Analysis: Mayor Perpetuates Lie Against Nick

Andrew Hamilton and the rest of the Nick is Nuts campaign want to perpetuate a message in order to damage the credibility of Lake Forest City Council colleague Adam Nick. They are attempting to discredit Nick in an effort to shift the focus from the recall facing Mayor Hamilton and councilmen Scott Voigts and Dwight Robinson.

The most recent instance is a "newsletter" with sourcing straight out of the Weekly World News—you know, "unnamed insider says he saw Elvis with Bigfoot and space aliens"—that attempts to defame Nick from Page 1 to Page 4. It's over-the-top laughable and paid for by Nick Is Nuts, A Committee Opposing the Recall of Mayor Hamilton, Councilmembers Voigts and Robinson 2016. If this is what passes for telling the truth to the residents who elected them, the recall can't happen soon enough. You may not agree with your elected officials, but they should never lie to you, but that's what's happening here.

They want to blame Nick for the recall because they are apparently unable or unwilling to refute the claims leveled against them by the activists rising out of Portola Hills. One of those messages is the droning on of Nick being charged with stealing campaign signs during the last election.

It’s true that he was charged—up until the facts came out. Nick never spent any time in court. He didn’t have to defend himself in front of a jury of his peers. It was a glorified misunderstanding that was made worse by some errant reporting of Deputy District Attorney Jess Rodriguez’s quotes by media City News Service.

It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last time, a reporter misquotes someone. It happens. Likely an honest mistake, but a mistake nevertheless – and one that wouldn’t have been found out if Nick hadn’t sued the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for defamation and slander.

Once it became apparent that Rodriguez, who had brought the charges, had been misquoted and he then set the record straight in writing, Nick requested the court dismiss his civil suit and do so "with prejudice." Nick said he was completely satisfied with the result and he would not re-introduce the suit.

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It’s fair to say that Hamilton’s message, often in social media, about the stolen signs has some traction; his point is to get the community to accept that Nick was guilty of stealing signs; that’s the only reason he would not include, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.” He wants to inflict damage. Throw something against the wall and see what sticks. You can’t un-ring the bell.

Yet in a joint statement signed by Nick and Rodriguez, the following is clear (and quoted exactly):

• Mr. Nick never admitted to the commission of any crime, did not enter a plea of guilty or no contest for any charge, and he has not been convicted of any criminal act.
• After the dismissal of the charges, Mr. Rodriguez communicated the matter to a news service agency. Regrettably, some of Mr. Rodriguez’s statements were misinterpreted, and the resulting headlines portrayed Mr. Nick as admitting to theft and attributing to Mr. Rodriguez innuendoes that suggested that Mr. Nick had admitted to the commission of a crime.

• Upon hearing of the incorrect news, Mr. Rodriguez promptly contacted the news service agency in writing to correct the inaccurate reporting and he apologized on at least two occasions for any confusion.

Yet many people are under the errant belief that Nick stole the signs, largely because people like Mayor Hamilton are perpetuating the story. Mayor Pro Tem Scott Voigts wore a wire on behalf of law enforcement in an attempt to record Nick admitting to the theft but rolled away empty-handed. Voigts even denied wearing a wire from the council dais to a chamber full of residents; he only admitted his participation when physical evidence surfaced. Their desperation to try to make this stick is amazing.

Surveillance tapes at Nick’s gas station show then-council candidate Jim Gardner, on Oct. 6, 2014, dropping off about 10 signs with one of Nick’s employees at about 5 p.m., and at about 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, the employee at Nick’s request placing them in the backseat of Nick’s car in plain sight. The signs had been placed illegally in the Lake Forest 1 homeowners association and had been removed by Gardner, who dropped them off with the intention of Nick taking them to City Hall.

The only signs Nick had direct involvement in removing were those observed by an Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy on Oct. 9. In a spur of the moment decision, Nick directed his passenger—who was not charged—to remove three signs, one each for Voigts, Hamilton and Municipal Water District candidate Jose Vergara because they were placed illegally at the intersection of Bake and Trabuco.

According to California law, illegally placed signs have no legal protection and are considered a nuisance and abandoned property; they are subject to removal by anyone.

Nick is the candidate who spearheaded the city’s sign ordinance that would level the playing field for candidates who were not incumbents, an ordinance that actually benefited Hamilton, who was not an incumbent councilman.

Neither Nick nor Gardner were stealing campaign signs, they were removing blight and improving sight lines at intersections. Imagine the lawsuit resulting from campaign signs that obstruct a traffic sight line that leads to a tragedy?

Voigts has been notorious for placing his signs before legally allowable and then letting his signs rot on the streets long after the election ends. I’ve never seen a candidate who cared less about retrieving his signs once the election was over, even though the municipal code stipulates they must be picked up within 10 days. I looked at a Voigts sign near my home for more than a month after the 2014 election. Voigts is terrible at removing his signs.

But Voigts is also terrible at placing his signs. The so-called “stolen signs” should never have been posted where they were in the first place. They’re not supposed to be at intersections, on light poles or street signs. The campaign signs that were removed were illegally placed signs in violation of city codes.

No one has ever suggested Nick and his accomplice removed legally placed signs.

It’s convenient for Hamilton, who basically ran alongside the incumbent Voigts in the last election, to dismiss Voigts’ initial transgression that caused the mess in the first place. To my knowledge, Voigts has served no punishment for violating these local codes, other than what has been written about in a way that often makes him appear the victim—which he is not.

By being illegally placed, Voigts’ signs were nothing more than litter. If Voigts himself took one of his campaign signs and noticed one of them was blemished and unworthy of being posted and threw it into the street and Nick came along and picked up the trash, who would be at fault: The guy littering, or the guy picking it up and having a “stolen” sign in his backseat?

Hamilton, Voigts, Robinson and their supporters are perpetrating a lie on the constituents who are supposed to be able to trust every word they say. Instead, these three elected officials are disseminating a deceitful half-truth. Made worse is that the councilmen know the full story: The charges were dropped. But in order to shape public opinion about Nick, only the information that charges were filed comes out of their mouths or off their fingertips.

About the author: Martin Henderson won several Los Angeles and Orange County press club awards while an editor at Patch in 2012-13.

Photos of illegally placed signs by Scott Voigts in the 2014 election.