SOUNDING OFF:

In the Oct. 19 edition, the Daily Pilot editors provided readers with their choices for the open City Council seats in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

In both instances there were surprises. I’m not going to address the Newport Beach selections — I’ve followed them only peripherally, and I don’t have a dog in that hunt. Costa Mesa, however, is another question.

The editors chose to endorse Katrina Foley, Jim Righeimer and Gary Monahan from among the nine candidates for three seats available.

This cycle, the voters have had an especially unique group from which to choose their next leaders. In my more than three decades in Costa Mesa, I don’t recall a panel with so much relevant experience.

This year we have three previous council members, including two with mayoral experience, and an uber-operative of the Orange County Republican Party who makes the word “connected” sound strangely inadequate. Combine those with a previous candidate who has become a dedicated activist, two mature, solid citizen business leaders and two bright young men with strong futures in civic affairs and you have an extraordinary group from which to choose.

I agree with the Daily Pilot that Katrina Foley, through her citizenship and service to this city as both a planning commissioner and council member over the past nearly a decade, has earned the right to be returned to the dais for another four years. As the editors stated, she seems to be omnipresent, representing our city government at almost every event of significance throughout her term. Foley has clearly been the smartest, best prepared of the current council members and, although consistently outnumbered on important votes, she nonetheless has provided solid reasoning and an essential counterpoint to the sometimes irrational views and votes taken by the current majority.

As the candidate who captured the most votes four years ago, she has done an excellent job of ensuring that all sides of an issue were heard, giving voice to many residents whose opinions would otherwise have been ignored by the majority. As a business owner/lawyer, wife and mother, she has demonstrated boundless energy and a very special ability to juggle the demands of job, family and city. I wholeheartedly support returning Foley to the City Council.

I have described Jim Righeimer as a carpetbagging opportunist and well-connected political operative who chose Costa Mesa as a safe haven in which to perch awaiting a higher office to open up. I have described him as impatient, to the point that he has verbally abused applicants before the planning commission during his brief tenure. I have described his appointment to the commission by Allan Mansoor, after having lived in Costa Mesa for only a few months, as an act of political payback for the help Rep. Dana Rohrabacher gave to Mansoor and Wendy Leece two years ago in their campaigns. Did I mention that Righeimer is Rohrabacher’s campaign manager? I have also said that I don’t really believe he has a long-term commitment to Costa Mesa.

I still believe all of the above. I also don’t like the fact that he appears to be a big part of a grand plan by the Orange County Republican Party — my party — to take over the government of Costa Mesa and use it for an incubator in which their cadre of political fetuses will grow.

However, all that being said, there can be no dispute that Righeimer brings almost unprecedented experience for the voters to consider.

As a developer, he has a very special perspective on those kinds of issues that is especially valuable in our city at this time. Beyond that, he has exceptional experience in regional organizations and all the important contacts that go along with them. He is an articulate, clever guy who knows how to “sell” his point of view. He’s a personable fellow with plenty of charm and a beautiful family, which we’ve all seen in the numerous political mailers stuffing our mailboxes these days.

So, keeping my fingers crossed until they turn white due to lack of circulation, I’m prepared to vote for Righeimer and hope he will, as he promises, become a voice of mediation on the council.

I’m prepared to vote for him, then call him out if he strays from the promises he’s been making to the voters in our city. Ouch, my fingers hurt!

As he said at a recent forum, Bill Sneen has lived in Costa Mesa 20 years longer than Righeimer and is a business executive, community activist and family man. He and his wife, Linda, have been active in school issues for many years. He possesses excellent business leadership experience and the intelligence, maturity and work ethic so necessary to make solid decisions for our city. He has worked harder than any other new candidate trying to prepare for the forums this year, interviewing many senior city staffers and former municipal leaders and residents.

From all I can discern, his slogan, “Costa Mesa First,” accurately describes his commitment to improving our city for all residents ahead of any personal political ambitions. By any definition of the phrase, Sneen is a “solid citizen” and precisely the kind of person we should to hope to elect to our City Council. For all of these reasons, he has earned my remaining vote.

The editors, wisely, chose not to support first-term councilman and current Mayor Eric Bever for re-election. Bever has proven to be a petulant, arrogant and capricious member of the City Council, more concerned with providing a smug quip for every event than exercising sound judgment in the administration of our city. He, alone among all the candidates, didn’t show up for interviews with the Daily Pilot editors — a perfect example of his arrogance. I concur with the editors’ choice to ignore Bever. I will not vote for him, because our city deserves much better.

The editors also chose Gary Monahan, which might make sense if you measure his qualifications purely on his 12 years on the council before being termed-out two years ago.

Well, I watched Gary Monahan during most of his previous tenure on the council, and those memories have left a very unpleasant aftertaste. I’ve watched him evolve from a rank neophyte with limited political skills into a cunning, and sometimes conniving, operator with a very unbecoming streak of vindictiveness. I saw him become the very reason the voters of this city passed a term-limits ordinance.

I watched as Monahan stepped aside for the Mansoor-Bever team, indicating that he needed to spend more time with his business and family. I wonder what has changed? Certainly, his family hasn’t gotten smaller and, in light of the current economic times, one would expect his business requires even more of his time these days. Near the end of his last term he just seemed tired of the whole process.

A year ago he pitched a plan to the City Council to directly elect the position of mayor — without term limits. I thought at the time, and still do, that he was angling to become “mayor for life.” I think he’s trying to elbow his way back to the municipal trough to provide medical benefits for his family and to pad his pension. These all are good reasons to thank him for his previous service and ask him to step aside.

We were very fortunate to have nine interesting candidates this time around. Chris Bunyan, Lisa Reedy, Chris McEvoy and Nick Moss should all be proud of the campaigns they are running. I hope they all stay involved in civic affairs, but I cannot vote for them this time around.

So, there you have it. I will mark my ballot for Katrina Foley, Jim Righeimer and Bill Sneen because I think the combination of skills, experience and leadership they individually and collectively bring to the dais may go a long way to moderate the divisiveness and rancor that has existed over the past few years. The challenges that face Costa Mesa in the near future will require a City Council that can set aside individual bias and make decisions that serve all the stakeholders — residents, business owners and visitors alike.

I think Foley, Righeimer and Sneen can be the nucleus of that team.

Don’t take my word for it. Do your own homework. Watch the video clips of the three forums available to you on CMTV or in streaming video on the city website and view the individual clips on the Daily Pilot website. Read what the candidates have written, consider their backgrounds and motivations. Remember, in the election four years ago only 44 votes separated Bever and Bruce Garlich.

Whatever you do, make an informed choice when you mark your ballot.

GEOFF WEST lives in Costa Mesa.