Wake Up and Vote in November
Staff editorial

Mission Viejo is being sued, and five council members are acting as if it’s someone else’s fault. During the May 8 Town Hall Meeting, residents asked specific questions about the lawsuit without getting answers. Questions to the council were often deflected to the assistant city attorney, who said he was unaware of precedents, regardless of the topic. Did this guy actually pass the bar exam?

Perhaps residents should have asked who made the decisions leading to the lawsuit. To get the whole story, they needed to ask what the city should have done to prevent the lawsuit. In both cases, the council majority – past and present – screwed up royally.

In 2004 the city’s Planning Commission was progressing toward a housing plan that should have met state affordable housing requirements without any new housing construction in this built-out city. The state requires the city to have a plan. Property must be designated that could be used for affordable housing if the property owner decided to build such housing.

Two deliberate acts of the council majority compromised the 2004 Planning Commission's completion of the required plan. First, the council majority of Trish Kelley, Lance MacLean and Bill Craycraft voted not to extend term limits of Planning Commissioners Norman Murray and Jack Anderson. Murray was a tremendous asset to the commission, and Anderson was working on the affordable housing plan. Both were prevented from serving beyond 2004.

By January 2005 the newest councilman, Frank Ury, had replaced Craycraft. The stunningly childish behavior of three council members – Trish Kelley, Lance MacLean and Frank Ury – set the wheels in motion to bring about the lawsuit. These three council members formed the majority to vote against reappointing Planning Commissioners Bo Klein and Dorothy Wedel. Klein, along with Anderson, was developing the affordable housing plan, and Wedel had consistently defended the city’s Master Plan against rezoning and overcrowding.

Kelley quietly spread the word in 2004 she was knocking Klein off the commission because he supported the reelection bid of Gail Reavis, Kelley’s archrival. Kelley may have struck a deal with Ury to get his vote against Klein. MacLean had been a staunch supporter of Steadfast and affordable apartments, and Klein (and Anderson, Murray and Wedel) had rejected Steadfast’s plans. Thus, progress toward the city’s affordable housing plan was scrapped soon after January 2005 when Kelley, MacLean and Ury dismantled the best Planning Commission in the city's history. Kelley’s vindictive behavior of voting against Klein and Wedel’s reappointments had an impact that was probably beyond her comprehension.

In the final battle, it was developer cash against the residents’ opposition to more housing. Two developers – UDR/Pacific and Steadfast – made “campaign donations” to council members. Kelley said from the dais before the vote, “I have never taken money from a developer.” A short time after the vote, Steadfast attended Kelley’s fundraiser, and others who attended said Steadfast was a major donor. Perhaps Ms. Kelley “forgot” she was having a fundraiser after the 5-0 council vote. Meanwhile, she babbles about character words, including integrity and honesty.

The council majority allowed the developers to put a token number of affordable units into their plans. The plaintiff in the lawsuit, The Pacific Law Center, singled out Steadfast’s one-bedroom units as discriminatory against low-income families.

For a wide range of reasons, the council should not have changed the city’s Master Plan and rezoned commercial parcels to residential. Residents spoke against overcrowding and presented a petition signed by nearly 3,000 people in opposition to any rezoning.

When council members refuse to represent the residents, fail to act responsibly and cause the city to be sued, they are unfit to serve. Council Members Kelley, MacLean and Ury have claimed criticism of their actions is personal attack. The lawsuit, misrepresentation of residents and failure to protect the city are not personal matters. Council members are destroying the nature of Mission Viejo – its foundation and quality of life. This reason alone is cause to vote them out at the first opportunity.