Subject: Lance MacLean

• The Real Reason Why 241 Toll Road Plan Failed!

  Full disclosure: I'm not too informed on the 241 Toll Road. I don't see how extending it to San Onofre will reduce traffic on the 5 Freeway. I don't surf so don't particularly care if the legendary waves of Trestles disappeared. I do know that the Transportation Corridor Authority is one of Orange County's worst governmental agencies, and that environmentalists care a bit too much about nature at the expense of other issues. But after hearing both sides go at it yesterday on AirTalk with Larry

  February 8, 2008

• Why The Toll Road Is Dead

  The Foothill-South (241) toll road extension, as we know it, is dead. Bold claim, you say? Presumptuous, maybe? Not so. Recently, mi hermano Gustavo Arellano pinpointed the root cause of the Transportation Corridor Agencies' failure to gain Coastal Commission approval for their Final Solution to San Onofre State Beach: ARROGANCE. The TCA presumptuously and sometimes even indignantly refuted the majority of criticism of their project, as reflected in the Response to Comments section of the Env

  February 10, 2008

• Lance MacLean and the Slums of Mission Viejo

  March 26, 2009

• A Recall Effort Begins Against Mission Viejo Councilman Lance MacLean

  It happened with the haste and informality of a high-five. The honorable and lanky Mission Viejo Mayor Pro Tem Lance MacLean took his seat at the dais around 6 p.m., right before the beginning of tonight's open-session council meeting. A man in the front row of the audience, wearing a vibrant green shirt and tan plaid shorts, jumped up and hustled to where the five council members sit.Lance MacLean"You Lance MacLean?" he asked, apparently not trusting the illuminated "Lance MacLean" nameplate.Ch

  February 2, 2009

• Mission Viejo Recall Target Fires Back

  Lance MacLeanMission Viejo Mayor Pro Tem Lance MacLean sent out a press release a little more than an hour ago responding to the recall petition presented to him two Mondays ago. Here is the 200-word statement to voters that he's legally asked to issue:"I have been honored to represent you since 2002 and I am proud of my verifiable accomplishments.  In conjunction with ALL my City of Mission Viejo council colleagues Kelley, Ury, Ledesma and Schlicht, I have delivered on my promise to improv

  February 11, 2009

• Letters From OC Weekly Readers

  April 2, 2009

• Saddleback Republicans to MacLean: Resign Now, RINO!

  A good number of the people sitting on the Mission Viejo City Council got their political start back in the '90s by holding positions in the Saddleback Republican Assembly, a chartered unit of the California Republican Assembly that serves Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, Laguna Woods and Laguna Hills. It endorsed Lance MacLean, Mission Viejo's current Mayor Pro Tem, back when he was elected in 2002. Yesterday evening, their board of directors weighed in on the recall drive against MacLean, voting un

  February 20, 2009

• Mission Viejo Recall Crowd Hits Back; Lance MacLean Grabs Gardening Tool?

  Illustration by Ed Piskor / OC WeeklyThe proponents of the recall against Mission Viejo Mayor Pro Tem Lance MacLean, understandably, weren't too happy with the story in this week's Weekly in which MacLean called them all liars. I received a polite but firm email from Connie Lee, one of the top members of the recall, presenting another side to some of the fact-checking I did against their arguments for kicking MacLean out of office. It also featured a gem from the front lines: I'm not sending thi

  March 30, 2009

• Mission Viejo Council Votes To Let Voters Vote On Right To Vote

  Good headline, right? Last night, the Mission Viejo City Council sent the long-gestating "Right To Vote" initiative -- which is backed by roughly the same people who back the Lance MacLean recall campaign -- to a city-wide election. The initiative would mandate that all major zone-change proposals in the city be first approved by voters. Ed Piskor / OC WeeklyThe city's $300k Rose Parade float: The recall/right to voters didn't like that, either.Let's count the levels of democracy for this thing.

  April 7, 2009

• Letters From OC Weekly

  March 12, 2009

• Lance MacLean Has Learned That Mission Viejo's Political Players Always Go for the Throat

  March 5, 2009

• Letters From OC Weekly Readers

  February 5, 2009

• Mission Viejo Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht Tries to Deliver, But Is Running Into an Opposing Majority

  January 29, 2009

• Aww, There's a Tea-Bagging Reunion Today

  Spencer Kornhaber / OCWApril 15, 2009. Remember that? Best day of your life, right? Not just because you got to pay taxes, but rather because you got a chance to complain about paying those taxes. The Weekly, at least, had a pretty good time at last month's tax-hating/liberals-bashing Tea Party in Santa Ana. We covered it here, and even made a pretty slideshow of all the crazy signs and costumes! Santa Ana may have been OC's biggest anti-tax bash that day, but there was a slew of other ones too.

