Seat swap creates conflict

About eight or 10 steps separate the chair Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Linda Dixon occupies on the dais from the one where Councilwoman Wendy Leece sits. Moving Dixon those three chairs to her right has so far cost taxpayers $119.60.

The council on Tuesday will vote on whether Dixon and Leece should switch seats. Mayor Allan Mansoor put the item on the agenda after Dixon refused to change seats when he asked at the March 13 meeting.

The change would place Leece between Councilman Eric Bever and City Manager Allan Roeder. Mansoor said the switch would help Leece, who, as the council’s newest member, could benefit from the city manager’s knowledge.

“This was a simple request as has been done in the past, and the Daily Pilot is turning this into a huge issue when it’s not, and it clearly seems to me that they don’t want to address the issue of why can’t we change seats,” Mansoor said Friday. “There’s a good reason for the change, but the only reason that has been given to not move is, ‘I don’t want to sit there,’ and that to me is childish.”

Is putting the new council member on the end next to a staffer a standard practice, as Mansoor has said? It is “oftentimes the case,” said Roeder, who has worked for the city since 1975, but “there is no established pattern or procedure that says all new members to the council shall sit next to either the city manager or the city attorney.”

City Atty. Kimberly Hall Barlow said she and legal staff spent close to an hour researching city code, Robert’s Rules of Order and other sources to find a rule on seating order, but apparently there aren’t any. The city will be billed $119.60 for the research.

The details on how this seat change request evolved are somewhat unclear as well.

“I don’t remember how that did come up,” Leece said when asked if it was her idea. “It’s been a challenge where I’ve been sitting, so I think I brought it up to the mayor that it would be helpful to get some answers during the meeting.”

Leece didn’t give any examples when asked what sort of questions she’s had trouble with in her three-plus months as a council member.

Dixon said she first heard of the issue from the city manager, who had an e-mail from Leece “saying that the mayor said it’s OK to move, to exchange seats — and the mayor has no authority to do that.”

It bothered Dixon that Mansoor didn’t call her about the issue, which is what past mayors have done, she said.

The move would put her on Mansoor’s right, next to Councilwoman Katrina Foley. Whenever the council splits on a vote, Dixon and Foley are usually on the losing side, and Dixon worried the move would further marginalize the minority.

She pointed out that she and Foley received the most votes of the 12 candidates when they were elected in 2004.

“That must mean that there are a lot of people in Costa Mesa who felt that we represent them, and we should have the common courtesy to be acknowledged and not be off to the side so he [the mayor] can totally tune us out,” she said.