Jan

15

Resigned Los Al Mayor’s wife to interview for Planning Commission

Filed Under City Council Meetings, Commission Meetings, Dean Grose, Planning & Zoning 

(Los Alamitos, 1/15/2010)  Wendy Grose, wife of former Los Alamitos Council Member and Mayor Dean Grose, will be interviewed for a seat on the city’s Planning Commission at a Special Council Meeting this coming Tuesday, January 19th at 5:30 p.m.

Ms. Grose is one of five applicants for three open positions, including the one created several months ago when the Council removed former P.C. Chairman Art DeBolt from the Commission.  The other four applicants all have experience as either Planning or Traffic Commission members:

  • Larry Andrade (incumbent)
  • Gary Loe (incumbent)
  • Klaus Wojak (Traffic Commissioner)
  • Warren Kusumoto (Traffic Commissioner)

All three vacant positions are for terms that expire in just under three years, at the end of 2012.

Since resigning from both the Council and the position of Mayor last year, Dean Grose has maintained his involvement in a number of community leadership positions, including chairman of the Regional Military Affairs Committee at the Joint Forces Training Base.

According to the Facebook group, “Friends of Dean Grose, former Los Alamitos Council Member,“  Dean remains “as active [in the community] as he has been in the past.”    Dean’s Facebook group, by the way, has an amazing 1,546 members (to see all 1,546 members click here and scroll down to “Members” in the left column, then click “see all.”)  Wendy Grose is listed as the group’s Vice President and the site Administrator, along with Kody Grose.

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Ms. Grose’s application may pose an interesting challenge for the Council majority, of which Council Member Grose was a member and strong supporter.

Last year several members of the majority seemed to distance themselves from Mayor Grose, although he had campaigned door to door to support their election.   Most notably, when a number of audience members called for Grose to be reappointed to his old seat, their pleas were completely ignored by the entire Council.

Now they have a choice of appointing his wife over four experienced incumbent Planning or Traffic Commissioners, at least some of whom were appointed by the Council’s previous majority.

A bigger concern for me would be Ms. Grose’s past statements in a letter to the News Enterprise last year in which she blasted local citizens seeking to explore ways to increase the city’s sales tax revenues, which is one of the top priorities the Council has adopted for this year.  Specifically, she seems to support keeping the largest potential retail sales parcel in the city zoned for manufacturing rather than consider the retail overlay plan proposed by the Council last spring. She also appears to favor continued expansion of the Medical Center.

I found the tone of  Mrs. Grose’s letter especially disturbing.  [excerpts of that letter are cited in J.M.Ivler's comment below, in which he quotes at length his response to that letter from Mrs. Grose.]  Fortunately, there are four other more experienced, very qualified, and very diplomatic applicants for only three positions.  The real challenge for the Council should be choosing among those four, all of whom have prior service as either planning or traffic commissioners.

I’m sure there are many ways the Groses can and will continue to make positive contributions to our community, but I don’t think being a Planning Commissioner is a good “fit” for Wendy Grose right now.

It might make for an interesting meeting, however, as the interviews and possible appointments are the only agenda item for Tuesday’s 5:30 p.m. Special Council Meeting.  (The meeting will not be televised, but if you do attend in person please report on what you see in the reporting post we’ll put up on Monday or Tuesday for both Tuesday Council meetings)

I’m told the interviews will be public, beginning  shortly after  5:30 with Ms. Grose’s interview, with the other 4 candidates following at fifteen minute intervals.  Hopefully, with the Council’s commitment to transparency, the voting and discussion will be in open session, as well as the applicant interviews.

It sounds like the process will run right up to the beginning of the Regular Council Meeting which is scheduled for 7 p.m.  Interestingly, both meetings were pushed back one day by the Martin Luther King Holiday on Monday.

Click here for the Tuesday’s Special Meeting Agenda in pdf format.

Hopefully I’ll get a post up on the agenda for the regular meeting over the course of the weekend.  Several interesting items are on that 7 p.m. meeting’s  agenda, including the bidding process for the upcoming trash contract, the Council’s priorities for 2010, and the hiring of a new City Engineer. ” Stay tuned.”

Your comments, as always, are welcome, including your thoughts on all five Planning Commission applicants, but please use family-friendly language, try to be diplomatic, and avoid character assassination or personal attacks.

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Comments

5 Responses to “Resigned Los Al Mayor’s wife to interview for Planning Commission”

  1. JM Ivler on January 15th, 2010 7:11 pm

    I have actually stood before

    * Larry Andrade (incumbent)
    * Gary Loe (incumbent)
    * Klaus Wojak (Traffic Commissioner)
    * Warren Kusumoto (Traffic Commissioner)

    and have asked and answered questions. Any and all four of these people would be fine picks.

