Politics & Government

Hrabik Bows Out, Beall Asks the Tough Questions

Mayor asks Safranski about his connection to Coto de Caza annexation attempts in the 1990s, Whittingham about conflicts of interest.

The second round of interviews for the vacant City Council seat began Tuesday with a bombshell as Rancho Santa Margarita took another step toward trying to find a fifth councilman, one to succeed Gary Thompson.

Kenny Hrabik, owner of the Dove Canyon Courtyard, withdrew his name from consideration and then advised the three councilmen on the dais to select Michael Safranski.

That adds another dynamic to the regular City Council meeting scheduled for tonight, 7 p.m., at City Hall when Mayor Tony Beall, Jerry Holloway and Steve Baric are expected to choose their new colleague. When they and Jesse Petrilla voted April 17, Carol Gamble was the No. 1 choice on two ballots, and Safranski was the No. 2 choice on three. Will there be consensus, or has the landscape completely changed?

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Hrabik had been one of the four on the so-called short-short list, along with Gamble, Safranski and Peter Whittingham, based on weighted scoring and each councilman ranking his top three candidates. The other two were Brad McGirr and Curt Stanley.

The special meeting Tuesday was called so that councilmen had a second opportunity to interview candidates. It was especially important to Beall, an attorney by trade, who missed the interviews of the first set of six candidates among the 12 who were interviewed initially. He was the only one who asked questions Tuesday.

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Hrabik, at the April 17 meeting, was the No. 1 choice of Councilman Jesse Petrilla, who is training in Fort Knox, KY. However, on Saturday, Petrilla announced that he would not participate in the vote because he could not find the time to break away from his training with the California National Guard. Hrabik was the No. 3 choice of Holloway and Baric.

Safranski, president of the board of the Trabuco Canyon Water District, had second-place votes on three lists but was missing from Beall’s.

On Tuesday, Beall questioned him about the annexation of Coto de Caza, the "supercity" movement of the mid-1990s, and the Plano Trabuco Working Group (PTWG) of which Safranski was a part.

There has been a clear underlying sentiment of the council throughout the process: No Coto annexation. The council adopted a resolution stating its stance last summer.

Beall appeared to be trying to determine Safranski's support of annexation of Coto de Caza prior to RSM cityhood. Safranski indicated that since "about 1998" he has been opposed to Coto annexation.

"I took that as a personal attack," Safranski said afterward of Beall's questioning. "He didn't have his facts straight. Somehow in this whole blog process, I’ve become the poster child for the annexation of Coto when in fact I’ve actually been the opposite."

The PTWG included plans for Coto annexation until at least the spring of 1999, when the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) dismissed its viability, and if Safranski wasn't part of the support of Coto annexation, he was intimately close to it.

Safranski wrote a Nov. 26, 1997 letter to the editor of the Rancho Santa Margarita News in which he acknowledged Coto's involvement with the PTWG and explained the group's purpose.

“The PTWG is focused on researching the best long term solution for the entire community,” Safranski wrote. “Our definition of ‘community’ has always considered how we live together, how our children play sports and attend school together, how we shop and worship together and how we work together. We have not constrained this definition by developer established boundaries. ... Hopefully the final chapter in this book will be the establishment of a new city that meets the needs of our entire 'community.' ”

After the meeting on Tuesday, Safranski repeated something he had said in the first round of interviews.

"For someone to step up and say we’re never going to do something, it comes down to the three things I mentioned when I first spoke to this," he said. "The people of Rancho have to want it, the people of Coto have to want it, and it has to make financial sense. If those three things happen, how can a council sit there and not consider it?"

Safranski said he took from the interview that "Mayor Beall clearly doesn't trust my judgment, and there's just a lack of trust there ... and it's unfortunate, because I'm pretty much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy," he said.

If selected, Safranski said, the exchange with Beall wouldn't impact his ability to work with him. "I'm not a vindictive person, I'm pretty straightforward," he said. "I'm not going to take abuse but I'll listen to reasonable people. I can pretty much work with anybody.

"My goal is to work in a collaborative fashion. They have to have respect and trust, and, frankly, I think we've seen a lack of trust in that council and that's how we've gotten to where we are today in terms of this prolonged process. How do you get four people to agree on one person out of 21 people?"

Although Safranski saved his comments about Beall for after the meeting, Hrabik ripped into the mayor and the council during his opening—and closing—statement.

He was critical of Beall for calling for a 10-minute break in the April 17 meeting that stretched to "45 minutes" and asked if there was a backroom discussion in violation of the Brown Act during that period; he criticized Beall for having predetermined his candidate of choice since early March, and for not conducting interviews when he had the opportunity with all four councilmen present (Petrilla via teleconference). He also suggested it was silly to think that a councilman such as Holloway would sell his vote for a $100 campaign donation.

