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Venezia: Newport politicians gone wild

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Geez, I take one week off and local politics goes wild!

In Newport, Councilman Tony Petros announced he wouldn’t seek a second term.

Team Newport supporter Bob McCaffrey raised eligibility questions about candidate Jeff Herdman.

Someone’s spreading rumors that Newport candidate Mike Glenn wants to defund the military.

And in Costa Mesa, former Mayor Allan Mansoor finally declared his expected candidacy to return to council.

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Let’s start with the Glenn thing, because it’s truly bizarre.

Glenn is running for the District 5 seat in Newport, as is Herdman.

According to Glenn, phone surveyors are calling voters claiming he has a “radical agenda” and wants to “defund the U.S. military.”

Now, the City Council has no power to defund the military, and Glenn says the statement is simply untrue.

“I’ve been actively involved in volunteering for veteran events and organizations for years,” he tells me.

Glenn questioned some politicians and operatives to see if they were behind the calls. They said they weren’t.

And Herdman has McCaffrey nipping at him on the Forum page of the Daily Pilot. In this latest go around, McCaffrey is up at bat hitting Herdman with a complaint alleging that he isn’t eligible to run or serve on council.

There’s a city rule that says if you serve on the Civil Service Board, which Herdman does, you’re not eligible for any salaried employment with the city.

But is the $1,274 council members receive a salary or a stipend?

On July 5, Herdman’s political attorney, Mark S. Rosen, sent a letter to Newport City Clerk Leilani Brown stating, “Mr. Herdman’s opponents have created a phony argument that Mr. Herdman’s service on the Newport Beach Civil Service Board might make him ineligible.”

The letter asks the city attorney to issue an affirmative statement that Herdman is indeed OK to run. Over the last couple of years you’d need a score card to keep track of all the mud flying among these guys and Team Newport.

Herdman and his attorney say the dough part-time council members receive is a stipend, not a salary.

Herdman says up until this complaint he had no idea how much the stipend was, or that council members received health benefits.

He says if the health insurance become an issue, he certainly will decline it.

If he declined the stipend, this would all go away as well, but he’s ready to fight the notion that it’s a “salary.”

“When I got involved in this I was advised by a number of people that there will be attempts to dissuade me and harass me,” he says.

Herdman is more determined than ever, and says he’s received an outpouring of support.

Ironically, McCaffrey’s tactics could actually be helping Herdman.

Go figure: People might actually be standing up against dirty politics in this city.

But Petros apparently has had enough and is calling it quits.

I don’t blame him from stepping away from the cesspool we now call Newport politics to choose family and career over this nonsense.

In my book, Petros should’ve been mayor pro tem last year and mayor this year, yet the political wheeling and dealing of Team Newport and its handlers blocked that.

Talking with Petros Monday, he said the decision not to run wasn’t easy.

He called a few people he felt have “a love for this city, like I do,” to see if they’d be interested in running for his seat.

Unfortunately, there were no takers.

So how does Petros answer critics claiming he’s handing this election to the only remaining candidate so far, Shelly Henderson, a newcomer who calls Councilman Scott Peotter her mentor?

Petros says he won’t own that.

“I didn’t hand anything to anyone,” he says. “I made my decision based on my job and my priorities.”

So now what?

July 20 is the filing deadline to enter the race. It’s a little late for anyone to move into the district to run at this point, since they’d need to live there for 30 days prior to filing.

Glenn says rumors that he’s moving are untrue.

And not to be left out, Costa Mesa politics just got more interesting this week.

Former Assemblyman Allan Mansoor officially declared his candidacy for council in an already-crowded field for three seats. Last March, he hinted to me he was heading in that direction, so I wasn’t surprised.

And as council races heat up, so do plans for Feet to the Fire, where I’ll quiz the candidates at Orange Coast College.

On Aug. 17, Newport candidates face off, and Aug. 18, it’s Costa Mesa’s turn.

BARBARA VENEZIA lives in Newport Beach. She can be reached at bvontv1@gmail.com.

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