Time for City Council business

While City Council members might need to meet more often in public to accomplish an ambitious agenda of municipal business, the community certainly will benefit from their decision to meet less often in private.

First, let’s look at the need for more meeting time, especially since sessions, starting at 5:30 p.m. for closed-door deliberations, sometimes stretch past the midnight hour, with about half of scheduled matters covered.

Lengthier meetings are due to the three most recently seated members—John Anderson, Jan Horton and Hank Wedaa—individually or in pairs adding items to the agenda, including important issues sometimes ignored by the past council.

Mayor Allen Castellano wisely allows the practice, rather than keeping the agenda structure in his own hands or requiring majority concurrence to add new topics, thus permitting more solution-seeking reflection on community concerns.

But for this open process to continue, council must meet more frequently, perhaps adding one or two study sessions to the current twice-monthly schedule. These gatherings could focus on discussions and presentations and not require staff-written reports.

Surely, more meetings will be needed as council tackles recommendations for Old Town projects from the hard-working Town Center Blue Ribbon Committee.

Second, let’s examine last week’s welcome decision to open all council committee meetings to the public, subject to exceptions allowed by the state’s Brown Act.

Two years of Town Center turmoil can be traced to closed-door decision-making, which involved council, city staff and developers participating in ad hoc committee meetings without public scrutiny.

But beware of meetings held under the guise of “personnel” sessions. For example, goals for the city manager and city attorney should be set in public, while the actual evaluations of the administrators’ actions remain private.

A FINAL NOTE

Two controversial city outlays—$99,000 to hire facilitators for the Town Center Blue Ribbon Committee and about $140,000 to pay for a special City Council ballot—proved to be sound expenditures.

The facilitator focused the blue-ribbon body on its core mission, enabling the 24-member group to meet an 18-month timeline for delivering recommendations for the city’s sleepy Old Town area to the council in December or January.

The June 5 election expense—some $20,000 less than estimated—allowed voters to choose a fifth council member, rather than a selection coming from a flawed method that included closed-door deliberations by a two-member council committee.

Horton says record matches promises

As one might expect, Councilwoman Jan Horton disputes Councilman John Anderson’s comments in last week’s column that Horton’s actions “are diametrically opposed to her promises” and “she has become that which she ran against in the election.”

“I ran as a low-density, responsible-growth candidate and not specifically as a ‘reform’ candidate,” Horton countered. “Mr. Anderson’s accusations are unfounded and without merit.”

Horton and Anderson finished first and second in the 2006 City Council contest, both endorsed by the grassroots Yorba Linda Residents for Responsible Redevelopment.

But since riding together on a fire truck in last year’s Fiesta Day parade, they’ve taken opposing stands on key issues, including a city-Chamber of Commerce contract and 28-year council veteran Hank Wedaa’s return to the governing dais.

“When I reviewed my voting record, I found that I have voted the same way as Mr. Anderson 83 percent of the time, excluding consent calendar votes, far more than I have with any other council member,” Horton noted.

“As I look back at my campaign promises and my actions as a council member, I have found that my voting record is very much aligned with the promises and goals that I had set forth last year,” Horton added.

And, while Anderson stated he has “no intention of running for re-election,” Horton noted, “I will run for re-election as long as I feel I can make a positive difference,” although she cited some frustrations with local politics.

“I have been disappointed with the political pressures put on me for issues such as the council seat appointment or…the Chamber of Commerce contract. I do not mind people disagreeing with me or being angry, but it reached epic proportions….” Horton stated.

Anderson supported naming Wedaa to a vacant council seat, while Horton opposed his appointment, and Anderson opposed the chamber contract Horton supported.

Horton explained, “The pressures were in the form of e-mails, telephone calls and spoken conversation and became very personal…. conversations are counter-productive when reduced to personal attacks.”

Anderson’s also a victim of e-mail attacks. He forwarded to me one using his name and the numbers 666 in a phony return address he received during the June campaign. “This is well beyond the pale,” Anderson commented.

A FINAL NOTE

Both council members host Web sites, horton4yl.com and anderson4yl.com, where Horton is dubbed “the people’s advocate” and Anderson “the people’s true advocate.”

But Horton criticizes Anderson’s site: “I question his motivation and whether posting inflammatory statements is ethical and in the best interest of the community.”