    Mrs. Grose on the other hand has published lies in the News-Enterprise. Thus the veracity of any statements she makes should be questioned, and questioned deeply.

    Here is a re-print of my comments to her News-Enterprise piece.

    Half truths, factual statements that are not factual, innuendo, and outright lies. CPLA? Nope, Wendy Grose. But, maybe she is part of CPLA. Based on the e-mails Mr. Grose sent it appears that Mr. Grose was a member. Let’s address each one of the questionable comments she made in the order she made them.

    “a council majority that juggled the city budget” The city budget is provided to the council by the city manager and city staff. The former city manager was fired by your husband, Troy Edgar and Gerri Mejia. The two years that the council was in the majority of “the other side” the city manager who was responsible for presenting the budget was Mr. Rudat, the man Troy Edgar and your husband wanted (Rudat’s current website Resume lists Troy Edgar as his first reference). He was responsible for the city budget that was presented to the council, just like the recent work done by Nita and her staff was responsible for the latest budget. The former council majority didn’t mess with the budget, the man Troy and Dean wanted and hired did. Half-truths already.

    “The past city council focused on one area of Los Alamitos” is an outright lie. Unless Laurel Park, Cottonwood Park, The pre-school at the rec center, the streets paved throughout Los Alamitos and the wires going underground in Apartment Row are all just “one area”. If so, it’s one heck of a big area.

    “argued against putting a left hand turn for the 24 Hour Fitness…” Actually, we demanded that the city live up to the contract it negotiated over Cottonwoods development with Cypress. And even though Rudat was going to put the matter on the agenda for City Council it was the outcry that Los Alamitos and Cypress live up to their contractual obligations that caused the City Staff to respond to the letter with a resounding “no.” to Cypress.

    “it is important to build strong foundations with neighboring cities…” I agree. The $1.00 per square foot LART mitigation agreement sucks for our city. When Cypress extends the olive branch by doing the right thing and giving Los Alamitos 50% of all the tax revenue from the business accessible from Los Alamitos (via Katella), then I will say that they are working to build a strong foundation and we can work with them. Until then, as they stick by the letter of the contractual agreement, we should too. Just because we are smaller doesn’t mean that we should let them walk all over us.

    “change the stop signs on Lexington.” If you had actually participated (or even your husband) on the negotiations with Cypress and Cottonwood on the Lexington issue you would be aware that one of the main reasons it was put in was to relieve traffic on Bloomfield past an elementary and middle school. Putting two unnecessary stop signs (and please compare it to any other street between Katella and Cerritos throughout Cypress) on the street reduces it’s viability as an alternative route. Cypress knew the purpose and did everything they could to reduce Lexington’s viability. That’s their way of building strong foundations with neighboring cities.

    Regarding the Let’s Fix Los Al blog… Some choose to not use their name, some choose to use their name. I’m in the later group. For all I know you have been posting on there. Don’t know, and don’t care. Some choose to take advantage of the ability to post with any name by using the names of others. If it wasn’t your post, just contact the blog owner, like Miss. Jaimee Lynn did and have it removed.

    “group wants Arrowhead to leave our city” Outright boldfaced lie. As a champion of the desire to have the planning commission do intelligent rezoning for the future of Los Alamitos I have been championing and spearheading this for a while. I never stated I want Arrowhead to leave. I have stated that I would like to see the property rezoned in such a way that it does not have any affect on the current owner, but would affect any future owner. This is called looking forward for the best future for the city by properly zoning the business district on Katella, of which Arrowhead’s property is the largest single piece.

    “closing down a business and allowing approximately 500 citizens to look for work elsewhere” Well when you lie to set up a strawman, I guess putting in fictional facts doesn’t surprise me. 500 employees of Arrowhead are Los Alamitos citizens? Are you willing to stand by that “fact”? I highly doubt that veracity of the number you have used. But then again, it was just to make a point that was fallacious to begin with as no one has ever said that Arrowhead should be shut down.

    “Now they are attacking Los Alamitos Medical Center.” Actually, those people that have been vocal about what is happening at the medical center are concerned that taxpaying revenue producing businesses are being lost so that the medical center can build more non-revenue parking lots and non-revenue producing medical offices. Wow, imagine people being concerned that we are losing our tax base. Silly residents.

