Mayor plans to address fields, traffic

He may not make as many media appearances in 2007 as he did this year, but Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor likely will be pushing his agenda just as hard off-camera.

Now that he’s achieved his goal of getting criminal suspects screened for immigration violations, Mansoor said that issue is over. He’s got a new list of topics to address in his second term as mayor, and illegal immigration isn’t among them, he said in an interview.

Mansoor spearheaded a plan to train city police to do immigration checks, but that was set aside when federal immigration officials placed an agent in the city jail earlier this month.

“My goal has been to focus on public safety and reducing crime, and this certainly does that,” he said. “I have no plans to implement anything else.”

Now he wants to tackle the city’s shortage of athletic fields and the congestion at the end of the Costa Mesa Freeway (55), he said, but he’s reluctant to elaborate.

“Certainly lighted fields is an issue, working more with the school district and with Newport Beach to make sure we get equal distribution of field space, and I want to look at the quality of our fields too,” he said. “I have some ideas, and I kind of want to work them out in my own head a little more before I kind of go forward with them.”

He’d like to see some of the city’s sports fields refurbished, like what was done at TeWinkle Park this year, and he said he wants to look at new ways of funding that work.

Now that he’s on the Orange County Transportation Authority board, Mansoor said he plans to aggressively seek money for street repairs, and he wants to solve the traffic jams where the 55 Freeway ends. A covered tunnel could be a solution, and the board has already approved funding to study that, he said.

One thing that’s not on his agenda is offering olive branches. Some residents have criticized the council majority, led by Mansoor, as unfriendly to the city’s Latino community, but he blames any bad blood on people who fought his immigration plan.

He has often said his plan has been mischaracterized, and it should not concern any law-abiding residents because it focused on criminals.

“If there’s any misperception, it’s because the misperception was put forward by the people who opposed this, by the people who opposed upholding our laws,” he said.

In a council study session last week, City Manager Allan Roeder proposed some strategies to help the council work together better — they had a history of 3-2 vote splits before the election — but Mansoor doesn’t seem to think there’s anything to work on.

“Over the last 20 years or so you’ve seen a lot of councils that had a majority that was going in the other direction, and I didn’t see this big concern about reaching out to the more conservative members,” he said. “I’m always open to good public discussion, but the voters were clear, in my opinion, in the direction they wanted the city to go, and I’m going to work toward trying to go in that direction.”

He added that he’s open to listening to others’ ideas.

“I am very open to new ideas, and I think the public knows if I disagree on something I don’t mind saying that.”

GETTING PERSONAL

Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor has often presented an all-business facade, at least to the media, but everyone has a more personal side. Here’s a little about Mansoor’s.