Well, that was dramatic.

As I mentioned in my earlier quick update, the big news of the night was that Council Member Don Harper announced his intention to resign during Council Member comments. Council Member Harper was clearly emotional as he recounted his time on the dais and the difficulties facing his family. I’ve had the honor to speak to Council Member Harper directly about the health struggles he’s been managing with certain of his family members and, needless to say, my thoughts and prayers are with him. It’s clear he is a devoted father, son and husband and prioritizing family is always the right decision.

Now the city must figure out what to do with his impending vacancy. But first, here’s a quick recap of the highlights from the rest of the evening.

Costa Mesa steps forward on street safety and active transportation

Indefatigable Public Works Director Raja Sethuraman got a well deserved round of applause from the City Council and the public in attendance for the completion of several recent public works projects (including the HAWK signal at Lions Park, the crosswalks at Wilson Park and across Placentia Avenue, and the new traffic light at W. 19th Street and Wallace Avenue) as well as securing the nearly $8 million grant from OCTA. Making sure Director Sethuraman had an opportunity for recognition was a nice touch from Mayor John Stephens, who highlighted his work during his comments.

The meeting was also thoughtfully adjourned — thanks to a very sensitive suggestion by Council Member Arlis Reynolds — in honor of Dolores Pliego, who was struck and killed earlier this week at the intersection of Pinecreek Drive and Adams Avenue. Ms. Pliego was trying to walk to the bus stop across the intersection when she was hit. In a sad coincidence, the consent calendar contained an approval of a bid for an improvement project for this very intersection that has been chewed on by Public Works and the Active Transportation Committee for a long time. This event only underscores the urgency of getting control of our streets: for some, no matter how fast we move, our efforts will come tragically too late.

Growing dissatisfaction with PlaceWorks on Fairview Developmental Center

Super-resident Cynthia McDonald pulled the consent calendar item approving additional spending for on-call technical and environmental consultants and used it as an opportunity to complain about the performance of PlaceWorks as our consultant on the Fairview Developmental Center “visioning”, even though the item had nothing to do with PlaceWorks’s services on that project. I’ve given my own opinion about PlaceWorks’s approach so I wasn’t all that surprised to hear discontent growing over its performance. What was surprising was the way this discontent bubbled up to the City Council. In a weird twist for a consent calendar item, Council Member Loren Gameros asked that PlaceWorks be removed from the list of approved consultants and the amended item was narrowly approved 4-3 (with odd bedfellows Council Members Arlis Reynolds, Council Member Harper and Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Harlan voting no). What punishing PlaceWorks by axing them from on-call consulting services does to improve the Fairview Developmental Center process I am not sure. But clearly there are some unhappy PlaceWorks customers on the City Council.

City Council upholds Planning Commission denial of cannabis store permit on Newport Blvd.

Yeah sorry, I still can’t get excited about this issue. The only thing I’d note is that I find it interesting that Mayor Pro Tem Harlan is Mr. “Follow the Code” when a cannabis store isn’t in his district but suddenly deeply concerned about store concentration (which isn’t in our code yet) when it is, and similarly Council Member Reynolds — who has been an outspoken critic of cannabis store concentration and over-saturation — is surprisingly enthusiastic about a cannabis store going in next to an existing cannabis store that happens to be in another district. I’m sure that’s a coincidence right?

Ah well. Cannabis is a thorny issue. But we are left with another quizzical decision, and another likely lawsuit for the city. Just put it on the pile next to the others.

Senior Center Housing Project gets enthusiastic first screening

Council members were pretty enthusiastic across the board about the potential for an affordable housing development over the existing Costa Mesa Senior Center lot. Council Member Reynolds proved her pro-housing cred and went so far as to ask the developer what its ideal project would look like and how Costa Mesa could make that happen. Shocking absolutely no one, the developer gamely answered: “more height, more units, less parking.” It is very weird, in a good way, to hear City Council members argue with each other about how they can best get more housing built on a dense urban infill site. I’ll admit it put a big smile on my face. Unsurprisingly this one sailed through, and it will likely come back in several months for work from the Planning Commission.

Back to Council Member Harper’s resignation: now what?

It’s important to note that Council Member Harper only announced his intention to resign; he didn’t resign on the spot and he said that he would make it official “in the coming weeks”. Technically speaking his resignation doesn’t become official until he delivers a letter of resignation to the City Clerk. This is important: because Costa Mesa is a general law city, the date of resignation starts a 60-day clock during which the City Council must either fill the vacancy by appointment or call a special election to fill it.

