ho and get it done.”
City attorney Curley responded to Frank’s suggestion of a legislative change.
“If you don’t strike when the iron’s hot you’re forever lost. So.You’re on a role just keep rolling.”
When its his turn to speak Lance MacLean says:
“I’ve got a question. The way we are constituted as a city..currently we are a General Law City. Are Charter cities immune from state raids?”
City attorney Curly responds stating “some parts you are immune, some the legislature puts in and says this expressly applies to Charter cities and some are of course tweeners. You spend a lot of time arguing over, but council, and you have touched on what is a very current effort by, I would call it, the more savvy, wrong word, some more cutting edge activity. Buena Park recently went Charter. It lets you control a lot of your finances to some degree. How you do your bidding, how you allocate your project out, bid splitting. There are a lot of local benefits that come from home rule where you are finally, to a large extent, a peer with the state rather than right now where you are a General Law City which means you are subject entirely to whatever the state dictates. You have no autonomy”.
Lance. “Would it be too much to ask colleagues to ask what it would take, the pro’s and con’s, what it would take, and the cost of going from General Law to Charter?”
Bill Curley. “We’ve got a lot of that real fresh from our friends in Buena Park. We represent Buena Park so I am very familiar with all their product. So we can move that pretty quickly.
Frank. “I think we have the heads nodding.”
“How will that help us with Charter Vs General Law?”
Bill. “To a large extent it would help, not entirely, but much of what we’re talking about, where they’re playing games with our redevelopment funds and the securitization, by crossing over in some degree into the redevelopment agency world.
I love the next line from Frank that he has used before. Colleagues. “Having talked to enough people in the community about this they understand.” Mr. Ury. Which residents? How many? Are we to simply accept whatever you tell us?
He later states “this is what we are elected to do. This is what we are hired to do by the people of Mission Viejo.”
I am not surprised that the Minutes of that Agenda Item do not mention Lance’s recommendation to explore a Charter city nor the encouragement by our hired city attorney based on his firms achievement in Buena Park.
How many of us where present when the prior Bell city council had their discussions in changing to a Charter City? We have no idea of what major concern was expressed which led to their change which is all over the media. If you check the demographics between our two cities we might see upscale Mission Viejo headed the same way unless we can cut them off at the pass on Nov. 2nd.
Here is where we open Pandora’s box. While we commence discussion with good intentions, that at the end of the day may not be enforceable against future Sacramento securitization activities, we use that “solution” to open the door for other abuses. Case in point is the ability for members of the council to vote $100,000 salaries for themselves. As it is Trish Kelley charges taxpayers every time there is an event in our city that she attends be it a spelling bee or our Christmas Party. She has already told us that she is in the office frequently which would indicate a desire for an increase in compensation.
Another issue that I read in material from the city of Buena Park is the power that “eliminates requirement to award contracts to the lowest bidder.” I will not engage in any trash talking on this post but I will address another concern on bidding. The city attorney touched on the latitude of our bidding process in his comments.
Perhaps someone will investigate how we can award over 30 no-bid contracts to RJM design in the past four and a third years totaling over $1,100,000. In time I may be submitting that no bid contract activity to the Orange County Grand Jury.
What is the expression used by carpenters? Measure twice and cut once?
you’re joking right? What did you transcribe word for word from a video online? And you didn’t omit any context? And you somehow know they intended to do exactly what the council in bell did? That is what you’re implying here and it is just not credible.
Charter cities in and of themselves are not bad. They are not all set up the way Bell was. There are definite pluses and minuses as with anything else. It would all depend on how the charter was written. And as we saw just recently the voters in Mission Viejo vote down sloppy law by more than 2 to 1.
This entire series begs a huge question. What did Ury do to you? I know Morton sat down with him the morning after he was first elected and said “Frank there are times when you are just going to have to break the law.” But what did Ury do to you?
LBM,
It’s Friday night. Go chill.
LBM. Do you recall your multiple comments on my July 21st post on Frank Ury and Charter. You posted them between 7-24 & 7-25? Here’s a sample:
2010/07/24 at 9:23 am
“Mr Willis, Newbie, you and I have all made the same point that all of the charges against Mr. Ury in this post are conjecture.”
You later added a comment stating that I am “obligated to provide facts, dates and times ” confirming what I wrote.
Another of your comments found on that July 21st post was an attempt to discredit my coverage by attacking my posting on this blog stating that I engage in “minimum journalistic standards” charging me for failing to provide “dates and evidence.”
Your argument is that my opening sentence in the July 21st post read: “A few council meetings ago MV councilman Frank Ury suggested changing from a General Law to a Charter form of city govenment.”
Because you could not find, or perhaps never researched our council meeting tapes, you simply continue your personal attack against me. Yet you now question what Ury did to me?
As stated previously. I am not obligated to respond to every comment on my stories. I have no problem responding to Geoff Willis or Newbie when they challenge my reports as confirmed if you do your research. This is my last response to you. You requested “facts and dates” yet, after I spend hours making sure that my council meeting transcript is accurate, you complain that I transcribed “word for word” from the video.
I have no intention of continuing as your media pinata
LBM–Be vary careful on your comment about Morton–you just might end up in court over that line of nonsense!!!!
YOU can also go up to the cities web site and find the same detailed information Larry Gilbert has provided. Once again you have confirmed you just do not do your homework–but then again it only takes five minutes to be a critical–but a lifetime to be a creator. LBM you just might take some lessons from Gilbert on how to effectively and honestly research a subject. You are failing miserable NOW.
