Council recognizes Mission Viejo's Michael Block with Hometown Hero Award
The City Council on Tuesday recognized resident Michael Block with the City’s Hometown Hero Award and passed items designed to benefit this community.
Established in 1996, the Hometown Hero Award identifies and recognizes folks whose noble qualities and personal achievements make them heroes worthy of our admiration. Michael Block has certainly garnered the admiration of many throughout the nation when he made history at the May 2023 PGA Championship with a hole-in-one during the final round. Michael, who is a PGA club pro and instructor at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club, became the first PGA club pro to make a hole-in-one at the PGA Championship since George Bowman in 1996. He went on to finish the tournament in a tie for 15th place at 1-over par. Michael has made the cut five times while competing in 25 PGA events dating back 16 years. Along with the City award, Michael received a congressional recognition from Congresswoman Young Kim and an American flag that has flown over the United States Capitol.
In addition to the Hometown Hero Award, Council Members honored the volunteers who are the lifeblood of the Mission Viejo Animal Services Center. These amazing volunteers are essential to the center’s operations, and the City appreciates their vast contributions.
In other news, the Council unanimously passed the Objective Design Standards Phase 1, which will provide a set of clear, objective, and measurable design standards to potential developers of multi-family residential and mixed-use projects to ensure that structures feature high-quality designs that maintain the architectural character of the City.
The Council also passed items regarding feasibility studies to research private and public financing sources for possible construction of a parking structure to serve the Marguerite Recreation Center, Oso Creek Golf Course, Oso Creek Trailhead as well as a performing arts theater.
Council meetings are traditionally dark for a portion of every summer, so the next meeting takes place on Tuesday, August 22. Meetings are streamed live on the City’s website and air on Cox Channel 30 and AT&T U-Verse Channel 99. Residents are encouraged to sign up for the City's eNewsletter and follow the City's official social media sites for the most accurate, up-to-date information.
Comments
It is so wonderful to hear…
It is so wonderful to hear that the city council honored the Mission Viejo Animal Services Center volunteers and Michael Block. Our city has so much to be proud of!!
Michael’s accomplishment was…
Michael’s accomplishment was truly awesome to witness. I Marshall at Tijeras Creek and have never met him. I wish him nothing but the best. He represented our community in a grand fashion. Very proud of him.
Among many of the talents of…
Among many of the talents of our Mission Viejo citizens, young and old, we are a family-oriented community centered around sports.
We are proud of our Olympic heritage. We are proud of our high school athletes who are CIF champs, and OUR little leaguers who have brought home trophies. But we are also proud of all of OUR hometown athletes who play their best game, from archery to wrestling and everything in between, who put forth their best effort but did not win, then rally around each other and congratulate their opponents. Playing sports is most certainly an important part in developing life skills.
Mayor Brian Goodell, who is an Olympian, has declared that sports tourism is a major economic driver for our City. What is that statement based on? There is certainly not any evidence of that, as shown by the December 2022 list of the Top 25 Sales Tax Producers.
When the City hosted the International ITF/Uniqlo wheelchair tennis tournaments, $55,000 in seed money grew to about $250,000 in community funding. Please read my City Council Comments for October 6, 2014, Item #20, especially Exhibit # 4.
Prior to that, on February 17, 2014, Item #20, I had also requested an independent investigation to access financial accountability . You can find both of my reports here: https://dms.cityofmissionviejo.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings
What was the economic gain for our treasury when we hosted the athletes from Spain and Indonesia for the 2015 Special Olympics World Games Los Angeles?
These are all noble international events, and the athletes enjoyed their time with us. And it was certainly enjoyable interacting with them. But why are we not reaching out to OUR American athletes?
And now, using our City tax dollars, Goodell and a consultant are again taking a second $10,000 overseas trip to promote Mission Viejo as a base for Olympic training.
It is my opinion that the first duty of our city council is to represent the best interest of OUR residents.
