MISSION VIEJO : Rally Features Recall Speeches, Hot Dogs

In between munching hot dogs and popcorn at a noontime rally Thursday, about 150 Mission Viejo Co. employees heard speakers from a pro-recall group call for help in unseating Councilman Robert A. Curtis.

Eating lunch in a movie theater rented by the development company, which has spent $267,000 so far to try to topple Curtis, the workers were urged to lend a hand as the campaign heads into its final week.

“We’ve got to stop Curtis,” said Phil Brusten of the Alliance for Mission Viejo, the citizen group backing the recall. “It’s up to you, the people who will run the city, to stop him.”

The rally was organized by the Mission Viejo Co., which invited members of the alliance to speak about recall issues. As the Tuesday recall election draws closer, both sides are involved in a flurry of last-minute activities.

Helen Monroe, leader of the alliance and a speaker Thursday, won’t say what the recall group has planned for the campaign’s final weekend, but in the last week $213,000 in late contributions has been reported by the group.

To date, about $470,000 has been spent to recall Curtis. The councilman has raised just $39,000 to defend his seat on the council.

Curtis’ supporters, who staged a counterdemonstration a block away from the movie theater Thursday, plan to hold at least two rallies before the recall election.

“I’m here because the influence of the Mission Viejo Co. is just an abuse of the right to hold a recall election,” said David Plotkin, who said he has never met Curtis. “A recall should only be used if somebody is doing something really illegal and not for political purposes.”

Both groups say they will flood the city with mailers over the weekend.

During the Mission Viejo Co. rally, Brusten called Curtis a power monger who attempted to grab political support through failed efforts to annex Aegean Hills, a community of 7,000 people next to Mission Viejo.

Two previously neutral members of the Mission Viejo City Council also became involved in the recall issue Thursday.

Councilman Norman P. Murray attended the rally and said afterward: “I couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer. I am for the recall.”

About an hour later at a press conference, Mayor Christian W. Keena disclosed that the Mission Viejo Co. has agreed to new concessions in a city development agreement. Curtis, who has been critical of the agreement, said Keena deliberately made the announcement to damage him before the election.