Every City Council meeting from now until November 3rd is going to be consequential, so I think it will be worth your time to keep up with what is going on.

There are two cross-currents at the moment: termed-out incumbents racing to the finish line to get their policies over the line before a new Council is seated, and candidates trying to maneuver through the mine field of current events without getting blown up on the trail.

So let’s reflect on what’s happened this Fall and speculate on what people might be talking about down the stretch. Obviously, you milage may vary, but: here’s what I think will be Hot — and Not-So-Hot — matters in the coming weeks:

Hot: Flock-Apalooza

The headlines the Daily Pilot chose out of the actions take last meeting were the agreement to allow the zoning administrator to re-evaluate the Ohio House’s sober living operating permit and the approval of an expansion of the Costa Mesa Police Department’s (CMPD) drone fleet, and fair enough — those are reasonably newsy.

But the little detail that jumped out at me from a political perspective was the City Attorney admitting that, due to her heavy workload, the updates to the Flock Safety contract would not come back for City Council review until November 17, 14 days after the election. That leaves this extremely hot button issue in a terrible bit of limbo: it will be voted on during what will be, for almost all practical purposes, this Council’s last-ever meeting, but the election results and the Council-members-to-be will be hovering in the room with them.

I have to think that there will be a fair amount of temptation to punt the real adjudication of the Flock contract into 2027, so that the new Council can own that choice outright.

Which means, of course, that the heat is going to be turned on the candidates’ full blast on this issue, if it hasn’t already.

Not: Fairview Developmental Center

While this was extremely salient while the debate over the Fairview Developmental Center Specific Plan was raging a few weeks ago, I think the vote this past week reaffirming the fairly strict guard-rails on significant development at that site imposed by the Council a few weeks ago may have put an end to the discussion for now.

There isn’t any clear “next step” with respect to the FDC Specific Plan. As far as I know, the ball is now firmly in the State’s court to both approve Costa Mesa’s plan as well as select a master developer. So while this may well be a headache for the City Council in the future, I don’t expect it to grace the headlines again between now and the election.

Hot: Fairview Park

My eyes in the coming week are going to be on a somewhat nondescript committee meeting: the Fairview Park Steering Committee meets on Wednesday, October 14, whose agenda lists a mysterious “status of the Master Plan Update” item listed under old business.

Could this signal that the Fairview Park Master Plan (FPMP) Update may return to the City Council chambers before the election? If you recall, the Fairview Park Master Plan Update was sent off to its CEQA review around this time last year, and that process ran not once, but twice over the course of this year. However, that process should be wrapped up by now. The next logical step would be for the Staff to present its CEQA analysis, which would include an analysis of moving the Harbor Soaring Society fly field to the east side of Fairview Park, and ask the City Council to formally adopt the update.

This issue has become a hot topic politically already, as District 5 candidate Steve Smith has made it the cornerstone of his campaign against current Chair of the Parks and Community Services Commission, Dr. Kelly Brown. Aided by comments from certain Parks Commissioners earlier this year musing about moving the Concerts in the Park out of Fairview Park, Smith has objected to the FPMP Update as laying the groundwork for curbing other human uses of the park, such as glider flying and bicycle riding on unofficial trails.

For her part, Brown clearly recognizes Fairview Park as an important issue. She went out of her way to describe her position on the FPMP Update — including an affirmation that certain uses, such as glider flying, should remain in Fairview Park — in her conversation with me.

So, if the Staff insists on bringing the FPMP Update back to City Council before the election, I think that would pour gasoline on this already smoldering fire.

Not: Housing Element matters, unless HCD sends another nastygram

As of the last few weeks, the twice-baked-potato is officially out of the oven and on the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD)’s plate. The city did, in fact, bifurcate the rezoning efforts required under the Housing Element into two steps, first dispatching the Housing Element sites themselves and then turning to the larger rezonings of the remaining Measure K sites under the banner of “Neighborhoods Where We All Belong.”

While Neighborhoods Where We All Belong (NWWAB) limped through a depleted Planning Commission last week (it passed 3-1 with three Planning Commissioners absent, meaning it was approved with fewer “yes” votes than a majority of the whole body), nobody seems to be really engaged here. I am not happy about that fact, nor can I explain it. It is one of the largest rezonings in Costa Mesa history and the lack of interest if befuddling.

Nevertheless, when I asked the candidates about their thoughts on the NWWAB process, none of them got particularly worked up about it. Of course they had critiques about the city’s outreach process and a couple of them indicated a preference that the city take a more piece-meal approach. But overall I didn’t get the sense that the campaign trail is on fire with concerns about NWWAB’s changes to base zoning, setbacks, height restrictions or parking requirements.

Now, could all of this go out the window if HCD rejects our Housing Element again? Sure. But until then, I think this one is, regrettably, going to sneak by the public.

Hot: Whether the City can take on millions in bonds

This little notice just crossed my desk: right now, right now — days before the election, at the tail end of this Council’s tenure, the staff is going to propose raising a significant bond to rebuild Fire Station No. 2.

While the notice of hearing doesn’t say how much the bond will be, we can guess: the last time this was discussed back during budget season the number floated was $12 million, and I don’t think we’ve found millions of dollars in the couch cushions since then. Given inflation locally, I would guess that the float would end up being around this amount or maybe slightly higher (so the $12-15 million range).

