The Bell Curve:

Both Costa Mesa and Newport Beach city governments, looking desperately for ways to reduce expenses and still meet their obligations in a depressed economy, have overlooked one drain on public funds as foolhardy as it is costly. That would be the millions of dollars being paid out for administrative policies and actions that have led to the recent spate of lawsuits against both cities.

You don’t have to look further than Tuesday’s Daily Pilot for the most recent example. Newport Beach just got tapped for an extra $706,000 to go with the $1.2 million a jury granted Newport Beach police Sgt. Neil Harvey earlier in the year for internal discrimination that prevented his promotion. The extra 700 grand was to compensate Harvey’s attorneys for legitimate fees that might better have saved the jobs of a cadres of firefighters or police officers.

And this may be just the beginning. In the wings are two new actions against Newport Beach.

Recently retired police Lt. Steve Shulman, a veteran of 28 years and president of the union that represents police department managers (where a recent poll found that 70% supported a re-testing of their chief) is seeking damages of at least $100,000 for — he says — a “corrupt promotional process” about which he filed a grievance “that was judged by the people who violated the rules.”

And former Newport Beach firefighter Brett Smith has filed a claim for more than $1 million in earnings lost because his civil rights were allegedly violated when a job offer by the city was rescinded because he has a hearing problem.

The other half of Newport-Mesa isn’t immune to similar costly disputes. Costa Mesa is immersed in legal quicksand growing out of Mayor Allan Mansoor’s refusal to allow full public speaking time to a vocal citizen named Benito Acosta, who also goes by the name Coyotl Tezcatlipoca, who then raised loud objections in the council chambers and was physically ejected by police. When the county prosecutor rejected criminal charges filed against Acosta, the city chose to take the case on and had its knuckles rapped in expensive trips to a county court, then in both county and state appellate courts. Meanwhile, Acosta filed a counter lawsuit charging the city with denying his right to free speech. That case is pending with a good chance the city will lose more than attorney fees, which grow and grow.

And I wonder if it has occurred to anyone on the city councils or in the administration of these two cities that they are either getting terrible legal advice or ignoring good advice for which taxpayers will eventually have to pick up the tab? And that someone needs to step up and be responsible.

In Costa Mesa, pursuit of the criminal case by the city was both a loser from the beginning and expensive. The only price to be paid for dropping it would have been the mayor’s bruised ego. Now the city faces a civil lawsuit in which their defense may have been badly damaged by refusing to give up the criminal charges against steadily increasing odds.

And back in Newport Beach, Harvey offered to avoid a trial and settle his lawsuit against the city for a lump-sum payment of $1.25 million (a figure he arrived at by estimating his lost income). Six weeks after his offer had expired, city attorneys rejected it. The trial took place, and jurors awarded Harvey virtually the same figure. Then, last Tuesday, the ante went up $706,000.

Meanwhile, in a police department seemingly riddled by division and discontent, help is hopefully on the way. The selection of a new chief will take place as directed in the ordinance passed for that purpose and an outside body has been hired to investigate the promotion process as the first step in addressing that problem.

Which leaves me a little space to bridge to another topic where rules also get ignored or finessed. And where baseball junkies who reward player performance by voting for the starters in the upcoming all-star game are showing more good sense than the men who run the game, I’m talking now about Manny Ramirez.

For the first few weeks of the all-star voting, Ramirez appeared to be winning a starting spot, a result that Frank McCourt, owner of the Dodgers, applauded, saying that Ramirez’s selection “would be a great honor.” The manager of the National League team echoed this view, telling a Los Angeles Times reporter “once you’re eligible and you can play, why shouldn’t he play?”

The answer is quite simple: He shouldn’t play because he broke a rule by testing positive for a forbidden drug that would have given him an advantage over the other players competing for that honor. And since he has been silent about his suspension, we can only assume he broke the rule deliberately in order to gain an edge even beyond his normal enormous skills.

So, whatever the reason, he was caught and banned for 50 games, and now it is being said that he has served his time and deserves to play. But a great wave of new votes — not buying that argument — have left him too far behind to catch up. They believe the players whose place he would have taken have a right to a level playing field.

So do the cops in Newport Beach. And the people the mayor of Costa Mesa doesn’t like.