Mission Viejo Council Calls Truce on Infighting

Mission Viejo’s City Council, whose members have been bickering for months, agreed this week to set aside differences and focus on team-building.

“We swore to serve our community, and I’m not sure we are doing that,” Mayor William S. Craycraft said at Tuesday night’s council session.

Council colleagues and other officials criticized Councilman John Paul Ledesma earlier this year for having city staff members compile a list of businesses that have contracts with the city, then inviting representatives of those companies to a political fund-raiser. Ledesma acknowledged using the information for a mailing but said he requested it to review the city’s bidding process.

City Manager Dan Joseph said Monday that one city staffer worked six hours and two other employees an hour each to compile the list for Ledesma in March.

State law prohibits elected officials from using public resources for political purposes. City officials have said they received phone calls from a number of companies asking about Ledesma’s mailer and wondering how they should respond.

In a separate incident, Councilwoman Gail Reavis drew criticism for meeting in March with two executives from Mission Viejo-based developer Mammoth Equities regarding a temporary occupancy permit for a new office building at El Toro Road and Marguerite Parkway. At the time, the developer had yet to complete required landscape work and had not paid a $490,000 bond that had been set by the city five months earlier, Joseph said in a report to the council.

Craycraft and Councilwomen Susan Withrow and Sherri M. Butterfield have accused Reavis of using her position to persuade city staff to lower the bond amount to $230,000 and approve the permit. The permit was issued the same day Reavis met with the executives, who said the councilwoman acted as a mediator between the company and the city’s staff. Mammoth Equities officials also said the delay in finishing the work was due to “erroneous actions by the staff” and an unreasonably high bond amount.

Reavis on Monday denied pressuring the city staff to do anything.

“There seems to be an attempt to leave a lingering bad taste in everyone’s mouth that something went wrong, but nothing went wrong,” Reavis said.

The council majority initially considered issuing memos in response to the Ledesma and Reavis situations.

After hearing from several residents who accused the council of conducting a witch hunt, the members decided to call a truce.

“The public would be quite pleased if we focus on the issues,” Craycraft said.