Immigration issue dominates council race

The Costa Mesa City Council election on Nov. 7 is as much about the city’s past as it is about its future.

Six candidates are vying for two open seats on the council, and they all say they want what’s best for the city’s future: safe neighborhoods, adequately equipped police and fire services, and sports fields for the growing youth population.

But this election is also about Costa Mesa’s condition and how it got that way. How people vote will depend on whether they see the city as steps away from being a gang-infested slum or a city on the verge of world-class status. To some, maybe Costa Mesa is both — and their vote will tip the balance one way or the other.

With eight days to the election, Mayor Allan Mansoor has commanded the most attention and campaign money. He’s seeking a second term and the other seat is being left open by termed-out Councilman Gary Monahan, a key ingredient in Mansoor’s council majority.

During the campaign, Mansoor has made a few missteps -- for example, a widely criticized proposal to convert part of the city golf course into needed athletic fields, and his comment after a drive-by shooting that killed a young man that cleaning up the city would mean removing the “welcome mat” of cheap housing and social services like the soup kitchen and now-closed job center.

But the mayor also can claim successes. In the last two years, he has moved methodically through an agenda that included getting rid of the job center, which critics claim was city-subsidized help for illegal immigrants and employers who broke the law by hiring them.

He saw the council unanimously approve new zoning intended to urge redevelopment and gentrification on the Westside.

And the plan that’s had perhaps the most impact before it’s even been enacted is the council’s 3-2 vote to have city police trained to check the immigration status of criminal suspects.

Wendy Leece, head of the city parks commission and a former school board member, is running with Mansoor as his chosen lieutenant. She has campaigned as the only candidate supportive of the immigration proposal and Mansoor’s other initiatives to get the city back on track.

For Mansoor and Leece’s supporters, immigration is a pivotal issue. While public safety and infrastructure repair also top the list of critical issues in the city, said resident Sam Clark, “I believe that immigration is probably the dividing line between the candidates on the ballot.”

In the opposite corner are retired aerospace engineer and planning commissioner Bruce Garlich and businessman Mike Scheafer. They’re not quite running as a slate, but they might as well be. Both have set themselves against much of the mayor’s agenda, and both are endorsed by Return to Reason, a group of business and community leaders who want to oust Mansoor.

A win for Scheafer or Garlich could vindicate earlier losses. Garlich lost to Councilman Eric Bever in 2004 by 44 votes. Scheafer was appointed to the council in 2003 to finish an unexpired term, but when he ran for election as an incumbent in 2004, he lost, coming in behind Garlich.

Rounding out the pack are restaurant owner Mirna Burciaga and hair stylist and author Chris Bunyan. Each has strengths: Burciaga has been an activist in school issues and seems most likely to give a substantial voice to the city’s Latino community; Bunyan comes from the city’s under- represented youth population and has a different perspective as a political newcomer.

But they’ve largely been shoved into the background, and the focus has been on illegal immigration, the issue that put Mansoor in the national spot- light and triggered the backlash that created Return to Reason.

“People who think it’s important think it should be a national issue, and they’re trying to use Costa Mesa as a way of putting it even further onto the national agenda,” UC Irvine political science professor Louis DeSipio said. “The race has been defined by immigration, whether or not it’s critically important to Costa Mesa’s future.”

As the only incumbent running, Mansoor has the most at stake. If he wins and Leece doesn’t take the other seat, it’s a hollow victory because none of the other candidates supports his highest-profile initiative, immigration enforcement. He could even see the last couple of years’ hard-won decisions reversed.

“My side only has to win half, then it’s a step ahead,” said Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce President Ed Fawcett, who is backing Garlich and Scheafer.

If everyone casting ballots was educated on all the issues, Clark said, next week’s election could be considered a referendum on the direction of the current council majority.

But it’s not an ideal world, so Clark wouldn’t call it a referendum -- “not unless we see a massive landslide in one direction or the other, and I don’t think we’re going to see that,” he said.