ON THE TOWN:

I may need your help.

Tonight at the Neighborhood Community Center in Costa Mesa, there is a candidates forum in which all those running for a seat on the Costa Mesa City Council will be present to answer prepared questions and take questions from the audience.

The festivities start at 7 p.m. and will be moderated by Daily Pilot columnist Peter Buffa.

It is certain to be a lively event. It’s usually that way anytime Buffa is in charge.

My challenge is that I may not be able to make it due to a professional commitment that precedes the announcement of the forum.

I’m trying to get a pass on the dinner, but if I can’t, please do me a favor and ask this question of Costa Mesa mayor Allan Mansoor. It’s a little long, but it’s well under three minutes, so there’s no risk of the mayor having you forcibly ejected.

“Mr. Mansoor, the founder of the Minutemen, a group whose honorary membership you cheerfully accepted not long ago, included these words in his new book: ’40 years from now, I see neighborhood armies of 20 to 40 going out and killing and invading one another. The United States is going to have 100 tribes with 100 languages and no common bond. It’s future mayhem.’

“And these words were written by a person whom you nominated for and who was voted to stand on the Westside Revitalization Committee: ‘U.S. citizen ants are moving out of the state and illegal alien cockroaches from Mexico and points south are moving in.’

“Mr. Mansoor, why do you support people with such extremist, divisive and dangerous views?”

That’s it. So if you could take it upon yourself to ask the question, I’d greatly appreciate it. And feel free to contact the paper and let me know the mayor’s answer.

The new Minuteman book confirms something that I expected.

Awhile back, I’m not sure when, Mansoor’s media attention got him confused over the difference between being famous and being important. One can be famous but not be important.

Kiefer Sutherland just won an Emmy and he is famous, but he is not important. In fact, I can make the case that Bugs Bunny is more famous and more important than Kiefer Sutherland for I doubt that in 50 or 60 years, anyone will bother to use Sutherland’s work on “24” as the basis for a musical production the way someone has with Bugs Bunny’s cartoons.

And let’s admit it, there is no greater short film than Bugs Bunny’s “What’s Opera, Doc?”

President Bush is both famous and important.

Any parent who cares for and raises a decent, law-abiding child is important but not famous. Every teacher in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District is important but not famous.

I can understand Mansoor’s attraction to the fame flame. Eight years ago I was promoting the radical notion that parents should put their kids before their jobs and was invited on radio talk shows throughout the country. I had so many interviews going each day that I covered up a large wall with sheets of paper informing me of the particulars of each one.

I got an entire hour on the “John and Ken Show” on KFI-AM (640), which has had Mansoor as a guest several times.

ABC flew me to Texas to do a morning show there. When I was on CNN, I walked into the studio in Hollywood as aides were wheeling out Larry Flynt.

A few months into the charade, something hit me. I realized that I had compromised values I had held for years, and in doing so, I lost the trust of several people whose love, friendship and judgment mattered quite a lot to me.

So I abruptly stopped all of it and came back down to Earth.

The other option was to do what the Minuteman guy and Mansoor are doing, that is, to keep increasing one’s hysteria to stay in the media spotlight.

Say something wacky and someone else is sure to stick a microphone and camera in your face.

The illegal immigration movement has moved much closer to the center, thanks to the Bush administration’s rational proposal to establish a guest-worker program in the country while increasing border security.

That’s exactly what two-thirds of Californians want and what most Americans want. Cooler heads are prevailing.

Unfortunately, that dims the fame flame for the Minutemen and Mansoor, hence the absurd comment in the question to Mansoor about the 100 tribes and 100 languages.

The ironic part of all of this is that the hard line taken by Mansoor and the Minutemen (hey, good name for a rock band), has created exactly what they tried to extinguish.

You see, instead of deporting all of the illegal immigrants and making them a memory, they have given rise to a new level of Latino activism. One national organization has just opened a Costa Mesa branch.

Anyway, I hope I can make it tonight. There are sure to be some media people there, and although it’s been eight years, I still speak fluent sound bite.