One- maybe two-issue race

Costa Mesa is at a tipping point. And the municipal election this November will be the event that determines if we go over the edge.

More than few dozen moons have risen and slipped away since I observed ? in a column under a different name ? that Costa Mesa was a hamlet entering a significant transition in its history. The first sign came in the November 2000 general election when Chris Steel was elected to the City Council with a stunning 10,664 votes. Steel’s was the largest vote tally in the 11-candidate field. Steel’s election was supposed to be the lance to relieve the frustrations of Costa Mesa voters fed up with flagging schools and festering urban decay on the city’s Westside. His election gave his supporters fresh hope that the “magnets” contributing to the Westside’s decline ? namely, the alleged surge of illegal immigrants drawn to the city’s public services and charitable causes such as the job center and the Share Our Selves organization ? would finally be swept away.

But as the council’s lone Westside improvement voice (an unfocused and rambling one at that) Steel proved amazingly ineffective.

Despite Steel’s ineptitude, Costa Mesa continued to retool its long and attractive history as a live-and-let live city with a laissez-faire business climate. In the November 2002 general election, Allan Mansoor won a seat on the council with just 7,617 votes, a total far behind Gary Monahan’s 10,739 and a tally that would not have come close to placing the now controversial mayor on the council had he run in 2000.

Then, in the November 2004 general election, frustrated voters ousted Steel in favor of the city’s current mayor pro tem, Eric Bever. Since then, Mansoor and Bever ? with the support of Monahan ? have moved with stunning pace to eradicate the city’s job center and disband the human relations committee. They placed a residential overlay on nearly all of the Westside’s industrial zone, sparking considerable unease in the city’s industrial base and applause from other quarters. Their most controversial initiative, and the one that has Costa Mesa in a state of persistent turbulence, is the cross-designation of certain members of the city’s police force as immigration agents.

That what began as a transition much of the city seemed to support (remember, Steel smoked the field in 2000) has become an uneasy tipping point makes the coming election a potential watershed.

This election will be about the city’s pending immigration enforcement plan and will be fueled by scads of outside money. We can be certain of that.

What is far less certain is the outcome. That’s because ? and this is my measure of the landscape gleaned form dozens of conversations ? Costa Mesa is painfully divided over the immigration initiative and not at all convinced that the plan is not going too far. To many, the emerging Costa Mesa is not at all the live-and-let-live city that romanced them to move here.

Clearly, the big battle will be waged for the termed-out Monahan seat. Mansoor and Bever will want a candidate who supports their immigration initiative. Likely candidates who match that profile are parks and recreation commission chairwoman Wendy Leece and planning commissioner Jim Fisler. Street chatter has Mansoor backing Leece. The formidable opponent will be planning commissioner Bruce Garlich, who missed out on a council seat in 2004 by just 45 votes, finishing fourth behind Bever. Most observers I’ve chatted with believe Garlich is not supportive of the immigration plan.

This all assumes that Mansoor will win reelection in this one-issue race. But the catch is this: It could become a two-issue race should the City Council turn its thumb down on the city’s plans to light more fields at the Farm Sports Complex.

Legions of families, coaches and sponsors who participate in organized youth sports in Costa Mesa believe at least a few candidates and City Council members are not sensitive to the daunting field shortages that confront them. Should the Farm project fail, they’re preparing to make the November election a two issue race: immigration and recreation.

If it comes to that, all bets are off.