Counterpoint: A Response to Don Stoll's 'Abuse of Recall,' Part 3

Andrew Hamilton is the Lake Forest city councilman who you can't trust in a private conversation without fear of being secretly recorded. He is the elected leader being protected by Lake Forest Civility - No Hamilton Recall. Don Stoll, a well-respected retired coach and teacher at El Toro High, is the point person for this movement, which is trying to prevent residents from supporting a recall of Hamilton. Knowing Stoll by reputation, I can only imagine he has been duped to take on this task and employ a deceptive strategy to scare residents away from an active democracy.

Stoll, who's had a lifetime of influencing kids for the betterment of the community, reached out to the community with a blog titled "Abuse of Recall Process in Lake Forest." Is it an abuse when residents choose to initiate action to rectify the wrongs that have been done to them in the political arena? If Scott Voigts, Dwight Robinson and Hamilton had fulfilled their campaign promises and represented the will of the people, perhaps residents wouldn't have a credible argument. But the so-called Gang of 3, who voted in lockstep on practically every City item that wasn't a unanimous over the past two years, have repeatedly failed the residents. Robinson, who didn't even bring a single one of his 2012 campaign endorsements before the Council for consideration, received the unwarranted endorsements of four County superintendents, political organizations, and the Orange County Register in the 2016 election; yet he was reelected by a mere 99 votes over Adam Nick, the subject of a yearlong smear campaign. Robinson lost to Nick's ideological partner, Leah Basile, by 3,928 votes, so it's reasonable to think the smear campaign built on lies and deception made the difference. When the smear campaign attached to the 2016 recall was over and the votes had been counted, Robinson even admitted the content was "over the top."

Hamilton stood behind much of the smearing that was taking place, providing finances and editorial content that was neither civil nor fair -- the two traits Stoll says were the focus of his teaching and coaching over 31 years at El Toro.

Some of the lies and deception told by Stoll and Lake Forest Civility are explained and disproven in Part 1 of my response. The unethical behavior of Hamilton is explained in Part 2, along with an explanation of the Orange County Register's opposition to the recall and, using the Register's very words that Stoll quoted, why Hamilton should be removed from office immediately. As well, I explained the removal of Hamilton could potentially save the City far more money -- in the millions -- than it will cost to have a recall election.

QUESTIONS OF CREDIBILITY

By defending Hamilton and opposing the recall, Stoll is either endorsing that behavior -- behavior which would get him fired as a high school coach if those were his actions on campus -- or he has been duped by the campaign of deceit. Yet over the past 18 months, Hamilton has been awash in unethical behavior, which Stoll is either ignorant of, or has ignored.

As a coach committed to teaching students and athletes civility and fair play, his stance on this is a departure from the ideals that, along with a winning tradition, made him a local legend.

What about the other members of the steering committee? They, too, are endorsing Hamilton's behavior and ethical malfeasance. But then again, their hands aren't completely clean, either, in the way of ethics.

• Former councilwoman and mayor Kathryn McCullough's appeared to habitually abuse the City's expense reimbursement and travel policy.
• David Bass was appointed councilman only after promising he would not seek office in the succeeding election, then reneged after he took office.
• Jolene Fuentes, appointed planning commissioner even though she didn't know what an acre was, was married to the late OC GOP chairman Tom Fuentes, who basically used security guards to prevent minorities from voting and headed what was among "the most vociferously homophobic, anti-Latino and female-dismissive local political-party committee in the United States."
• Joseph Moscatiello, the owner of Peppino's, built an illegal structure behind his restaurant, circumventing building fees while being a preferred vendors and supporter of the City Council and its Gang of 3. Resident Andy O'Connor has documented with photos several times that Peppino's waste was headed for the storm drain and into the ocean.

These are some of your faces of Lake Forest Civility - No Hamilton Recall.

Does anyone else feel like they're getting their nose rubbed in it?

The Orange County Register condemned the recall, but also said it should be used "only when the claims of impropriety ... [enter] into the realm of the immoral, unethical or criminal, which requires the immediate removal of the offenders from office." Hamilton's behavior has "unethical" written all over it, but the OCR has been complicit in turning, almost unilaterally, a blind eye to questions and complaints aimed at councilmen it has endorsed.

Another steering committee member, former Parks and Recreation committee member Jeff Werkmeister -- who thankfully survived a freak accident several months ago -- posted about me last year that my information about the recall couldn't be trusted because I was just a blogger. Yet Stoll is even less; he has no history of reporting the happenings of Lake Forest government to the residents, no track record of accuracy story after story after story. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but dismissing the accuracy of my information because it's presented in a blog? Never mind that I had been with the Los Angeles Times for 18 years before getting downsized in 2008 with a couple hundred colleagues. Never mind that I won several awards during three years as an editor at Patch, including Online Journalist of the Year by the L.A. Press Club, which called my work "a model for the future of journalism on the internet." Never mind that in my writing, now as a resident instead of a paid reporter, I use my real name -- unlike Hamilton, who blogs inaccurate and deceitful information and criticism using the name "James Ross."

And by the way, I've been right on almost everything I've written over the last 18 months, including what went down at Stater Bros a few hours after it happened while Hamilton and Robinson blamed the victim instead.

