City’s Future Is in Erasing the Past

Fed up with what they perceived to be the indulgent ways of their predecessors, the newly remade Mission Viejo City Council has hit the rewind button and is undoing the most fundamental decisions of previous city leaders -- even the names on parks and conference centers could be erased.

Perhaps it was the William S. Craycraft Sports Park or, maybe, the Sherri M. Butterfield Community Room that pushed things over the edge.

Whatever the case, the practice of naming rooms, conference centers and even parks after council members -- some while the part-time politicians were still in office -- has helped bring an elevated sense of politics to Mission Viejo.

In the weeks since the November city elections when two first-time candidates, Trish Kelley and Lance MacLean, swept into office -- easily toppling longtime incumbents Susan Withrow and Butterfield -- the new council has quickly gotten down to business.

Mayor John Paul Ledesma has scheduled a Jan. 6 closed-door session to discuss the continued employment of City Manager Dan Joseph. “I’m stunned,” said Joseph, a 13-year city employee.

A prior decision to close one of the city’s original recreation centers is under review, as is a proposal to save money by closing the city library on Fridays. Instead, the council is considering cutting expenses by imposing a City Hall hiring freeze. The council took the first step in changing the council practice of naming city facilities after local politicians, voting to create a committee that will review the parks, community rooms and conference centers now named after past or present city officials.

Far from a home-grown takeover, the political shift in Mission Viejo was a calculated move orchestrated in part by former Assemblyman John R. Lewis, an Orange resident who used out-of-county campaign money to help upend Butterfield and Withrow.

“Every election cycle I like to get involved in a place where I can make a difference,” said Lewis, who helped form the Friends of Mission Viejo group that raised nearly $45,000 to support Kelley, MacLean and Ledesma. “I like to think I made a difference in Mission Viejo.”

Even Lewis was surprised at the election results. Ledesma was the top vote-getter, and Kelley and MacLean won nearly three times as many votes as Butterfield and Withrow, both well-known city leaders who served on prominent county committees and boards.

“I was astonished at the margins,” Lewis said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.”

Withrow and Butterfield said they too were surprised. “I sat around scratching my head for two weeks after the election because it was so lopsided,” said Withrow, a three-term councilwoman who was the chairwoman of the coalition of South County cities that fought the El Toro airport.Mailers were sent out by Friends of Mission Viejo in the final weeks of the campaign, focusing on the naming issue and a California closed-meeting law violation by Withrow, Butterfield and Craycraft in 1999. A judge ruled that the three council members unlawfully criticized and intimidated Ledesma during a closed session.

Nearly half the money collected by Friends of Mission Viejo, $19,000, came from Astrum Utility Services and For the Game, Solana Beach companies owned by J. Jeffrey Kinsell. Astrum organizes municipal utilities; For the Game develops and operates recreational facilities. Lewis said out-of-county contributors are not unusual and those individuals who gave to Friends of Mission Viejo were longtime contacts.

Friends of Mission Viejo wasn’t the only group taking credit for the political upset in Mission Viejo. If Lewis’ group finished off the incumbents, then the Mission Viejo-based Committee for Integrity in Government might have softened them up by constantly questioning the council’s spending habits. The committee, a 5-year-old watchdog group, strongly supported the three winning candidates this year and backed Ledesma in 1998 and Councilwoman Gail Reavis in 2000.

Brad Morton, a local attorney who is chairman of the committee, said his people campaigned vigorously for MacLean, Kelley and Reavis but did not lend financial support.

Morton said there is no connection between his committee and Lewis’ group.

Morton said his group does have strong ties to four of the five council members: Reavis, Kelley, MacLean and Ledesma. That link was highlighted when six of the first seven action items in the group’s November newsletter appeared on the new council’s first agenda.

The group’s newsletter also has called for the ouster of Joseph; Assistant City Manager Rich Howard; the city’s de facto police chief, Stan Jacquot, a lieutenant with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and librarian Valerie Maginnis, whose husband ran for council in November.

Morton said that newsletter’s author, committee member Dale Tyler, may have gotten a “little gung-ho” after the committee’s election day successes.

MacLean, also a member of the committee, said he was uncomfortable with the letter and the group’s message. “Part of the problem now is that they are metamorphosing into more of policy group than a watchdog group,” he said.MacLean said the naming issue, which seemed to resonate with voters, is worth examining.

“I’m trying to look at the whole package, and that includes the positive accomplishments of Craycraft and Butterfield,” he said. “Butterfield didn’t participate in the vote for the room named in her honor. I’d be more inclined to leave that one alone. I found it to be more egregious with Craycraft because he voted for himself and broke the tie.”

Butterfield said naming facilities after longtime city leaders, even if still in office, seemed a fair way of “recording history.” Withrow agreed, though she conceded the council may have underestimated how voters would react and the political price they would pay.

“Maybe it tweaked more people than I anticipated,” she said.