Assuming Council Member Harper’s resignation letter eventually finds its way to the City Clerk’s desk, I don’t think the City Council will call a special election. Council Member Harper was due to stand for reelection this Fall anyway, and I think from a statutory perspective there isn’t enough time to call a special election for the March primary. So the only purpose of calling a “special” election for the Fall would be to keep the seat vacant in the interim, and that seems somewhat silly.

That leaves the appointment option. But who? The most logical choice would be Adam Ereth, current Chair of the Planning Commission. I don’t know Chair Ereth other than from afar watching Planning Commission meetings (and readers of this blog know I have mixed views of his decisions). However, I do understand that he’s a hometown kid that has gone on to get a very good education and is a respected local professional. I also understand that he’s fairly well known in Democratic political circles and I expect this fact would be helpful when seeking appointment from a 100% Democratic City Council. He’s even a resident of District 1, which also happens to be Council Member Harper’s district. This would allow Chair Ereth to serve the interim term and stand for election in District 1 this Fall. And, based on some of his Planning Commission votes (especially on cannabis), I suspect he was thinking of running anyway. So if I had to bet I’d say Ereth gets the nod.

That said I’m sure there are other options; Parks and Community Services Commissioner (and former Chair) Cassius Rutherford springs to mind (he is also very involved in the Costa Mesa Democrats, so that would make a certain amount of political sense), as does Planning Commissioner Karen Klepack (who also hails from District 1). From a selfish perspective I would much prefer both to stay put as I think they are some of the stronger members of their respective Commissions. But they’d also be good choices given the circumstances.

What the City Council loses with Council Member Harper off the dais

Honestly I think this is a big loss for the City in general. I don’t think that makes it the wrong decision. But here are a few areas where I think residents are really going to miss Council Member Harper’s voice:

• Fiscal Responsibility. Council Member Harper’s business acumen and experience really shined whenever city finances or spending were on the table. Other than Mayor Stephens he was also the most concerned about the city’s fiscal health.
• Public Safety. Council Member Harper was also a consistent voice for highlighting public safety issues and supporting city staff, the Costa Mesa Police Department and the Costa Mesa Fire Department to address them. He was strongly supportive of installing flock cameras in his district, which the CMPD has credited with helping to nab a significant number of car thieves. And he was a strong supporter of both the CMPD and CMFD without, crucially, losing his objectivity when it came to union demands for spending and salary increases. And that’s because…
• Union Negotiations. Council Member Harper has also been a consistent skeptic of public employee union spending, including opposing the Community Workforce Agreement the city signed that required unionized workers for most city jobs. Without his voice on the dais I have real concerns that the relationship between labor and the Council majority will grow ever closer.
• Housing. Council Member Harper’s decision will substantially influence the fight over the inclusionary housing ordinance. With him as one of the policy’s skeptics, there was a real shot that the IHO could be crafted in such a way that still promoted housing development in the city. Now, with his rational voice of restraint out of the room, I’m concerned what we’ll end up with. However, Council Member Harper was also a strident critic of Sacramento’s housing policies and consistently opposed high density housing (though he did, interestingly, vote to allow the very dense Senior Center project above to move forward).
• Cannabis. Again, I don’t care but maybe you do: Council Member Harper was easily one of the biggest critics of the city’s cannabis policies, and he would have been a crucial vote to impose further restrictions on cannabis. Now, the future of that policy reform looks murkier than ever.

And finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t address the literal elephant in the room: Council Member Harper was the only Republican on the City Council in a city where Democrats hold only a narrow party registration advantage. That’s means that the City Council, which was not at all politically representative of its community, will likely now become even more unrepresentative. Now, much of the blame for this lies at the feet of the city’s district elections, as well as the fecklessness of the city’s Republican Party in recent years. And certainly the City Council majority doesn’t owe Republicans anything.

But nonetheless, the City Council majority should tread carefully. Council Member Harper was a great canary in the coal mine that alerted them when they strayed too far into the progressive zeitgeist. In fact, much to his chagrin, his balancing presence was probably a big reason for this Council’s collective success. Now the likelihood of political overreach is pretty high, and one only need to look over the Santa Ana River to see where that might land you. Huntington Beach is in the midst of a reactionary political nightmare. I go to our City Council meetings and I marvel at how gentile and boring — in a good way — it all seems to be. But it wasn’t always this way. And it can easily be a madhouse again.