He Votes His Own Way: How Dare He!

Maybe it’s because he’s a freshman councilman. Or maybe he’s under pressure at his day job at UC Irvine. Maybe he’s just plain kooky.

Whatever the reason, Mission Viejo Councilman Lance MacLean has exhibited a bizarre trait in his first few months in office: He’s voting his conscience, even when it has meant bucking the influential citizens group that helped get him elected.

It’s stretching it to say there’s a political storm brewing in Mission Viejo; let’s just say that into every idyllic glade some rain must fall.

And in recent weeks, a lot of the wet stuff landed on MacLean, a 45-year-old neophyte carried into office on the shoulders of a group called the Committee for Integrity in Government. But it hasn’t taken long for MacLean to rankle some of its members, even to the point where someone dropped the “R” word on him: recall.

Good grief, the man has barely warmed up his council chair.

It’d sell some newspapers to call MacLean battered and beleaguered and hanging by a thread, but he says things are getting better between him and some backers who wondered what the heck got into him once he got elected.

The flap started when MacLean abstained on one of the signal issues that helped get him elected: the citizens committee’s wish to have a new council majority reverse a decision to name various public facilities after council members.

Nor did MacLean support the committee’s wish to purge much of City Hall management in place under the previous council.

MacLean says he supports the name removal but wanted a more thorough review of the issue than his backers. And, he says, he didn’t think he had enough information to vote to fire City Manager Dan Joseph, so he’s supported hiring outside consultants to review his performance.

What has opened MacLean’s eyes is how quickly some of his support evaporated. “Various members [of the committee] have said various things,” he says. “One guy said I should be recalled. One kind of accused me of not carrying through with campaign promises. I’ve [received] some personal swipes.... I guess that’s to be expected in politics. I’m just a little surprised where it’s been coming from.”

Being a maverick can be a badge of honor. I ask if he considers himself one. “Actually, I don’t,” he says. “I was kind of floored I got the opposition I did.”

On Monday night, MacLean did it again. He was the lone dissenter on a vote to support President Bush and the anti-terrorism fight. An easy “yes” vote, but MacLean thought it had no place on the council’s legislative agenda, so he voted against it.

It’s not as though MacLean is picking a fight. In fact, he says, “I do understand how on the naming issue they [committee members] might have felt misled.” That’s because he voted to abstain more on a technicality than on the desired outcome.

But it signaled what has become a pattern: He won’t make the easy, politically expedient vote just to please people.

I ask if he’s worried about repercussions from the influential group. “Of course, I care,” he says. “A lot of these people I consider my friends.... I don’t like to be criticized, and when I am I try to take the personal-ness out of it and just listen, to see if I missed something.”

MacLean says a lot of hurt feelings have been soothed in the last two weeks. However, he lamented to one detractor that “I guess there are no friends in politics,” only enemies or allies.

I’m confused. I thought the group that backed MacLean called itself Citizens for Integrity in Government.

Sounds like they got just the right man.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.

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