And when it comes to spending out tax dollars - we need clarity and transparency. After the purchase of the golf course, the City off-loaded its street sweeping contract into our trash bills. In creating the 2023-2025 budget, there was a $5 million shortfall. Consequently, park and landscape improvements have been severely cut back.
The council needs to ensure the public that expenditures of our tax dollars are for a public purpose. And if the public purpose is to promote sports tourism that brings in "lots of revenue into our City", please demonstrate how that will be tracked and documented.
If the City does becomes an Olympic host for the ONOC countries and to prevent another financial fiasco that occurred with the wheelchair tennis tournaments, this Council needs to guarantee to the public that financial controls will be put into place; financial policies will be adhered to; expenditures will be tracked and reported instantly and publicly to the Council; that all sources of revenue be accounted for and that public funds will be expended for a definable public benefit.
Additionally, what will the public reaction be when it learns that Brian Goodell has cued up about $2 million in consultants' fees to build a 4 level parking garage next to the golf course with a lounge and locker room for staff along with a pickleball court stadium, which will be used as the hook to generate public approval?
I am aware that the city attorney reviews my posts for "accuracy", so city staffers, I invite your comments to add further context to my positions.
Here is more information…
Here is more information about the parking garage structure that city hall wants you to remain blissfully ignorant from.
So, please educate yourself. Here are the links to the public record showing how we got here. What is missing from the process was how the parking garage was moved to the head of the line. We know who did it (Goodell) and we can guess why (Nadadores).
Here is the link for the award of the Golf Course and Open Space Vision Plan to MR-PROFun. Because of Covid, council chambers were closed to the public.
07/14/2020 council agenda, Item # 21: https://dms.cityofmissionviejo.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeet…
Here are the links to the Virtual Workshops for the Golf Course and Open Space Vision Plan. These workshops were even more controlled than the 2017 civic core area vision workshops. If you take the time to watch the 90 minute dog and pony shows, you will be scratching your head on how in the world did the 07/27/2021 presentation develop the ideas of hotels and a natatorium from the 03/11/2021 workshop.
03/11/2021 workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM0IohH-PCg
07/27/2021 workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjPKe-amZ7w
Now fast forward to the council meeting for the Oso Creek Golf Course and Open Space Vision Plan held on 11/09/2021, Item #16:
https://dms.cityofmissionviejo.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeet…
Here is the link to the11/09/2021 video, scroll down to Item #16: https://missionviejo.granicus.com/player/clip/2188?view_id=12&redirect=…
Here is the link to the 11/09/2021 Minutes - please note the "No" vote from Goodell. A year and a half later, the council supported his No vote by accepting the parking garage moving ahead of short term projects: https://missionviejo.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=missionviejo_…
From the Minutes of the 03/28/2023 council meeting - this was the first public "quiet" notice that the parking garage was being fast-tracked: "Mayor Goodell asked if we should put money aside of approximately $300,000 for the Vision Plan for the Oso Creek Golf Course. He asked if Council Member Ruesch would amend his motion."
Then at the 07/11/2023 council meeting, the public was blindsided with the introduction of a $15 million 4 story parking garage with a pickleball stadium that was NEVER part of the vision plan. The project is being run by a non-bid contract from PRES. As you may remember, PRES was the original purchaser of the golf course. They backed out of the deal and inserted Mission Viejo into the escrow. What is the relationship between Brian Goodell and PRES?
Here is the link to the 07/11/2023 council meeting agenda,open Item # 21:
https://dms.cityofmissionviejo.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeet…
Here is the link from the 07/05/2023 PRES proposal: https://dms.cityofmissionviejo.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Documents/ViewDoc…
Here are the links to ALL of the council and city committee meetings:
https://missionviejo.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=12
https://dms.cityofmissionviejo.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings
Don’t let special interest insert itself into our City. We get better government through public participation. Your voice is needed to stop the city council from exploiting the public process for its own advantage, and against the public good.
