Speaking out

Costa Mesa City Councilman Chris Steel has attracted criticism over

his almost three-year term for wanting to eliminate illegal

immigrants, nonprofits and the Costa Mesa Job Center from the city.

Steel ran for City Council 10 times before winning in November 2000.

The Job Center consistently comes up at City Council meetings and

last came up on Monday. Councilman Allan Mansoor suggested that the

center be limited to Costa Mesa residents, but a 3-2 vote shut that

idea down. Steel was among the majority on that decision.

On Thursday, City Editor James Meier talked with Steel about the

Job Center, fireworks and other issues on the councilman’s mind.

I’m a very tolerant person, but what I’m intolerant about are the

unintended consequences of the biggest magnet in the city and that’s

the [Share Our Selves] charity. Well intended. Well run. Well

endowed. Well financed. It’s the unintended consequences of that

charity that are killing our school system and that can’t be denied.

And that’s not addressed and the [City] Council’s allowing it and

they know it. They don’t want to deal with it.

I’m very tolerant, but I’m intolerant of those consequences. I’m

not intolerant of individuals or anybody collectively regardless of

their ethnicity or where they’re born or their legal status. That’s

not the main issue. Those become an issue when you have these

conditions that don’t get addressed and then people get frustrated

and irritated.

Take [Newport Beach Councilman] Dick Nichols. I like Dick Nichols.

He’ll give you the shirt off his back. He didn’t have to come in and

help me when I had to move two years ago. I didn’t know the guy from

Adam. It was two years ago this time. He came up, brought a truck up,

brought his two sons up to help me move all of this big heavy

equipment into public storage, where it still exists. He didn’t have

to do that.

I know Dick Nichols is not a racist. He’s made some inappropriate

comments, yes, unfortunately, particularly the one against the

[Newport Beach] Planning Commission, which was unnecessary and that’s

what really got him into trouble. And this thing about the people in

the park, that was way overdone. I thought that [the Daily Pilot]

went way overboard on that and certainly the public did....

What really irritated me was [a newspaper] editorial said Chris

Steel wants to get rid of [Save Our Youth] and the Learning Center.

There’s no evidence of that. Never. That was never an issue or

question. I support them philosophically and financially. Those two

things....

[Racism] is not in my head. It never has been. If you knew about

my history, it’s not in my head, it’s not in my heart, it’s not in my

heritage. Quite the contrary. I’m very much aware of who my people

were and what they did and the charities they founded that are still

standing today: soup kitchens right out of their own homes; hospitals

still standing today in western Pennsylvania. I had nothing to do

with them. That was before me, but I’m very much mindful.

I’m not against charities. Never have been. I’m very much for

them. [Share Our Selves] charity is a good charity, per se, but

unfortunately, it’s exclusive here because no other city wants it. It

would be nice if every city had a small charity, but it’s killing

this city across the board. Unintentionally. The people that run the

charity are terrific.... But when [SOS] moved out to the Westside,

everything snowballed in the wrong direction. And they’ve been a

terrific problem here. Historic confrontations with past councils,

but the council just didn’t have three votes to remove them. I want

them removed to a central part of the county so that all the cities

can participate according to their population or their conditions

rather than Costa Mesa only. It’s the biggest charity in this county.

Free this, free that. Can’t blame these immigrants for coming here.

Don’t bash them for coming here. I would too. I don’t blame them.

So I don’t bash the charity, per se, and I don’t bash the

immigrants for coming here. I bash the City Council and I bash the

[Daily] Pilot for not pointing this out. I bash the Daily Pilot

editors, not necessarily the reporters. And I bash one of the

columnists.... He was very biased against me because I was

elected....

I’m not saying I’m perfect, you know, that I have all the answers,

but I do have certain convictions and I’ve been around for a while

and I’ve been following the issues and seeing these trends that were

going on. And I blame, again, the city councils past and present. And

I blame myself. I’m a scapegoat. I’ll scapegoat the council members,

but I’m a scapegoat too because I’ve failed to enlighten two

[council] members in the 2 1/2 years I’ve been on there to see the

light and change their opinion, their attitude....

I want to get rid of it or phase it out. That’s why I said, “Hey,

if you’re really serious about reducing the loitering, you can’t just

reduce the use of it to Costa Mesa dayworkers,” which I advocated a

year ago and they wouldn’t vote for it. Now they’re coming around to

it. “I said if you’re really serious, you’ve got to keep out the

outside businesses,” which is 50% of the use there.

