I can’t say I blame Mayor John Stephens for wondering out loud, “how did we get here?” when he was faced with overflowing City Council chambers this past Tuesday.
As discussed in the last post, it wasn’t a surprise that the city’s Flock contract took centerstage. However, I don’t think anyone (including me) expected more than 70 public commenters to line up and jam the microphones and send in public comments, with almost all of them (Mayor Stephens estimated “close to 100%”) in favor of either significant amendments to the city’s Flock contract or cancelling it entirely. Which, of course, made it somewhat uncomfortable when the City Council predictably affirmed the Costa Mesa Police Department’s staunch defense of the Flock contract, voting 6-1 (Council Member Arlis Reynolds voting no) to merely send Flock some requested revisions to its terms.
Substance aside, seeing Costa Mesans turn out was exciting to see. Anyone who attends meetings at City Hall regularly knows that Costa Mesa’s public meetings to be more, uh, genteel than some of our neighbors (go check out Huntington Beach’s city council meetings on any given Tuesday to see what I mean). But I think we often pat ourselves on the back for a culture of gentleness when the real answer is that Costa Mesans simply don’t attend very many meetings, as a rule. The chambers are, more often than not, almost empty.
In contrast, the public comments on Tuesday exploded the single item on Flock into an almost five-hour discussion, dragging the meeting well past midnight. And, God bless them, most of the crowd appeared to have stayed through the whole thing.
Then, on Thursday, I’ve heard that well over a hundred folks showed up to the city’s town hall meeting on the Fairview Developmental Center Specific Plan. I wasn’t able to attend (being in Kyoto at the time complicated things), but the thoughtful comments at the meeting captured by Costa Mesa Brief suggest that regular Costa Mesans, who have been largely sidelined by the city’s tepid approach to “public outreach”, were finally engaging in force.
So, have current events finally awoken the sleeping giant that is the Costa Mesa public?
Nah.
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on.
First, with respect to Flock, I have to quibble with the implication by both Council Member Arlis Reynolds and Mayor Stephens that we saw an outpouring of public input on Tuesday in part because the original contract “evaded” public review. It’s true that the original pilot program bypassed the City Council by keeping the contract amount below the City Council approval limit. But the most recent re-upping and expansion of the Flock contract did come up on the Consent Calendar back in March 2024 (this, my friends, is why I keep a blog!).
If the City Council had really wanted its shot at Flock, it had it — anyone on the current dais (not-then-elected Council Members Jeff Pettis and Mike Buley excluded) could have pulled it. Any member of the public could have pulled it. But no one did, and the item sailed through on a 7-0 vote.
So let’s be real: the Council wasn’t denied an opportunity to discuss Flock and then blindsided by the CMPD. It simply didn’t think these cameras were a big deal.
And you know what: at the time, they were right! I certainly didn’t think much of them, either, given that I was quibbling more about the cameras’ leasing terms than their civil rights implications.
What happened in the interim, of course, was a national election that radically altered the relationship between the federal government and local law enforcement (particularly when it comes to immigration) and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. What I think we saw on display this past Tuesday was less the public feeling ambushed by cameras per se and more an outpouring of generalized anxiety. Our existing technology really is being superpowered and weaponized by forces deaf to our interests. The nature of the Flock cameras, which were initially sold as humble license plate readers used only to nab car thieves, has fundamentally changed. Thanks to both muscular “whatever it takes” rhetoric coming from the White House and the almost drunk prophesies bandied about by tech titans about building the Machine God, Flock cameras now are vectors for everything, right and left, that feel dangerous about our collective moment.
As for Fairview Developmental Center, now there is an issue that really is being snuck by the public. Or, maybe I should say, being stuck to the public.
I couldn’t help but notice that the room in the town hall seemed to empty out quite a bit by the end. Perhaps they all realized, as close watchers of City Hall have known for some time, that the “public engagement” piece of the FDC specific plan is simply a box-check. One speaker in particular seemed to me to pop the balloon and let the air out of the room. Irene LaFave (not sure the last name spelling, so apologies if I got it wrong) quipped, “I will say, it does sound like the pervasive theme [of this town hall] is that, this project is very ambitious, you’re trying to meet certain goals, but that interests of the community are taking a back seat.” Take your flowers, Ms. LaFave!
Why do I think these spasms of visible public presence are likely a flash in the pan? Well, because I have more datapoints. Recall that Flock wasn’t the only issue on the agenda for Tuesday; the City Council was supposed to also consider adding a significant business license tax increase that evening as well. The Flock discussion went on so long that the City Council was forced to hold an adjourned session of the City Council the following day.
How many people showed up to comment on a literal tax increase that will effect every business in city, one way or another? One. It passed, by the way.
As for the draft Fairview Developmental Center Specific Plan, the Planning Commission got yet another bite at the apple last evening. Yes, a handful of commenters gamely took to the podiums. But the energy that was present at the town hall had clearly evaporated. Just like Mayor Stephens grasping at straws during the Flock discussion, Planning Commissioner Jon Zich also threw up his hands. “I don’t know how we got here,” he lamented as he listed off a (correct) parade of horribles about the proposed plan. “It’s a dismal disappointment,” he remarked bitterly as he invoked the royal “we” to indict city staff and, possibly, colleagues on the dais and on the City Council:
Planning Commissioner Jon Zich, Costa Mesa Planning Commission Meeting, July 27, 2026
I think you can see why public participation in the City of Costa Mesa may be a bit, uh, depressed at the moment, notwithstanding flashes here and there. When your city’s officials are throwing up their hands and saying, effectively, “I don’t know why we are here or why any of us bother,” I’m not sure you can expect the public to gamely press once more (and once more, and once more) into the breach. To borrow a Gen-Zism, they’re tired, boss.
Goat Hill Rodeo 
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