See the update on page 2 with the Costa Mesa City Council approving privatization of the city jail and the city workers union finding the Weekly's coverage of last night's vote lacking.

ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 4, 1:05 P.M.: Those concerned about keeping their jobs at the Costa Mesa city jail have a full day on their metal plates (better to clank against the bars, ya screws!). Attorneys for the Costa Mesa City Employees Association went to court this morning in an unsuccessful bid to get a judge to stop the City Council from outsourcing jail jobs tonight. Next stop: the Costa Mesa council chambers this evening.

These enemy combatants know one another well. The same City Council--well, pretty much the same one--attempted to slash its entire workforce by a third and privatize as much as possible before backing off after the last election.

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With the violence in the world, a dry-ice bomb going off at the Happiest Place on Earth and an Infiniti splitting in two and killing all the teen occupants in Newport Beach, it's refreshing to hear there can be a happy ending to a grenade being found in a public park and near a high school.

The happy ending was the apparent lack of evil intent behind the grenade being where it was as well as its detonation on purpose and without incident.

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Benito Acosta, who as a Latino rights activist goes by Coyotl Tezcatlipoca, won a partial victory from the state's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Friday.

The court upheld previous rulings finding Acosta was legally removed from a 2006 Costa Mesa City Council meeting, but the city's law against "disorderly, insolent, or disruptive behavior" at council meetings was deemed unconstitutional.

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Wendy Leece's marked up copy

As Gustavo's editorial assistant, I never have a shortage of angry calls and letters from the public complaining about our content that offended them one way or another. But it's not often that an elected official reaches out on the behalf of their constituents and complains for them. Yet that's exactly what Costa Mesa councilwoman Wendy Leece did in January.

You might remember Leece as the Know Nothing who supported former mayor Allan Mansoor's anti-Mexican pogroms in the city, or her recent reinvention as a champion of the city's public employees. This time,
Leece called about one particular story in our January 18 dead-tree issue--and, surprisingly, it was not our cover story with Klansmen on the cover.

Nope, she had a problem with Joel Beers' review of the hit play The Motherfucker with the Hat at South Coast Repertory.
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Not quite to the scale of the Boston Marathon explosions, a blast at the Costa Mesa home of a 52-year-old man police and paramedics had come to aid two hours earlier Sunday killed the resident, who it turned out had other bombs on the premises.

Not quite to the scale of Christopher Dorner's online manifesto, the bizarre ramblings of the late Kevin E. Harris were also posted on the Internet.

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See the update at the end of this post identifying the victim.

ORIGINAL POST, APRIL 11, 9:13 A.M.: Fifteen years ago or so, picking up my son at a friend's home, I stepped onto a skateboard in the driveway and was promptly thrown on my ass. It was then I realized skateboards should have an expiration date. (Sorry, Grandpa Hawk.) Wednesday afternoon in Costa Mesa, a 35-year-old riding a scooter through a green-lit intersection was struck by Jaguar driven by a 98-YEAR-OLD woman. The fellow died shortly thereafter. Obviously, Jags and driver licenses need expiration dates, too.

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Righeimer

Remember that weird-ass story last year involving Costa Mesa councilmember Jim Righeimer, a private dick who called 911 saying Riggy was DUI-ing after emerging from Skosh Monahan's, and Costa Mesa PD summarily forcing Riggy out of his house and giving him sobriety tests even though all he had to drink was Diet Coke and had the receipts to prove it? All creepy--but were the actions against the polarizing politician criminal?

That's what the Orange County District Attorney's office is currently investigating, according to source who spoke to the Weekly on condition of anonymity.

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Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer

Unlike other city election guides that have graced the benevolent blog pages of Navel Gazing, this one will take on a different format. A brief mention of the proposed city charter, titled Measure V, will precede an outline of city council candidates. Current council members tried to bring the initiative before voters in June but missed the filing deadline. Now it's back.

MEASURE V

Perhaps the most contentious issue among Costa Mesa voters is deciding whether to pass or strike down Measure V, which aims to make Costa Mesa a charter city as approved by the council. If passed, Costa Mesa would follow a local constitution, giving it more control over its municipal affairs. Essentially, it allows the city council to outsource its workforce, mandates voter approval for any increase in public pension benefits, and prohibits unions from taking money out of city employee paychecks for political use. All of which, the council majority says, will save the city money. Critics, including union members and community activists, contend the proposed charter places too much power in the hands of a few council members, and is unnecessary to balance the budget.

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A three-judge Fourth District Court of Appeals panel has published a ruling that prohibits general law cities in California from laying off city workers by outsourcing their jobs to private sector companies. The ruling, which was issued Aug. 17, prevented the city of Costa Mesa from laying off 200 employees who received pink slips in March 2011.

Costa Mesa's ideologically driven cash-saving effort to lay off a third of its workforce that month was widely viewed as a precedent-setting test of public employee union power. According a press release issued today by the Orange County Employees Association (OCEA), which represented the workers, the city has "inexplicably failed to post the ruling on its website or otherwise inform the public" about the court's ruling. This is apparently why the OCEA took it upon itself to request that the ruling be officially published by the court, which did so on Sept. 16.

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This lovely, heaven on earth needs marketing?

The folks at the Costa Mesa Convention & Visitor Bureau feel duped by a sneaky Irvine marketing business and want, if court documents filed this week are any indication, painful financial revenge.

According to a July 30 lawsuit, bureau officials claim they paid more than $100,000 in fraudulent work invoices submitted by Hyperdisk Marketing, Inc.

They are demanding not only a full refund but a whopping $5 million in punitive damages.

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