Being a City Councilman is so much more than dealing with employee salary and benefits. That is one issue that will be faced and fixed. Every single candidate understands how important it is to make that aspect of Costa Mesa sustainable and will work towards that. So what else is there?
Each candidate represents a vision for the future of Costa Mesa and to me this is the important issue. To me Costa Mesa is wonderful. We have everything and are so wonderfully diverse. Our City has distinct areas, each of which adds to the overall character of what we love. My vision echoes that of so many residents that love Costa Mesa for what it is. We are Costa Mesa and not Newport, Huntington, Santa Ana or Irvine. This is in stark contrast to Righeimer’s vision and to paraphrase him from the Eastside forum believes we (Costa Mesa) needs to figure out what we want to be when we grow up.
We have major issues on the horizon, Bluff Road, Sale of the OC Fairgrounds, Desalination Plant and John Wayne expansion. Each one of these issues is a quality of life issue and Costa Mesa will be on the short end of that stick. A Councilmember will also deal with little issues that are just as important as these major ones. In applying a concept from Calculus, the sum of a series I understand that a bunch of poor decisions eventually impact a community equally to that of a major issue. Righeimer definitely is approaching that equality with his position against property rights(RV parking, fences, weekend upkeep and work trucks) and history of projects over people (Overlay density loophole, Senior housing next to the Shark Club/73 freeway and LED lights).
Again being a Councilman is so much more than dealing with employee salary and benefits. Consider the whole package.
