Time for a City Hall casting call

There’s a hole. I’ve seen it. It’s about the size of a swivel chair

and big enough to fit one person. It’s in the Costa Mesa City Council

and it needs to be filled.

Late last month, Gov. Davis stepped out on a balcony high atop the

State Capitol and scanned the horizon with really big binoculars.

“Gover- nor,” said one of his aides, “what are you doing?”

“I need a judge,” said the governor. “Don’t bother me.”

He looked and he looked and he looked some more -- across the

state, high and low, inside and out, far and wide, all those things.

Finally, just before dark, his binoculars settled on Costa Mesa.

“Got one,” he said, stepping back inside. “Her name is Karen

Robinson.”

“She’s the Mayor of Costa Mesa, she’s smart, she’s a lawyer, it’s

perfect. Call her,” which they did, and that’s what made the hole.

When there is a hole in a council, the remaining council boys and

girls have three options: 1) Leave the hole alone; 2) Call a special

election; 3) Appoint someone to fill the hole.

Usually, option No. 1 is quickly discarded. The only time it’s

used is when you are left with an odd number of council members after

a hole is made. “Even” is a good thing on putting greens or runways,

but it’s a bad thing on city councils because it leads to endless tie

votes, which are the equivalent of “no” votes. It means nothing gets

done, which means everyone gets cranky and out-of-sorts and needs

Tums. I like the plain white ones because the fruit-flavored ones

leave a funny aftertaste.

Which reminds me, why do cannibals never eat clowns? They taste

funny.

Option No. 2 usually gets a lot of support early on, until people

find out what special elections cost and how many people vote in

them. In a city the size of Costa Mesa, a special election costs

about $30,000, and about 22 people vote in it, assuming it isn’t

raining.

And that, more often than not, is why city councils choose option

No. 3 -- appointment -- to fill the hole until the next general

election, which in this case, is 18 months away.

Is option 3 hard? It is not. I’ve done it. And anything I can do,

you can do too.

You thought I was going to say “Anything you can do, I can do

better” -- then give you some useless information about what it’s

from and who wrote it, didn’t you? Sometimes we get a little too sure

of ourselves, don’t we? (It’s from “Annie Get Your Gun,” music by

Irving Berlin, Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley. It opened at the

Imperial Theater on May 16, 1946. The 1950 movie version starred

Betty Hutton and Howard Keel.)

A little homework and a few carefully crafted questions should

tell the appointing council members what they need to know.

But just to be helpful, not that anyone asked, I’ve included two

questions I think any prospective council candidate should be able to

answer.

1) How long can you stay awake? It’s important. If you’ve ever

been to council meeting or watched one on TV, you might think they’re

really boring. They’re not. They’re really, really boring. And

sometimes they’re really long. During my tenure, the award for the

Longest Performance by a 6:30 p.m. Council Meeting went to a meeting

that ended at 6:35 a.m.. And yes, that’s “a.m.,” as in the next

morning.

Do you know what people look like when they’ve been in the same

meeting, in the same chairs, in the same clothes, for 12 hours? It

isn’t pretty. They’re all wrinkled and scrunched up and their eyes

droop and they talk in frog-voices. If you cannot stay awake, you

cannot govern. It’s the law.

2) Have you ever seen yourself on TV? This is critical. You may

not realize it, but council members have a number of TV monitors on

the dais to see what you’re seeing at home. When someone else is

talking, veteran council members learn to subtly check the monitors

to make sure they’re not in the background of the shot. It does not

speak well for the city to have you in the background yawning,

stretching, or performing oral surgery with a pencil to extract a

tomato seed from between your two back teeth.

But a new council member who has never seen him or herself on TV

is even more disaster-prone. This is a true story. The names have

been changed to protect the innocent and feed the rumor mill.

A brand new council member, whom we shall call “Newbie,” was

immersed in his or her first meeting, less than an hour after being

sworn in. Someone on the dais was speaking, which means they were on

camera, with Newbie in the background. I happened to be watching the

monitor when Newbie looked up and noticed his or her face in the

background on the screen.

Newbie was thunderstruck, and I can only assume, didn’t realize

that what was on screen was going out live, across the city.

Mesmerized, Newbie turned his or her head to one side, then the

other, primped a little here, straightened a little there.

Then Newbie, to my surprise, slid his or her chair closer to the

speaker’s to get a better view of his or her face, which was now

suspended just behind the speaker’s shoulder like a large, puzzled

balloon.

Finally, to my horror, Newbie started through another full set of

head turns and blemish checks. Mercifully, someone else asked for the

floor at that point and the monitor cut to a different shot.

So that’s it then.

Filling the hole is easy, if you ask the right questions.

Can you stay awake?

Have you ever seen yourself on TV?

And by any chance, do you know Newbie? I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].