Last summer, a white out-of-towner murdered Costa Mesa resident Israel Maciel. The killer's identity, however, wasn't known before migra Mayor Allan Mansoor told the Daily Pilot that the incident “shows we still have work to do, but it takes time to remove the welcome mat. When you have job centers, soup kitchens and a high concentration of downscale rental units, it drives the city down, and I favor a multi-faceted approach to include stronger gang enforcement and overlay-zone revitalization, and I also think a social worker holding the hand of a hardened gang member has not worked in other cities.” Mansoor never apologized for his Dobbsian gaffe.
Facts apparently still don't matter to Costa Mesa's elected officials. Tomorrow, the City Council will decide whether to send a letter to President George W. Bush arguing against amnesty for illegals. The letter seeks to use Costa Mesa's experience with illegals as an appeal to sympathy. One sentence that won't be included is one that claimed “hundreds of hit-and-run accidents” in Costa Mesa were caused by illegal immigrants. Councilman Eric Bever had the line removed after admitting to Pilot reporter Alicia Robinson he had no clue if it was true. No less an authority than Police Chief Christopher Shawkey says so, telling Robinson, “We are not able to draw any correlation between hit-and-run accidents, unlicensed drivers and illegal immigration.” No word yet on whether Bever will apologize to illegal immigrant drunk drivers for painting them as more drunk than they really are.
(More over at A Bubbling Cauldron, a fine Costa Mesa-based website)