    Here’s a suggestion for you. Why not look at what these people that you seem to like to lie about in print are really doing. They are looking to the future of Los Alamitos. They are concerned about ensuring that we have a real effort to rezone the community so it is not the current patchwork quilt, but that it has a city business center that can create tax generating successful business. They are looking to work fairly with our neighbors, but that doesn’t mean that we should let the bigger cities poop all over us. We seek an equitable arrangement where both sides can win, not just Cypress or Seal Beach. We don’t want the hospital to continue to destroy revenue producing business so that they can create more parking lots or non-revenue producing medical offices.

    All the half-truths, lies and misinformation in the world won’t change the facts that the group you love to hate and slime is actually one that cares deeply about the city and its long term prospects. That the group has a vision for the city that is more than being a large medical facility parking area, but one that can have a vibrant revenue producing business and retail district. A group that wants to move traffic smoothly through the city, and not force it to go past an elementary and middle school. A group that seeks out ways to ensure a strong and vibrant Los Alamitos for the future, and also wants to see benefits for the residents today, like paved streets and upgraded and new parks, services like child care and programs for the elderly.

    And unlike CPLA, we do everything in public. We strive for transparency. We aren’t funded by Briggeman. We look for community leaders who have our same passion and love for the city and try to enlist them to run for office. We post our thoughts on-line where anyone can read and respond to them and invite you and anyone else who wants to to come into that space and share your thoughts as well. We seek out input, and we readily acknowledge when even people that we may not always agree with have an outstanding idea (like I did at the last City Council meeting with my full support of Alice Jempsa’s call for the DVD storage of the Los Alamitos’ oral history. I would have never thought of it, and she is 110% right that this is too valuable to lose.).

    You say that “it’s time that we move forward and clean up past errors.” I suggest that we are doing that. We are holding people accountable and responsible for their actions. Which is worse? A tooth brush, newspaper, Starbucks coffee and using a towncar that you reimburse the city for or using the city manager and the city attorney to help you frame an appeal (at a cost of thousands of taxpayer dollars) against a business landlord who’s only crime was renting an office to your political opponent during election season? CPLA funded by Briggeman and supported by your husband thinks the first, I and a number of other residents feel the second so we are going to “clean up past errors” just as you suggest.

    The sad fact is that your husband sent a racist e-mail to someone who was offended and then when asked for an apology was flippant. He hung himself on his own petard. No one told him to send the racist e-mail, no one forced him to reply to Ms. Price flippantly. Dean made those decisions and in doing so proved he lacked the judgment to represent the people of our fair city. He did the right thing in stepping down, and for that he should be acknowledged. But he wasn’t the victim here, Ms. Price directly and the upstanding residents of Los Alamitos and our fine city indirectly were. He has said that the lesson learned from this is to “not forward e-mail”. Wrong lesson. The right lesson is to take personal responsibility for your actions and when they cause someone pain, immediately apologize for your insensitivity, not say that you were ignorant of the racist nature on which the entire “joke” e-mail was based.

  2. JHubert on January 15th, 2010 9:14 pm

    Here we go again! Nothing like tearing off the Band-Aids and removing the old scabs. Hopefully, the other candidates won’t be leaving flyers at the doorsteps. I’m sure she would be close behind picking them up. I’m hoping that we won’t want to go down this path again.

  3. To: All Los Al Residents: on January 15th, 2010 10:06 pm

    Wendy Grose was on the “email chain” for ALL of her husbands jokes.

    Jokes that were offensive to ALL minorities and women. Some of these jokes were even sent by her.

    These jokes were obtained through the public records request and are there for anyone who is interested.

    She also resigned from the Rotary Club because she “doesn’t know what a joke is”.

    I don’t believe it would be in the city’s best interest to go down another “Grose path”.

    I don’t think Los Al needs to endure another garbage storm for the likes of Wendy Grose. She is not qualified due to her poor judgment.

  4. Well,Well on January 18th, 2010 12:59 pm

    JM Ivler on January 15th, 2010 7:11 pm
    Mrs. Grose on the other hand has published lies in the News-Enterprise. Thus the veracity of any statements she makes should be questioned, and questioned deeply.

    Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Ivler can’t believe Mrs. Grose on anything because, in his opinion, she lied in a newspaper article. However, it was OK for Ivler to lie on his recll petition. That is why I won’t believe anything Ivler says.

  5. JM Ivler on January 18th, 2010 5:35 pm

    um, a document created by committee, but since I was the spokesperson for the group and did the paperwork and did not correct it, I’ll take full responsibility (which I believe I have done here before). Mrs. Grose has NEVER taken responsibility for the pack of lies she published in the News0-Enterprise.

    And Lisa, “well, well” is so unlike you.

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