  May 18, 2009

• Creek Trail Boondoggle Demonstrates The Mission Viejo Difference

  Ed Piskor / OC WeeklyAs I just posted: In Dana Point, when you use state and federal grants to fund a $7 million beautification project disguised as congestion relief, you don't have to worry a whole lot about public scrutiny and can expect a crowd of impressed citizens when you complete the project.But in nearby Mission Viejo, if you want to try and use grant money to build some decorative signs, you better be ready for holy hell to be raised at city council meetings and the local blogosphere.W

  May 22, 2009

• Rev. Wiley Drake Leads List of OC's July 4 Teabaggers

  Just call him Rev. TeabaggerThe Rev. Wiley Drake, last heard from praying for President Barack Obama's death, leads the list of Orange Countains who have stepped up to lead the "Official Tax Day TEA Party" in their communities on July 4.TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already, by the way. Besides the controversial pastor at First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, teabaggers and the towns they represent include: Greyson Peltier, Aliso Viejo; Roberto Guererro, also Buena Park; Barbara Smyth, Dana

  June 15, 2009

• Teabagging or Partisan Hackery?

  Hey, hey, hey, the beauty of all these anti- (take your pick) -tax, -deficit, -progress tea parties was that they were truly grass-roots, free from the partisan political hackery that many believe in responsible for the country's fiscal woes in the first place. Then what to make of the Saddleback Republican Assembly announcing it "is finalizing plans for Mission Viejo's July 4th TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party"? That sounds about as grass-roots as a monster truck pull.The actual party is expect

  June 30, 2009

• Sleepy South-County Towns Make US News's List Of Political Junky Zones

  Ed Piskor / OC Weekly​A proponent of the Lance MacLean recall (blogged about earlier today) just tipped me off to a list in published in US News and World Report last week: "10 Cities for Political Junkies." Orange County towns comprise one-fifth of the cities on the list, which seeks to document "where those obsessed with political affairs live." You might assume Santa Ana, with its GOP-run county seat hemmed in by liberal-leaning ethnic communities and activist groups, would make the cut. Di

  September 28, 2009

• Recall Of Mission Viejo's MacLean Heads To Ballot

  ​Late Friday afternoon, the Orange County Registrar of Voters announced it had certified the signatures gathered by Mission Viejo city activists seeking to recall Mayor Pro Tem Lance MacLean. It's a big step for the recall movement, which gathered nearly 14,000 signatures -- though they only needed 9,393 registered Mission Viejo voters to agree to a recall. The city council will ultimately set the date for the recall election, which could be held as early as January 2010.Have no idea what

  September 28, 2009

• Local Republicans Back Recall of Mission Viejo's Lance MacLean... Again

  ​The Mission Viejo Dispatch reports that the Saddleback Republican Assembly has voted to endorse the recall of Mission Viejo Mayor Pro Tem Lance MacLean. "But wait!" you, faithful Navel Gazing reader, pleads. "Didn't they already do this?"Yeah, back in Febuary, the SRA--a sanctioned branch of the state Republican party--called for MacLean to resign shortly after he was presented a petition expressing a desire the behalf of more than 50 citizens to see him recalled for office. Then, they called

  October 19, 2009

• Mission Viejo Recall Proponent Becomes Candidate

  ​Dale Tyler, the man who was signatory number one of 52 on the initial letter announcing the recall of Mission Viejo Mayor Pro Tem Lance MacLean, has moved to be the first candidate in the race to potentially replace embattled councilman.No other candidates have yet pulled papers with the City of Mission Viejo, though if they do you'll be able to see it here.The election will be on Feb. 2, 2010. On the ballot will be two questions. One will ask whether MacLean should be recalled; the second wi

  October 28, 2009

• Mission Viejo Council Candidate Makes it Official

  ​We previously mentioned how Dale Tyler was the first person in Mission Viejo to pull papers to potentially become a candidate to replace city councilman Lance MacLean in the event that voters recall MacLean from office in February. Now, it appears Tyler is the first person to make his candidacy official by returning those papers.Tyler and friend/activist Connie Lee met up with me in city hall this this morning while waiting for Tyler's ballot statement to be approved by the city clerk. A sof

  November 17, 2009