[About] 30% of the overall use comes from Newport Beach. They

should have a Job Center. How are you going to provide any incentive

when you let them off the hook. So we should limit the use not to

just Costa Mesa dayworkers, because other dayworkers are coming in

and competing with ours and that’s wrong, but if you’re really

serious about this problem, if you really want to cut down on the

loitering, you need to limit the use of the outside business,

particularly Newport Beach. By doing that, that’ll put pressure on

them to have a Job Center....

Look at Newport Beach. They don’t have the problems we have

because their City Council’s smart. They don’t have problems in their

school. They will eventually if these trends continue because the

school board has to bus these kids citywide. It’s killing our local

schools where no immigrant families live for some sort of ridiculous

ethnic balance. They have no choice. Their hands are tied by 1982’s

U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 decision [on Plyler vs. Doe] that said that

all school boards in this country are obligated to educate everybody

There’s the other group on the far right or the far way out who are

so frustrated, who count up to three and can’t recognize and accept

the fact that I’m only one vote. They blast me for all of these

problems [in Costa Mesa]. I need three votes. I’m sorry. It takes

three to tango in this town. I don’t have it.

I thought I had the prospects of three votes this last time

around. My friend Eric Bever dropped out [of the running to be

appointed to fill former Mayor Karen Robinson’s open seat]. Now it’s

one thing to drop out because you don’t want to run, don’t have the

money or don’t have the time to serve or run through an election. But

it’s disastrous when you capitulate and turn it all over to the other

side. I mean there are philosophical differences there. You have an

election and fight this out and see what direction this city wants to

go. He denied us an election. I couldn’t get a second from anybody

for an election. I couldn’t get a second for an interim appointment.

[Councilman Gary] Monahan wouldn’t go with [former assistant city

attorney and former planning commissioner] Eleanor Egan, who would’ve

been excellent. An interim temporary appointment. She’s up to speed

on the issues. I thought I had a deal there. He called me beforehand

and I said here’s the solution: “Let’s try to break the deadlock. If

it doesn’t happen, let’s appoint an interim.” There was no question

of her intelligence or integrity. That was Eleanor Egan. I like Mike

Scheafer [who ended up being appointed]. He’s a good guy.

He see he wants to bring up fireworks. That’s another big

condition here: fireworks. Not the safe and sound ones. The illegal

ones; they’re the ones that are very loud and very dangerous and very

smoky. Now, if you get rid of the safe and sound fireworks, these

illegal fireworks are going to come right over the border and they’re

going to remain here. How are you going to deal with that? The only

way you’re going to deal with that and these other growing conditions

I’ve talked about....

But you need to go after the illegal fireworks. It’s really a

growing problem here and you can’t add more police. That’s not the

solution. You can’t throw more money at these problems. That’s not

the solution. That’s the ol’ liberal way. It doesn’t work. You need

to get to the source of these problems. You need to get this city

going in the right direction, particularly at schools, or you’re not

going to have a viable community here.

Some people were surprised when you voted against adding residency

restrictions to the Costa Mesa Job Center on Monday. Should they be?

No, if they looked at what I said, I said you need to provide

incentive for these other cities to have a job center and if you just

go with what [Councilman Allan Mansoor] was proposing and I asked him

right at the dais, “Look, you’re going to get people coming in here

who don’t live here and will further overcrowd us in our apartments”

and that’s what’s happening here.

Look at the Westside. All Gary Monahan and [Councilwoman] Libby

Cowan want to do is 19th Street. That’s cosmetics. They don’t want to

deal with the overall problem with the businesses and the apartment

complexes and those slumlords. They don’t want to hear about it.

That’s why they’re limiting [redevelopment] to 19th Street. They

don’t want to deal with it. Gary, because he doesn’t want to

interrupt his business friends. He wants that money. He doesn’t want

to interfere with these Newport businesses and cut off their access

to coming up here [for the Job Center]. He wants their donations. You

look at his campaign donations this last time around. Gary got a free

ride here. He’s not a conservative as he projects himself. He’s never

voted on a fiscal and social basis. He is no conservative ...

Unless you get to the root cause, you’re never going to have any

improvement in our schools. I’ve been saying that for years and I

hate to tell you I’ve been right. And if I’m wrong, I’ll be the first

to tell you. If that would have passed, with what Mansoor and Monahan

were voting, I’d hope it works. But that isn’t going to solve the

overall problem. That would just further entrench the Job Center and

it would be more difficult to get rid of it and none of these other

cities would have any incentive to have their own job center.