Ready to give an equal, full-time effort

Deirdre Newman

Michael Clifford wants to devote all of his time to being a city

councilman.

The candidate has taken time off from working to run for the

council and would treat the position as people treat their day jobs,

he said.

“I’m going to work at it as a full-time job, a couple hours a

night -- not [just] Monday nights twice a month,” he said. “People

will call. I will return their calls. I’m also available to go places

and do things, even if other City Council members who have jobs are

too busy to do something.”

Clifford was born in Quincy, Ill. His family moved to the Balboa

Peninsula when he was in high school, but he preferred going to

school in Illinois and lived with his grandparents until he

graduated. The year he graduated, he joined the Marines.

“My uncle was a Marine, and the Vietnam War was going on, and I

knew I’d have to go anyway,” he said. “I didn’t want to get drafted

into the Army. I wanted to go in where I wanted to go in. The Marine

Corps is supposed to be the best training.”

Because of his electronics aptitude, he was assigned to

electronics school instead of being placed in the infantry.

“I was a computer repairman way back in 1966,” he said. “There was

a whole room of computers, and it had less ability than a laptop does

now.”

In Vietnam, even though he wasn’t on the front lines, he had to

deal with the threat of snipers and mortar blasts, he said. That

harrowing experience enables him to empathize with policemen, whom

Clifford believes deserve higher salaries.

“The stress they have on the street is similar to what I had over

there -- every day you never know,” he said. “That’s one reason I’m

running, because I don’t like the way [city officials] do the budget.

I have nothing against the arts, but I’d rather have safe streets

than pretty pictures.”

He moved to Costa Mesa in 1972 to be closer to his girlfriend at

the time, who became his wife three years later. Both he and his wife

enjoy the perks of living in the city.

“To me, it has the best of both worlds -- it’s close to the beach,

but you don’t have the beach problems, but you have the beach

weather,” he said. “My wife’s from England. I told her I wouldn’t

even mind moving there after I retired, but she doesn’t want to leave

the beach.”

He first ran for City Council in 2000. This time around, the

city’s budget is one of his main talking points since he picked up a

copy of it in August.

“That’s a very thick, complex document,” he said. “If you’re

working full-time and trying to squeeze in enough time to go over and

review it, I don’t see how that’s possible.”

And he doesn’t mince words on how he feels about the council’s

handling of financial issues this year, like its waiving of $660,000

in traffic-impact fees for the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s

development of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, which

resulted in a city shortfall of more than $1 million for a major

freeway access project.

“They say we don’t have enough money to give a raise to our police

department or fire department or pay them benefits, but we can afford

to give, literally, millions of dollars away to large corporations,”

he said. “Like they need it? And we don’t need it for our police

department and fire department and to fix our roads and streets and

to fix our everyday problems. It seems like they’re so involved in

looking good and making a show that they aren’t really concerned with

the everyday person at all.”

He is concerned about all residents, he said.

“I have a real, genuine concern for Costa Mesa and all of its

residents -- not just a select few,” he said. “I have no prejudices

against or for any certain classes or people. I’m a strong Christian

and believe everybody has equal rights.”