As the recall of Lance MacLean election heats up it will be interesting to see who the Mission Viejo city council will select to replace Frank Ury on Monday evening.
Although the Agenda for the December 7th Council meeting has yet to be posted, one item that will appear is the rotation of council members to fill the seats of mayor and vice mayor for 2010.
As 2010 will be the final year of the term of senior council member John Paul Ledesma, and whereas he has not sat in the center seat since 2003, it is surely appropriate for his peers to approve his selection as mayor.
It is also worth pointing out that Trish Kelley served as mayor in 2005 and again in 2008. A standard procedure is to have a council rotation where they select the mayor and vice mayor, (or mayor pro-tem) each year. Although John Paul was vice mayor in 2007 he was passed over for mayor in 2008 with the controlling majority voting for Trish Kelley to take that post.
However, this may not be a slam dunk vote. While there is a “hit piece” circulating within the city of Mission Viejo with allegations of a new group taking over control of our city council let’s see how the current council majority, who have shown their controlling powers, vote on this honorary selection.
Many Mission Viejo residents, including those not politically engaged, have told me they believe that the recall of Lance MacLean is a done deal.
Will Lance’s allies on the city council, namely Frank Ury and Trish Kelley, Nominate and Second the Motion for Lance to be mayor in 2010 as a going away gift?
They surely have seen his rebuttal to the recall that will appear in the “special election” ballot. While everyone has read or heard that Mission Viejo has just been recognized as the “safest city in CA” Lance still refuses to acknowledge or challenge the charges against him for violence and intimidation.
Should they support Lance by nominating him as a going away gesture one can only come to the conclusion that they are willing to place their personal relationship with Lance above the policy established by every prior council who have always placed “public safety as our top priority.”
Stay tuned. We will all know the “rest of the story” by Monday evening.
With MacLean going down in flames, I would suggest that the majority should choose someone at random from the audience to be mayor.
Larry,
I am confused, please enlighten me. JP cannot be mayor because he will be term out. Is that correct. Lance is supposed to be mayor because he is mayor pro-tem. So are they relselecting a mayor because of the recall or would this be the norm anyways. Is this for the following year of 2011 since Lance is supposed to be the next mayor anyways? Sorry I am just trying to figure all this political stuff out. The recall thing makes it confussing. Can someone not on counsil run for mayor or is that just the way it works. Your on counsil and they decide the mayor.Thanks. Have a good day.
Update: Last night the city council majority selected Lance MacLean to be our mayor for 2010.
This morning I added the following comment on our city website.
It is worth pointing out that this is the first time I have responded to any of their stories.
“Wonderful. The council majority of the “safest city in California” selects Lance MacLean to be mayor for 2010 with full knowledge that he was in an altercation with a fellow director at UCI which required four police to get him to the ground to handcuff him.
Instead of a council censure for tarnishing our city he is rewarded.
Larry, this [altercarnation] with that UCI person is your Waterloo.Hopefully he will be selected.He has not tarnished our city at all, there are more skeletons in the closet believe me .do you think this City is sqeeky clean? Keep it safe , thats what we care about not what Lance supposed to have done over two years ago.Move on……….
Colin. You bet there are skeletons in the closet and eventually we will flush them out.
Why do you think the OCSD union and the apartment association is strongly opposing the recall?
You do need to show up at La Paz & Marguerite. We had 8 huge recall banners there on Sat and again before tonights council meeting. You couldn’t miss me holding my recall MacLean sign in front of a huge banner by the library.
Freedom of speech is a wonderful right.
With four weeks left until the Feb 2nd election there will be teams at that major intersection on a regular basis who will gladly tell you why we are giving up our family time to support Lance’s removal. Although I do not know the schedule, teams will cover every major intersection in our city. As such simply give me a rough idea of where you live and I shall ask that your neighborhood be included.
Larry, you would go around in circles trying to find it and probably end up in mass outside a taco Bell.