Committed to the right decision

Historically, City Council members have appointed individuals to key

commissioner positions, thus strengthening their leverage on issues.

It is my opinion that commissioners should be elected positions to

circumvent conflict of interest and quid pro quo decisions.

DARNELL WYRICK

Costa Mesa

Let each Costa Mesa councilmember appoint a commissioner. The

interview process is ridiculously long otherwise.

DENNIS ASHENDORF

Costa Mesa

I can fully understand the desire of the newly elected council

members to be able to directly appoint members to the Planning

Commission and Parks and Recreation Commission. They were probably

looking forward to the opportunity.

But at the same time, it can be looked at as some type of reward

for those who supported them. That said, I think it is in the best

interest of the community to accept applications from the community

at large and have commission members selected by the entire City

Council. The flip side here is that it could lead to political

maneuverings between council members. But this process will

conceivably draw from a larger base and perhaps bring to light

someone who is qualified but might not have the opportunity to serve

otherwise.

TERRY SHAW

Costa Mesa

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Terry Shaw was a Costa Mesa City Council

candidate this fall.

It seems to me the system they have been using works very well. I

have not seen indications that the appointees are puppets of the

council. Each council member has a pool of people to choose from. We

have elected them to make decisions. If we don’t trust their

abilities on choosing the best appointees for these positions, why

would we trust them to make the best decisions for the city as a

whole? If we don’t like their appointments, then when reelection time

comes up, we can elect people we do trust to make these decisions.

DIANNE RUSSELL

Costa Mesa

Yes. First, under our form of local government, the City Council

is not only our legislative branch, but it also has characteristics

that make it our executive (remember this) and judicial branches as

well. The City Council has tremendous power to make our city a nicer

place or to make it a less nice place.

Everyone who runs for City Council presumably tries to convince

voters that he or she has the right ideas to make our city a nicer

place, and that if elected, he or she will implement those ideas that

got him or her elected. To do this, each City Council member should

be able to bring his or her own team into office to help with what

they said they would do.

In the case of our city, his or her “team” mainly means a planning

commissioner and a parks and recreation commissioner. These are the

only commissions the city has. The commissioners, five on each

commission, are appointed by the only elected officials in our city

-- the City Council members -- and they are paid to sit on the

commissions. These commissions take some of the workload off the City

Council by making decisions for the City Council in their two spheres

of influence. If they make decisions that the City Council doesn’t

like, the City Council can overturn those decisions very easily.

If you’re a member of the City Council and you ran on a position

of, say, slow growth and more parks, wouldn’t you want at least one

planning commissioner and at least one parks and recreation

commissioner to echo those views? Wouldn’t you want someone to

represent your positions when you’re not there? If, as some are

incorrectly saying, the two commissions should be completely

independent, then the commissioners wouldn’t be appointed; they’d be

elected. They’re not. Individual commissioners should be the alter

egos of individual council members.

If we took the proposed Costa Mesa system of appointing

commissioners by majority vote of the council to the federal level --

and this is where the executive branch aspect of our council comes in

-- we’d have a situation where the president would find that his

cabinet is appointed by those who oppose him, and he’d have a

difficult time getting anything done. Readers will note that we don’t

hear charges of cronyism aimed at the president when he appoints

people who agree with him, as we’re hearing from some in Costa Mesa

over individual appointments of commissioners.

Furthermore, the proposed system of using a majority vote to

appoint commissioners helps relieve the City Council members of

individual responsibility for carrying out what they said they wanted

to do when they ran for election. Residents of this city deserve the

right to hold their elected officials accountable for what goes on in

this city, and we shouldn’t be giving them the opportunity to dodge

responsibility by consensus rule on appointments. Let the residents

see if their elected officials really meant what they said when they

were running for office by having these council members take

responsibility for their individual commission members.

M. H. MILLARD

Costa Mesa

How interesting that the men on the City Council want complete

control of the appointments to the Planning Commission and the Parks

and Recreation Commission and are doing it under the guise of

democracy. Certainly, if each council member appoints a commission

member, there is the possibility that such a commissioner will be

beholden to the appointing council member.

I suppose Eric Bever knows this personally, since he was appointed

to the Planning Commission by a single council member. But how is it

an improvement if a 3-2 majority appoints all five commission

members? Then all five commission members will be just as beholden to

the three council members who picked them all, and two council

members will be excluded from the process.

And Gary Monahan wants to interview the nominees on his own time?

Doesn’t the public have a right to know what promises Monahan will

extract from the commission members that his majority will appoint

over the votes of council members Katrina Foley and Linda Dixon?

If problems are to be solved, they must first be problems, and

then the “solution” must be an improvement. Secret interviews and a

3-2 majority controlling all of the commission appointments is not a

solution to a problem in democracy. It’s a power grab. Not a good

start for the new City Council, I think.

JIM TOLEDANO

Costa Mesa

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Toledano is the former head of the Orange

County Democratic Party.