INTERNET ANONYMITY

The "James Ross" character routinely attacks Councilman Jim Gardner, who also writes a Lake Forest Patch blog and is critical of council colleagues, especially Hamilton at this time. But unlike Hamilton, Gardner uses his real name and owns his opinion. Before she became a City Council candidate, Leah Basile also wrote blogs on the Patch website and used her real name and owned her opinion, unlike Hamilton.

With the advantage of internet anonymity, "James Ross" was able to copy and paste Basile's head onto a racy photo of an apparently naked Britney Spears with the suggested headline, "Oops, I Did It Again." Other graphic illustrations mocking Jim Gardner have been posted by Ross.

Using internet anonymity, "James Ross" had been Hamilton's biggest supporter and Adam Nick's biggest critic. After Nick was narrowly defeated in November, "James Ross" became the biggest public critic of Gardner. Because there is no accountability, it is inherently wrong for an elected official to use the cover of internet anonymity to engage in blogging lies and other misinformation. If Hamilton were to blog under his own name, it would be different and he could face the consequences, which is more in line with his 2014 campaign vision "to make government work more efficiently by increasing accountability." Accountability has not been Hamilton's strong suit.

Of course, all criticism of Hamilton being "James Ross" disappears with one thing: Any proof that "James Ross" exists. I once publicly offered to debate "James Ross" anytime, anyplace, anywhere and donate any proceeds from the event to the charity of his choice; all "James Ross" had to do was show up with proof that he was a resident of Lake Forest. There was no response, nor have I heard from anyone claiming to know "James Ross" to facilitate a meeting to show proof. That's because "James Ross" doesn't exist, except in a byline generated from Hamilton's fingertips.

Yet Stoll group is "local citizens, business leaders and community leaders, who want to set an example of civility.

Maybe they can start by acting ethically. Does Peppino's really need to wash its trash down the storm drain?

Maybe Don Stoll can produce "James Ross" for us? I'd love to be there when Stoll asks Hamilton where he can find him. Or maybe McCullough, Bass, Moscatiello, Fuentes, Werkmeister, Doug Cirbo or Derek Wieske can let us know who he is.

MONEY FOR NOTHING

I'm not making any of this stuff up. I don't have to. Nobody in opposition of Hamilton, Voigts and Robinson have to fabricate anything; they are inextricably linked. All three contributed to a year-long smear campaign in 2016, all three have lied -- maybe misled is the more "civil" word -- to residents, and all three have each others' backs. They rule with impunity preying upon the ignorance of residents who shouldn't have to worry that their leaders won't fix a dangerous road or look to save the City money by getting competitive bids.

But we all make mistakes, right? From the Lake Forest Civility website, here are four "mistakes" in a seven-paragraph span:

"... recall attempt threatens to squander $250,000 of your tax dollars": Highly unlikely, based on the estimate provided by the County, $150K to $200K base, plus cost of verifying the signatures at $3.40 apiece. Worst-case scenario, maybe $235,000, depending on how much the County wants to stick it to the City.

"What's worse is the recall process will cost Lake Forest taxpayers another quarter million dollars.": The first recall cost less than $83,800 (see photo at top), but in this sentence Hamilton's defenders are claiming it instead cost $250,000.

"The group claims they want to recall Hamilton because he joined a near unanimous council decision to partner with the County of Orange to provide a new state-of-the-art animal shelter ...": Hamilton was part of a 3-2 vote that included Voigts and Robinson, so it was not "near unanimous"; Nick and Gardner opposed.

"... animal shelter that will also save our city millions of dollars": Lake Forest is paying $600,000 to build the Orange County Animal Care facility, and the service costs have been raised by the County (it has to offset all the cities that have left for a better deal, right?); there will be no savings of millions of dollars over the course of the 10-year contract, but a deficit.

As a matter of clarity, or truthfulness, or civility, I should point out that Stoll's blog claims the 2016 recall cost $187,000, not $250,000, so he himself is only overstating it by $103,200.

By the way, I've not yet seen Lake Forest Civility tell residents that every signature they submit to disqualify their signature from counting toward the recall will also cost the City $3.40 apiece.

HAMILTONIAN MESS

The residents have already voted that they want Hamilton gone. The "failed" recall effort got more signatures wanting him removed from office than Hamilton got votes when he was elected. People want Hamilton out of office.

Without question, by the Orange County Register's very explanation, Hamilton should be immediately removed from office for behavior that is unethical (see Part 2). That won't happen unless there's a successful recall and all residents are given the opportunity to assess the whole of Hamilton's leadership.

If Hamilton wants to save the City taxpayers money, he should consider the results of the 2016 recall effort and do the math: More people went to the extra effort to sign a petition on a sidewalk to have him removed from office than turned a dial and punched a button while they were inside a voting booth.

Hamilton recently walked away from a job with that paid him more than $200,000 without having anything lined up to replace it. He has issues he needs to get squared away for his own benefit, much less the City's. He needs to reconsider, refocus, and reset. But before he does that, he needs to resign. He has been consumed by winning and it has brought out the worst in him.

If Hamilton resigns, either based on the facts laid out here or if enough signatures are collected to warrant a recall election, all this goes away. The City won't face the cost of a special election. And legendary coach Don Stoll won't have to continue defending a campaign that is built on, in Hamilton's own words, "Falsehoods, Whoppers, Lies, Distortions, Denigration, Untruths, Fabrications, Dishonesty."

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