"We need to bring back the public trust," Hrabik read from a prepared statement. "Who is the best candidate today that can build public trust, that can unite the council and that will show this community this two-month journey was a fair process? Mike Safranski. He was the only other candidate besides myself found on three councilmen's short list.

"No councilman's vote should carry more weight than another's vote. He should fill this seat until November 2012 at no expense to the taxpayers. At that time the public will decide if he should retain this seat. With that being said, respectfully I am withdrawing my name from consideration."

At least two applicants, Safranski and Brad McGirr, said they were disappointed Hrabik withdrew. "He's a business person, and I think he deserved to be considered," McGirr said.

After Hrabik and Safranski left the podium, Beall queried Curt Stanley on his budget experience and asked to clarify his stance on Coto annexation. Stanley was Beall's third choice when the councilmen voted Sunday.

Stanley, a businessman and popular figure at community events, indicated that in his role as an executive dealing with a $99-million budget, he dealt more with the creation than implementation of the budget, although he did both. "I was executive VP of sales and marketing so I had to come with a number I felt confident we would generate," he said.

The first major role of the new councilman will be to develop the budget over the next six weeks.

Whittingham is a vice president for Curt Pringle and Associates, a public affairs, public relations, government relations firm that helps clients navigate their way through city or government bureaucracy. He said he understood there could be instances in which there was a conflict of interest, and that he would recuse himself of voting on such items if they involved Rancho Santa Margarita.  He noted that in more than a decade he had never dealt with a client in RSM.

Whittingham, who was appointed to the Planning Commission by Baric, was also asked by Beall about his vision for the future of RSM, and how it might be different from the how the City Council has governed throughout its history.

"The goal of the city should be to attract businesses to the storefronts as well as the industrial areas in the city," he said. "The vision for the city is not so much the property of the council, but the residents. The residents every two years get to voice their opinion. This is a unique process over the last 55 days where you've had some interesting discourse. Unfortunately,  we've seen some very disparate sides drawn up, and it's unfortunate, but it's the democratic process.

"When this is concluded and there's a fifth council member appointed, the residents will be able to once again focus on that vision and all the interaction they have with you and share what it is that means the most to them."

McGirr, who is Beall's appointment to the Planning Commission, wasn't asked any questions. He used the opportunity to address where RSM would be in 10 years, and spoke of "four legs to this table": public safety, annexation, revenue/jobs and community involvement.

He spent a lot of time on jobs, suggesting a golden opportunity to modify the business park and said Chiquita Ridge could be developed to not only support the proposed sports park "but support the city—a revenue engine."

"We can make that a jewel," he said, "but we can also totally mess it up."

McGirr also said the city needed a business outreach group whose sole purpose was to "grab businesses by the throat and bring them here," and that community involvement was absolutely necessary. He suggested youth organizations have a say in the development of Chiquita Ridge. He also recommended the promotion of programs such as Zero Trash, a monthly trash pickup project that has been successful in Laguna Beach for the price of a business purchasing coffee and donuts for volunteers.

Gamble, who was the preferred choice of Beall and Holloway but was not on the lists of Baric and Petrilla, was not asked any questions either.

She told of having to replace a departing council member in her first month as mayor in 2001 and being locked in a 2-2 deadlock and spoke of the difficulty of making everyone happy.

"I was a volunteer. I'm once again volunteering," said Gamble, a businesswoman who served on City Council from 2000-04 before resigning to care for her parents. "Should my qualifications and experience continue to be of pleasure to the majority of the council, I'd be very happy to serve. I think council will serve themselves well, and the community, by recognizing that five people aren't always going to come to an agreement. Three people won't either, and it's OK, because all of you have the very best intentions for the city, which is what made it possible for me to resign when I had to. I knew the city would be in capable hands, and it remains in capable hands."

McGirr said after the meeting that he was disappointed that he didn't get at least one question from Holloway, who had asked candidates previously about the hardest decision they had made.

"I wanted to say, 'What’s the hardest part of being a father, or setting a lineup for your baseball team?' " McGirr said. "The hardest part of any job is to do the right thing, to look your kid in the eye and say I know this isn't going to make my kid happy but this is what I’m going to do. It’s the same thing here. When you're sitting up there ... you're going to anger people. That’s the hardest part. To look your neighbor in the eye, see a neighbor in the second row pushing some agenda, and say no, or yes to the other side. That’s the hard part of the job.

"Whoever they end up picking, that’s what they have to understand. There are slings and arrows that are going to come with it, and you have to be willing to suffer the slings and arrows."

Wednesday night, Beall, Holloway and Baric will try to do the right thing. No doubt, there will be slings and arrows, too.


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