Westminster is in a deep financial hole, but City Council members seem more interested in fighting with each other over inconsequential and symbolic matters. In long and grueling hours-long council meetings, members hurl insults, investigate one another over land transactions and squabble over allegations made on Vietnamese-language TV.
For outside observers, it’s hard to understand the nature of the squabbles and keep track of shifting allegiances, but the City Council needs to stop treating the management of the 91,000-population city like a high-school drama club and take seriously their responsibilities. The fracas is shameful.
“(T)he war of words at Westminster city meetings routinely unfold like a reality TV show,” wrote the Register’s Susan Christian Goulding, a reporter with the unenviable task of covering the feuds. “How much longer can this spectacle endure, all to the backdrop of a looming financial cliff that seems almost an afterthought?”
That is the $19-million question – that being the size of the deficit the city will face by 2024-2025. As members fight over a proposed Quang Tri Monument commemorating a Vietnam War battle from 50 years ago and censure a councilman for using the word “crap,” this budget mess continues to unfold.
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It’s hard to stay focused on budgets, sales tax proposals, the provision of public services and pension liabilities when council members are busy censuring one another or fighting attempted recall efforts. Consider some top news stories about the city from the past few months. There’s a leadership vacuum as city staff head for the exits.
In late October, some City Council members called “for public employees at City Hall to come forward about allegedly being unduly influenced by elected officials or enduring a hostile work environment,” as the VoiceofOC reported. Even the debates over legitimate issues – such as the plan to redevelop the Civic Center – have an ad hominem bent.
Ultimately, it’s up to Westminster’s voters to decide that they’ve had enough of what the Register refers to as a “comedy or tragedy” and elect council members who will place the city’s needs above their own personal vendettas.