Onto the subject; plainly Ury and MacLean from the exposure at The League of Cities knew of the mechanisms that Charter Cities use. Ury has proven to be duplicitous many times,–ref Edison Viejo System Project, trying to take out MacLean in an election–then quickly becoming a buddy of MacLean for political/self interests.
So to repeat J.P. Ladesma–from the Dias at a council meeting, ” I just don’t trust Frank Ury.” I totally agree with that statement–and LBM you can also find JP’s comment on the archived MV city council meetings.
When I read this last night (the post provided a lot more detail than previously), it was disturbing. This would be the most agregious act of any MV council since the implementation of the redevelopment district! The one that with the help of our attorney says that MISSION VIEJO IS BLIGHTED!
While LBM may be technically right that “CHARTERS IN AND OF THEMSELVES ARE NOT BAD” reminds me that a loaded pistol is not a bad thing, until you put it in the hands of a crackpot with nefarious intentions.
Frank has done the right thing at times, mostly because of citizens that were organized and aware of what was going on. Case in point, the Casta golf course. It was the huge backlash from Casta and the citizens that got him to change his story. He was ready to go with the developer plan. His first act upon becoming a councilman was to agendize making the Stoneridge land (along Olympiad) into a city owned and run park.
Yeah, sounds like a good idea on its face, until you know that this would be a huge gift of public funds to build a park on private property! There are other HOA’s in the city who have tried to give the city their land so that the city could improve and maintain it. He epitomizes ‘special interest’. Having been on this council for 8 years, I know that things often are not what they look like on the surface. They take their masks off in closed session.
Look deeper into the Aegean Hills HOA that fought for their park to be rehabbed. For years we heard from the past council that they wanted to have the city over 100,000 so that they could pay themselves more. Well, Frank figured that out without becoming a charter. Read some of the Bell articles, and you will learn that a city of 100,000 should pay its PART TIME COUNCIL $600.00 per month. They voted themselves a 100% increase, and “justified” it to the electorate. Since when is it OK to pay yourself an increase that is retroactive to 20 years before you were even on the council?
I think that anyone running this year should pledge to reduce council salaries to their original amount and go to the voters for any increases. Also, anyone running for office needs to let the voters know that they will not waste money even looking into becoming a charter city until there is a clear message being sent by the voters that they want such a thing. Please, all candidates, WILL YOU PLEDGE NOT TO MAKE US A CHARTER CITY?
Madam Mayor.
As you were there we thank you for your first hand report.
Juice readers. Not that it was not spelled out but Frank Ury lives in the Stoneridge gated community that was referenced by the mayor. I was present at the council meeting when he made that self serving proposal to his peers.
*Charter Cities are like Chipped Beef on Toast. Some say it is called SOS….which applies,
a lot. Creamed Tuna….in fine white sauce is good once every ten times. It is all in the Chef
preparation. The City of Newport Beach has been a Charter City for some time now. It is
a jolly good excuse NOT to change much…because you can rhetorically state: “Oh my, we can’t do that without changing the entire Charter!” Sounds like an ominous operation that will or could require God’s will to make it happen. We changed the Charter back in the 90’s when then Councilman John Hedges ran on a plank with included changing the Charter so that we could have Term Limits. That passed overwhelmingly and put Hedges into the City Council seat without a problem. Fast forward to this year: Suddenly, we have 11 different Changes up for a vote to Change the Charter, including designating 22 acres of former Chevron Oil Property …to be reduced to 4…..and making the other 18 acres Dual Use Commercial and Residential Zoning. The Park people are all up in arms that want that Banning Ranch property to be kept as Natural Raparian Growth.
In any event, Charter Cities usually favor the power structure of the City. Those with the most
money and power will still prevail or those that have the leverage of using Federal and State
Grant money to rip the system for their favorite “Growth Projects”.
Brother Larry, our thought is: “The Devil is in the Details….whichever system you choose!”
Ron & Anna.
We had a clue on the desire to go Charter a year or two ago when our city council , the first in 20 years, raised their monthly compensation. According to state law covering General Law cities we were told that the percentage of increase is capped at 5% per anum and is tied to population.
While Trish Kelley never discussed her council stipend as we spent many hours in her home discussing strategy and tactics of her campaign, money was never discussed.
OK. So after 20 years without any increases we multiply by 5% to reach 100% which enabled them to double their $500 monthly stipend. One problem. Trish, Lance and Frank Ury were not elected in 1988 to achieve 20 years of service. Trish and Lance were only elected in 2002 and Ury in 2004. That was my first clue that they wanted even more but were bound by law to the cap. This will be a story in itself as time permits.
Madame Mayor,
I think your challenge to candidates regarding reducing council pay is a good one. I will take a step further and suggest the candidates pledge to reduce it to $0. I believe if they want to serve the public in this part-time capacity they should do so without any pay whatsoever.
Good afternoon Dwight.
If I am not mistaken members of the Villa Park city council are honored to serve and are only paid $1 per year. I was told this some time ago but have not verified it.
A future post will address how the Mission Viejo city council gamed the system to double their monthly compensation. The strongest advocates were Trish and Frank.
Too many files. Back on Sept 24, 2009 I published the following blog post:
Should Mission Viejo switch from a General Law to a Charter form of city government?
I listed 8 of 21 differences between the two types of city governments.
That post was triggered by the same Sept 21st MV city council meeting.