EDITORIAL:

It was almost two years ago when Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor laid down the gauntlet on illegal immigration and proposed giving police officers Border Patrol-like powers.

Mansoor’s proposal, if approved by the council, would have allowed Costa Mesa police officers to screen suspected felons to determine their immigration status.

The debate was on.

Among the questions were should Costa Mesa police do the job of the federal government? Many police officers, including the former Chief John Hensley, didn’t think that was wise.

Members of the Latino community criticized the move as mean-spirited, while anti-illegal immigration activists cheered on Mansoor and the council majority for taking such a bold stand in the nationwide fight against illegal immigration.

But make no mistake. The issue was divisive, and protests from both factions raged onto the city streets and into City Hall itself.

The worst example came in the case of Latino activist Benito Acosta, an Orange Coast College student who goes by the name of Coyotl Tezcatlipoca, who attended a city council meeting in early 2006 to express his displeasure with the mayor’s plan.

Depending on which side you believe, Acosta either incited a riot or just urged his followers to show their opposition to Mansoor’s measure.

What happened next is also in dispute.

Some say Mansoor abruptly shut Acosta down, something he hadn’t done to his supporters earlier in the night. Others say Acosta was belligerent and profane and needed to be removed from the council chambers.

And removed he was, forcibly by police.

It all proved to be an ugly chapter in the city’s history, any way you slice it.

So why is it being resurrected now?

In September, the city went to trial against Acosta, accusing him of disrupting a public meeting, a misdemeanor offense. That trial ended abruptly in early October after the judge found the city prosecutor had failed to follow technical procedures.

Now, the city prosecutor, Dan Peelman, is going to appeal the judge’s ruling.

There are many reasons to question that decision. We have 32,000 of them, as in the number of dollars the city’s already spent on this prosecution, which has a maximum fine of $1,000 and six months in jail.

But the biggest reason is this: Bringing Acosta to trial just resurrects those old wounds from two years ago. There is not a lot of upside to pursuing the prosecution, just the downside of dividing the community even further.

Instead of spending additional money, the city should forget about appealing this case and work to put this division behind us, not immediately in our focus.