Council selects charter committee members
The Costa Mesa City Council selected 13 members Tuesday night for a committee that will draft a charter, which is essentially a city constitution, over the next several months.
The group is tentatively scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. the second and fourth Wednesday of each month. It is undetermined when the meetings will commence.
The charter effort follows a one from last year that, after considerable spending and campaigning by supporters and detractors, failed to get a majority vote.
Estancia High School Principal Kirk Bauermeister will be the committee’s facilitator, with Assistant City Attorney Kim Barlow and Police Department volunteer Chaplain Mike Decker as deputy facilitators. All three will be paid.
Bauermeister, a Costa Mesa resident, holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from the University of La Verne.
Decker, who also lives in Costa Mesa, is lead pastor at Palm Harvest Church in the city’s Mesa del Mar neighborhood. He holds a doctorate in civic engagement from the Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada.
The committee will meet in public sessions to craft the document that faces a citywide vote during the June 2014 primary election or that November’s general election.
The following residents were selected from 37 applicants, either by council member appointment, a majority nomination process or a random drawing of council member-chosen applicants:
•Hank Panian, retired Orange Coast College history professor, served on Costa Mesa’s 1971 charter committee
•Harold Weitzberg, business executive and council candidate in the 2012 general election
•Ron Amburgey, small-business owner
•Brett Eckles, construction company vice president
•William Fancher, owner of a land development consulting firm
•Thomas Graham, corporate officer for finance and operations in the consumer electronics industry
•Gene Hutchins, a chief financial officer
•Kerry McCarthy, account manager for a national food provider company
•Mary Ann O’Connell, consultant for franchise systems
•Tom Pollitt, business owner
•Lee Ramos, experience includes establishing policies and by-laws
•Andrew B. Smith, small-business owner
•Kevin Tobin, president of a Costa Mesa volunteer group
