‘Political junkie’ lands seat on debate panel

TONY DODERO

I love the silly season.

That’s right, I enjoy campaigns and elections and everything

surrounding politics.

A political junkie I am.

I admit that’s probably not a normal thing. Lots of people dread

seeing campaign commercials and hearing politicians make stump

speeches, but not me.

So that’s why I’m really looking forward to this Wednesday night.

I’ll be one of two panelists asking questions at a candidate forum

sponsored by Comcast Cable, the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce and

the Daily Pilot.

I’ll be joining Valerie Mitchell of Comcast, and our very own

columnist, Peter Buffa, will be the moderator of the debate that

takes place at 6:30 p.m. at Costa Mesa City Council Chambers.

I guess it’s not really going to be a debate in the classic sense.

With 12 candidates vying for three open seats, it is difficult to

spend the time needed to debate the issues that are important to

Costa Mesa residents.

The Westside and what needs to be done to revitalize that edge of

town is always a big topic. But other concerns could be the

controversial joint-use agreement between the school district and the

city over the ever-scarce playing fields, the 1901 Newport project

and the usual gripes over budgets and spending, development and

redevelopment, traffic, crime, the job center, charities, affordable

housing, potholes, overzealous code enforcement officers and what on

earth to do with Triangle Square.

And the council just voted itself a new controversy by eliminating

the city attorney’s office in favor of contracting the service out.

I’d wager that is going to be a much-debated decision in the coming

weeks along the campaign trail.

Wednesday’s debate is going to be two hours long and will run live

on Comcast Channel 3 and the city’s local Channel 24.

Afterward, the tape will be replayed a number of times before the

election on both of the channels.

Since we haven’t set our questions in stone for the forum, I

invite readers to e-mail me questions they’d like to see the

candidates answer. I can’t promise I’ll get to answer all or any of

them, but I’ll do my best.

Hopefully, I’ll see you at City Hall on Wednesday night at 6:30

p.m.

*

Meanwhile, we are deep into our own endorsement meetings with

local candidates. As some of you must know, the newspaper will

endorse candidates for Newport-Mesa City Council and school board

races this fall.

To get a better idea of where the candidates stand and how fit we

believe they are to lead, we invite them all to meet with the top

editors of the paper and the publisher, Tom Johnson, to enable us to

make a reasoned decision.

With so many candidates running, a number of them well-versed in

city and school issues, it makes for a difficult decision to make.

Either way, it’s always refreshing to meet so many civic-minded

people who deeply love their community and who come to the table with

so many new ideas. It’s a true testament to our democratic process,

and Newport-Mesa community members should count themselves lucky that

so many are willing to serve.

**

Finally, I’d like to share a bit of interesting news with you.

Members of my staff, namely Art Director Joey Santos and Features

Editor James Lee, are hard at work this week putting together a

newspaper that we will begin producing out of our office called

Campus Times.

Campus Times was created last year by the Los Angeles Times sports

staff and was devoted entirely to prep sports. It was distributed to

high school campuses throughout Southern California.

Cutbacks and other issues made production of Campus Times a

difficult proposition for the sports staff to continue doing, so now

it’s in our hands. But it will not be the same newspaper that the

Times sports staff produced last year. Instead, we have revamped the

coverage to include stories on headline news, music, movies, video

games and gadgets as well as high school sports.

In addition, we will be offering opportunities to teen writers to

produce stories and reviews in Campus Times. Interested teens should

drop me an e-mail and we’ll get you in the mix of writers.

So look for our new version of Campus Times, which debuts this

Wednesday at local high schools.

As usual, I’d love to hear your thoughts.