Not what he thought it would be

Although Councilman John Anderson told me, “I never saw myself running for political office, and I was always skeptical of politicians,” he seems ever more disenchanted with local politics as the weeks go by.

In fact, Anderson announced, “I have no intention of running for re-election,” a startling statement since he has three years left in his term.

Anderson noted, “I have found the world of politics is too often one of broken promises, pandering for votes, critics lurking in the shadows and shifting, questionable alliances based on personal gain rather than the public’s best interest.”

He added, “My personality, belief that people should say what they mean and mean what they say and expectation of others to be true to their word are incongruent with politics.”

Anderson ran second among 10 candidates for two seats last year, with Yorba Linda Residents for Responsible Redevelopment supporting him and first-place finisher Jan Horton.

But since they rode together atop a YLRRR fire truck in last year’s Fiesta Day parade, they’ve often criticized each other on Web sites and at council meetings.

Anderson noted, “I ran because of the outrageous actions of the last council and wanting to effect change. I campaigned on the same issues as [Horton]…. Her actions are diametrically opposed to her promises and have eliminated any realistic prospect for change on the council…. [S]he has become that which she ran against in the election.”

Of course, I’ve asked Horton about the comments and will present her response in a future column.

Meanwhile, Anderson still seeks “a comprehensive investigation” of the failed high-density Town Center plan developed by the former Old Town Yorba Linda Partners under an exclusive negotiating agreement with the city.

“There is no denying…obvious and substantial collaboration” by council members, city staff, political action groups, Chamber of Commerce, developers and others who “waged war” on residents, stated Anderson.

He added, “One of the developers…came forward with allegations…city staff and [council] were complicit in the efforts to forestall the [Old Town zoning referendum]. The… allegations and proof should be impartially evaluated and not by the same city officials he accuses of impropriety.”

A FINAL NOTE

Anderson thinks an inquiry motion might die lacking a second or 3-2, due to “Horton’s recent voting pattern with the pro-high density council members” Allen Castellano and Jim Winder.

The topic was item 41 on last week’s agenda, but council didn’t get past item 19 in a seven-hour session.

Searching for a voice nobody has heard

The mystery surrounding the phantom-like Yorba Linda Voice newspaper has deepened since I first wrote about the puzzling publication three weeks ago.

Publisher Brad Pfanstiel’s petition to the Superior Court to have the Voice “ascertained and established” a “newspaper of general circulation” has been “approved as submitted,” a clerk at the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange told me.

But I still haven’t seen a copy of the elusive newspaper, and I’ve searched since spotting a “notice of intention to petition” the court in the Yorba Linda Star’s legal section Aug. 2.

No official or citizen I’ve asked for the past two months has ever heard of or seen the Voice. Copies aren’t available in the public library, and I haven’t found the paper for sale in any local business establishment.

However, Pfanstiel’s petition claims the Voice “has been printed and published regularly every Wednesday” in Yorba Linda “for more than one year” before the petition’s May 30 filing date and has “a bona fide subscription list of paying subscribers.”

The petition also states that a monthly average of at least 50 percent of typesetting and printing has been performed in Yorba Linda with the paper “issued from the same city where it is printed and sold…each calendar week.”

The only voice contact I’ve had with the publisher is when I called the 800 number for Pfanstiel Printers on East Anaheim Street in Long Beach.

Pfanstiel said the Voice began publishing “about three years ago” and runs from 8 to 20 pages per issue. He offered to send me a copy or a $20 annual subscription, but the line went dead before I could give him my address.

A subsequent e-mail apologized—Pfanstiel wrote, “My battery died”—and offered “possibly” a “complimentary subscription” if I’d send articles for publication. But another phone call and reply e-mail from me weren’t returned.

A newspaper genuinely interested in serving the community and potential advertisers would seemingly seek the largest circulation possible, so the unavailability of a court-sanctioned “general circulation” newspaper continues to be a mystery.

A FINAL NOTE

The identity of the so-called “truth” blogger, who posted unsigned comments during the June special council election campaign, remains unknown, despite e-mails I’ve received listing several suspects.

Attorney Bill Davis, a past Yorba Linda Community Foundation president, cc’d me this e-mail he sent the secretive site: “Why do you hide who you are?” I’d add, “Why don’t you have the courage to stand behind your postings?”