This is not a great time for anyone to borrow money, and perhaps Costa Mesa least of all. This past budget season the city produced a “balanced” budget, but it gave me the impression that such balance was being held together by bubblegum and duct tape. And, as anyone in the market for a new home knows, interest rates are sky high.

On the other hand, our fire station isn’t getting any younger, and we’ve put off rebuilding it for a long time. It would have been great if we had been saving diligently for this moment for decades, but alas — we have not, and it doesn’t help that we’ve repeatedly raided the Capital Asset Needs fund to plug past budget holes. So we are stuck floating a big bond at a bad time. That will be fun to talk about down the stretch!

Not: Dramatic street redesigns

Last election, the stealth issue was the redesign of W. 19th Street — candidates heard an earful from angry residents that felt the reduction of lanes and the addition of protected bicycle routes increased traffic along the route during the 2024 election, and it may have cost Mayor John Stephens a point or two in his re-election race.

However, I simply don’t sense the same level of anger and foment bubbling up over the city’s latest big street projects, Fairview Road and Adams Avenue. Maybe I’m wrong — I traverse these streets often but I don’t live in the adjacent neighborhoods, so maybe these changes are making bigger waves over there.

But, from my vantage point, streets just doesn’t seem to be the center of anyone’s attention this time around. I mean, for goodness sake, the City Council just voted 7-0 (!) to give the Public Works department effectively a blank check to redesign Fair Drive “For All”. That’s not what you would expect if the anti-green-paint revolt was on.

Hot: What is going on with our animal shelter?

Nothing gets people riled up quite like puppies in peril, except: puppies-put-in-peril-without-a-public-input-process:

While the contract in question is with WAGS of Westminster, a fairly well respected animal shelter, the WAGS facility is about 9 miles from City Hall as the crow flies. This distance is operationally cumbersome for the city’s animal control units as well as for Costa Mesa residents that may need to retrieve their pets from impound.

The campaign hook is that almost all of the candidates are running on a platform of transparency and greater public engagement, and here goes the CMPD and the City Council appearing to do an end-run around the citizen advisory committee whose sole purpose at this point is to advise on the animal shelter contract. Worse still, the end-run comes at the expense of two of the candidates themselves: District 5 candidate Steve Smith sits on the Animal Services Committee, and District 3 candidate Cara Stewart chairs it.

For her part, Stewart seemed somewhat nonplussed by the decision to release a request-for-proposals (RFP) for an animal shelter operator without the Animal Services Committee weighing in, telling the Daily Pilot that “Nothing wrong was done, but we [the ASC] want to be more part of the process.” On the other side of the ballot, Mayoral candidate and sitting District 1 Council Member Mike Buley sounded off on the issue during the last City Council meeting, asking the City Manager to return the RFP to the Animal Services Committee for review. So I think this issue is one to watch down the stretch.

Not: the three big issues from last election: crime, homelessness, cannabis

One of the reasons I keep this blog is to remind myself what was important to the city at certain points in the past, because it really can all blur together. But looking back in my 2024 archives, I was reminded that I did a series on the three, big legible issues going into that contest that I hadn’t already discussed: crime rates, homelessness, and the city’s retail cannabis policies.

Yet very few candidates have even discussed these three issues this time around. Crime, it seems, is in statewide retreat, particularly property crimes (and it probably must be said: Flock cameras are likely helping quite a bit on the motor vehicle theft front). Homelessness, too, seems to be significantly down from the surge years of 2022 and 2024. Now, whether that is due to demographic shifts (California is shedding population at this point, and it is particularly losing low-income population), or stricter public realm enforcement thanks to the Supreme Court’s Grant’s Pass decision, your guess is as good as mine. Regardless, the issue seems to have lost some of its salience.

As for cannabis, while I think this issue will continue to lurk in the background. The people who hate cannabis shops still have to drive or walk by them day, after day, after day, and that’s going to keep their ire top-of-mind. But the City Council’s decision to cap retail licenses at 35 citywide pretty much ended the pipeline of new retail cannabis locations opening up in the city. No new stores will likely translate into no new headlines. So, as a matter of public concern, this issue may be behind us.

Luke warm: Measure C

Usually tax increases are red-hot campaign issues. But the current tax increase measure — an overhaul of the city’s business license fee to introduce a graduated fee system that leaves very small businesses untouched but significantly increases the yearly fee on large businesses — doesn’t seem to be generating much heat.

I don’t think I could do a better job than Cynthia McDonald does explaining the particulars of Measure C, so head over to Save Costa Mesa if you want a detailed breakdown of the city’s proposal.

But if you do, I think you’ll pretty quickly grasp the political problem of making this tax increase into a campaign issue: that’s a lot of words, with a lot of numbers, and this measure is literally the very last one on the ballot. And, ultimately, the biggest increases are going to fall on businesses that make up a very small percentage of Costa Mesa voters, and many of those businesses aren’t even headquartered here.

That said, there are plenty of people in the city who are simply allergic to tax increases of any kind, and they’ll be motivated to get to come out against this measure even if it doesn’t directly affect them.

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So: how’d I do? Do you think I have a good handle on what everyone is going to be talking about in the next couple of weeks? Or did I miss something? Let me hear it in the comments.