Official’s shot at Stanton hits his own foot instead

Isn’t it about time to get off San Clemente Councilman Wayne Eggleston’s back for the cheap shot he took at the city of Stanton? And his subsequent shot at this newspaper?

Absolutely not.

The man made two significant blunders, and we’re not through with you yet, mister.

The backdrop for Eggleston’s twin gaffes was Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona’s decision to demote Bill Hunt, a lieutenant who was running police operations in San Clemente when he unsuccessfully tried to unseat Carona last year. By most accounts, the city was miffed when Carona recently announced he was demoting Hunt and dispatching him to patrol duty in Stanton. Rather than take the demotion, Hunt resigned.

Eggleston stood by his man and then told a Times reporter: “I wouldn’t want to stop in Stanton, much less patrol it.”

You’re probably counting that as Mistake No. 1.

I’m not.

Sure, it was a cheap shot. But it was a good line. It played into a long-standing image of Stanton being a nondescript patch of urban ground in a county of picturesque beaches and canyons and trendy malls. And it addressed the point that it was Carona, in essence, who played the Stanton card as a way to rub Hunt’s nose in it.

Eggleston’s indignation was well-placed.

The first gaffe came when he disowned the line, claiming he’d been misquoted.

The first rule of comedy is that you never disavow a good gag line.

Eggleston followed up with a second goof. He wrote on a blog that not only had he been misquoted but that Times reporters, in general, can’t be trusted. He subsequently told the Orange County Register that what he really had told our reporter was “Lt. Hunt would find it difficult to patrol any other city, including Stanton, after he’s received such tremendous support in San Clemente.”

Pause for laughter.

Any discerning reader would agree that, yes, there appears to be some disparity in those two remarks. And yes, any reporter is capable of misquoting, but I’ll leave it to you to decide if even a seventh-grader writing for the school paper could be that far off the mark.

I’m left to conclude that rather than take his punishment like a man, Eggleston blamed it on a young reporter.

Now, let’s move on to the real issue: picking on Stanton.

It takes a punk to knock a community in print. I know, because I did it several years ago. When I referred to Stanton in 1998 as “The Gateway to Garden Grove,” I was trying to be cute. But, see, I was chiding Garden Grove, too.

Oh, never mind. The point is, it’s not Stanton’s fault it doesn’t lie on the coast or have hills. When Beach Boulevard is your defining landmark, there’s not a lot you can do. And if its own Adventure City isn’t Disneyland, well, what else is? And let’s not forget that one of its own councilmen, Al Ethans, suggested in 1997 that the city change its name to get a fresh start in the image department.

Ten years later, Ethans is still on the council but has changed his tune.

“That died real quick,” he says of the name-change idea. Nor would he think of reintroducing such a thing today.

“I don’t know if I can say it eloquently, but our city has come 180 degrees from 10 years ago,” Ethans says. “Our crime rate is down 72%, and we no longer are anywhere near the bottom” of county crime stats.

It’s a city of neighborhoods off the beaten path, but Ethans points to the new Renaissance Plaza near Lampson Avenue and Beach Boulevard that will combine town homes with commercial development.

Ethans has lived in Orange County since 1969 and moved to Stanton in 1980. He wasn’t well-versed in Stanton-bashing until he got involved in city government and saw, among other things, the crime statistics. “It takes a long time for any city to change its image, I suppose, and we’ve done a great job.”

I ask Ethans if the city has been defensive about its image. “It might have been at one time,” he says.

“But people are buying homes here; we’ve got 30 new businesses in town in the last year. We’re going in the right direction. I’m very proud to live in the city. The things that have happened to this city I wish could happen to other cities.”

We all like a feel-good story, and this will make you feel all squishy: Ethans says Eggleston apologized to Stanton officials and has been invited to visit. Ethans, as wise as a 77-year-old man ought to be, properly takes the whole thing for exactly what it was: “an unfortunate slip of the tongue.”

Too bad Eggleston panicked and initially ran for cover.

But now that he’s screwed on his courage, he’s just one apology away from making it all go away.

A private note to our reporter, whose reputation he impugned, probably would do the trick.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.