Council discord continues

The Costa Mesa City Council likely will get one more chance to reach consensus on a proposed youth-in-government program.

But observers and some council members said the inability to see eye to eye on the youth program signals a larger problem that may stand in the way of good governance.

The council in January voted 3-2 to discontinue a new youth-in-government program suggested by Councilwoman Katrina Foley and supported by Councilwoman Linda Dixon. Council members voting with the majority — Mayor Allan Mansoor, Councilman Eric Bever and Councilwoman Wendy Leece — said the program should have come to the council for approval rather than stopping at the parks and recreation commission and then ending up in the budget, and they questioned what the program would teach.

They debated the program for about two hours last week but didn’t seem to reach an accord that would get the program moving. Foley said Monday she’s putting the youth program on the council’s agenda in March, but she’s still trying to figure out what the majority would vote for.

It’s questionable whether a new discussion will go anywhere, since council members don’t even agree on where they disagree.

From Mansoor’s and Leece’s perspective, Foley was refusing to compromise on the program after they indicated they’d support the educational component of it. They both attribute the council’s history of split votes and spats on the dais to philosophical differences.

“Certainly there have been some healthy discussions and some disagreement, but that’s how our system works,” Mansoor said. “At the end of the day, we vote and try to move the city forward…. I would hope that personal issues stay out of the discussion.”

Working together isn’t a problem for the council, Leece said.

“I think we see each other’s points of view, we just don’t agree on principle,” she said.

Bever did not return a call for comment.

To Foley and Dixon, the reaction to the youth program is part of a pattern from the majority of refusing to listen to other points of view. Bever, Leece and Mansoor opposed including a youth council in the program to discuss city issues, and they voted in early February not to create a senior advisory committee, saying everyone who chooses can participate in the city’s existing committees or at council meetings.

“There’s absolutely no communication between the three council people [Bever, Leece and Mansoor] and myself and Council member Foley, as far as I know,” said Dixon, who also held a council seat from 1998 to 2002. “I have never worked with a council like this.”

The council’s rocky relationship is nothing new, but it is frustrating, Foley said.

“I was elected to do certain things. I’m trying to do those things,” she said. But she added that sometimes when she proposes things, “it feels like they don’t support it simply because it came from me.”

Part of the problem may be that not all council members have moved past the November election, former Councilwoman Sandra Genis said. The election divided the city and split the council, with Foley and Dixon supporting two candidates trying to unseat Mansoor.

“There are some splits that are based on ideology, but there are also splits based on personality conflicts, and I don’t think that’s good for the city, but I’m hoping they’ll get past it,” Genis said.

Council members each bring their own viewpoints to the dais, but they have to be able to bend sometimes, and that may be where the current council runs into trouble, former Councilman Joe Erickson said.

There’s nothing wrong with split votes, but council members have to be able to be civil and work together, he said.

“You don’t need a 5-0 vote,” he said. “What you need is openness to ideas, and I think that may be lacking now.”

And while the 2006 election may be holding them back, some council members may want to work together for their own good in the 2008 election, said former parks and recreation commissioner Byron De Arakal.

Foley, Dixon and Bever will be up for election next year, he said, adding, “I think it’s dangerous politically to seem to be always fighting and not necessarily listening.”