Dave Leckness was a perfect partner for MacLean & Company during the campaign. Leckness stood on corners picketing with MacLean, was allied with MacLean opposing the recall, and never spoke a bad word about Lance. He let Lance’s supporters use him as a back-up if Lance was recalled, and never complained.
Today Lance repaid Dave by characterizing him as a “lesser evil” and telling the OC Weekly: “”[Leckness] thinks himself to be quite the jokester. He’s flippant, he’s comical. That’s going to wear real thin after a few meetings in which you’re talking about affordable housing, staff raises, pensions.”
The Dispatch reported earlier Monday that MacLean threatened to sue the Registrar of Voters over the recall process. Lance stepped the threat up later in the day with the OC Weekly, saying he might also have to sue the City of Mission Viejo and the OC District Attorney: “It looks like I may have to sue all three of em,” he told the Weekly. ”It’s wrong, just wrong. Someone’s gonna pay for this [recall]. I want my reputation back and I want my money back. I didn’t buy into this when I was elected to do public service.”
It turns out Lance MacLean’s request for a recount was accompanied by a legal threat to the OC Registrar of Voters. MacLean’s letter was faxed this afternoon and states:
My consultant Mr. Scott Taylor will be contacting you shortly to initiate the review of the ballots. Further, I have retained the services of an election attorney for advice on my recourse with the Registrar of Voters office regarding the use of illegally gathered signatures that were accepted and used by your office to qualify this recall election. . . . Please be on notice that I intend to avail myself to all legal remedies including civil suits in the event your office certifies the election and it is later determined that recall proponents unlawfully perjured themselves and submitted signatures collected illegally to qualify what would then constitute a fraudulent election.
Lance MacLean today informed the Registrar of Voters (ROV), Neal Kelley, that he intends to formally request a recount before today’s 5 p.m. deadline. Kelley told the Dispatch a recall would begin this week.
MacLean hasn’t informed the ROV what votes he wants recounted. He can specify categories of votes or certain precincts. A recount of just absentee ballots would cost MacLean about $3,600 and is expected to take three days. Time and cost would increase to also recount ballots cast at polling stations.
The ROV and City Clerk have expressed confidence in the accuracy of the original count, which showed MacLean recalled by 19 votes out of 14,789 cast.
Which Superbowl commercials were most popular in Mission Viejo? The ads in the poll below are listed in random order and were early national favorites. The ads can be viewed in the right sidebar.
A Mission Viejo Company, Municipal Sportspark Management, is proposing to operate softball and baseball fields at Costa Mesa’s TeWinkle Park. MSM would run a training center, operate a restaurant, and offer some scholarship opportunities to kids unable to afford sports lessons.
Sportspark Management wants a 20 or 25-year lease from the city. It would then invest between $2 million and $3 million to make improvements, including construction of a 14,000-square-foot training facility for skills development, adding a second story for dining, enlarging the parking lot, and changing bleachers to stadium-style seating. Sportspark Management would maintain the fields and give the city 10% of its revenues, which would amount to about $350,000 a year.
“It’s revenue to the city,” said Tom Hatch, Costa Mesa assistant city manager. “This will reduce the operating costs as well as provide revenues, but is the revenue for sure? There’s still a lot of work that needs to go into it confirming the accuracy of this information.”
The city spends $220,000 to maintain the four sports fields at the park each year, Hatch said. Staff will prepare the issue for consideration by the City Council.
I do not believe we wasted taxpayers money on this recall. The cost of the recall is equal to just one year of the lifetime health benefits Lance voted for him and his co-workers after only 12 years of part-time service. I think the cost of keeping silent and doing nothing is much greater.
The message here is very clear: those who are informed and paying attention are not going to put up with this kind of blatant abuse of power and complete disregard for the needs of our community.
When my 12-year-old wanted to know who Lance was and why he was being recalled, I explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that here was a man who was voted BY the people to provide a service FOR the people. I then went on to explain what he did that made us want to vote him out. I only had to get as far as the health benefit situation discussed above. My very bright 12-year-old then said “But mom, dad’s been working FULL-TIME for almost 30 years and he has to pay a lot for our health insurance!” Point made!
When we ran across McLean supporters touting their “keep Lance” signs at the corner of Alicia and Marguerite, my son was the loudest one yelling out my car window: “RECALL, RECALL, RECALL!!!”
47,203 Mission Viejo [non]voters are living out their lives unaware of what is going on at City Hall. These are the people who MacLean, Ury, Kelley and the city manager desperately count on.
7,351 Mission Viejo voters watched the TV advertisements on Fox & CNN and believed all the lies and misinformation that was being fed to them, without questioning. These are the people that our corporate & special interest lobbyists count on.
Meanwhile, Lance MacLean actually managed to impact 7,370 people to the point that they were upset enough to say, “no more.” That’s 7,370 Mission Viejo voters that Lance MacLean or the police union, well . . . never counted on.
A 39-year-old Mission Viejo driver was involved in an accident in Long Beach Thursday night which caused a pedestrian fatality. His 2000 Ford Ranger rear-ended a Honda Civic which had a few seconds earlier struck a 47-year old woman crossing 7th Street near Cal State Long Beach. The second impact caused a second strike on the victim.
Police did not charge either driver because the pedestrian was crossing outside of the crosswalk, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram.
Potholes in our streets can cause damage when neglected by cities, i.e. tire blowouts, sidewall damage, punctures, front wheel alignment, cracked rims, and could cause a wreck. It is imperative that cities fullfill their responsibility by repairing immediately. We can assist our city by notifying it of any pothole location as soon as possible so it can be repaired. Report online or call the pothole hotline at 470-8405.
In addition to “lies, exaggerations, mischaracterizations and cheating,” Lance MacLean has added a new reason for his defeat in the recall election.
The San Francisco Chronicle, in an AP report, wrote: “MacLean says the recall effort “stole” the election because it was a special election with a low turnout.”
With the Police Union so closeby trying to buy the election for Lance, couldn’t they prevent the crime? Will Lance add stay-at-home voters to his list of people who should be put behind bars? Will he accept any responsibility?
