Mayor Zippy Talks

Tuesday night at the City Council meeting one of our long-time residents used Facebook-Live to ask some questions of the Mayor. As is his custom, Mayor Tettemer didn’t respond to any of the questions posed, many of which were highly relevant. Tettemer did the same thing two weeks ago when that same resident asked a different set of relevant questions.

I was so impressed by the depth and scope of the questions posed the first time that I got a copy of the questions and I’m publishing them here. Because I believe these questions are relevant I’m going to fill-in for the Mayor and answer the questions that Mayor Tettemer chose to ignore. Since Tettemer is unable to talk at these moments and says “zip” I’m going to adopt the name “Mayor Zippy” as I respond to the questions posed by the resident.

RESIDENT – “I am disappointed Mayor Tettemer has misinterpreted and misused the Brown Act to shield council members from responding to questions from the public. The mayor himself indicated during the candidate forum, “If you have a question, just ask Mark.” But questions thus far have not been answered in public. So if Mayor Tettemer continues to abuse the Brown Act, or uses any other excuse, to prevent council members from interacting with residents, I’d like the mayor to tell us –specifically -- where we can go to get those answers in a forum that at least provides some level of public accountability.”

MAYOR ZIPPY – You caught me. There is no part of the Brown Act that prescribes what I can or cannot say. The Brown Act restricts me to responding “briefly” but even that isn’t defined. I don’t want to say anything and that’s why I tried to hide behind the Brown Act. And you’re not going to get anything from anyone else up here, except for Councilwoman Basile.

RESIDENT – “Or perhaps the mayor can tell us whether he values accountability at all. This is important because the mayor’s campaign claimed his opponent was a divisive force when in reality, he was simply the messenger for accountability. Jim Gardner kept track of the lies told by Scott Voigts and the broken promises of Dwight Robinson. Is Mayor Tettemer going to do that, or is he willing to sweep those things under the rug and keep his constituents in the dark?”

MAYOR ZIPPY – You got me again. Of course I’m not going to be accountable because I don’t intend to do anything beyond the minimum necessary to keep the City afloat. That’s what I did the last time I was in office. I managed to get by for 8 years without a single accomplishment I initiated. I did what the City Manager and Peter Herzog told me to do, and I got a lot of money from special interests for my campaigns to do what they wanted me to do. Don’t look to me for accountability.

RESIDENT – “Will Mayor Tettemer correct the record whenever Scott Voigts says something false? Or will he allow it to be swept under the rug, thereby maintaining the atmosphere of civility that he promised?”

MAYOR ZIPPY – You got to be kidding. Scott Voigts helped get me back into the game. He can do anything he wants.

RESIDENT – “Will Mayor Tettemer give Neeki Moatazedi the rein to explain why she allowed wild exaggerations about her qualifications to go uncorrected even though she campaigned as the truth and transparency candidate? Or is that something that Mayor Tettemer thinks has no place in the public discourse?

MAYOR ZIPPY – Come on now. Most of what we say is based on lies. Why should we change that now? It helped get me and her in office. I lied about my activities in the city. I lied about the 2018 Council being “dysfunctional” and not being “civil”. My stooges lied about Gardner being a “militant atheist”. Hey, BTW, did you know that when I was on the Council Gardner lobbied the Council to put “In God We Trust” on the City Council dais and I voted against it. And then my stooges called him the atheist. That was Brilliant! Lies are what we do.

RESIDENT – “Will Mayor Tettemer answer the question of why he has made every effort thus far to play keep away with the truth by providing a curtain his colleagues can hide behind?”

MAYOR ZIPPY – I already told you – we can’t stand the truth. It will expose us. And keep in mind the curtain is not only to help Scottie, Dwightie, and Neeki hide, I use it to.

RESIDENT – “Will Mayor Tettemer explain why he campaigned on inclusiveness yet promoted exclusiveness when it came time to elect a mayor and mayor pro tem? He could have reached across the aisle and embraced Leah Basile as mayor, or even mayor pro tem, yet did neither even though it would have been the move that created the greatest healing within the community. As a voter of your district, I’d like to know why.”

MAYOR ZIPPY. I was desperate for some recognition. I’ve been in the same job for 14 years with no promotion. I ran for SVUSD and for City Council in the special election and lost both times. I didn’t care if it was divisive or not. What do I care about the community?

RESIDENT – “Mayor Tettemer’s apparent insistence that council members respond only to policy and not to politics stands in the way of an open government because HE is standing in the way of open government. Many of the questions asked of council members these first months have to do with ethics and ethical standards of sitting council members. As long as there is an ethics policy in Lake Forest, such questions are in play during public comments, and their answers are as well. Mayor Tettemer’s failure to see this public forum as a means to provide discourse between residents and their elected officials seems to indicate that he is either too naïve to see it, or too crooked to allow it to happen.”

MAYOR ZIPPY – I don’t want to talk about anything. I just want to enjoy being called “Mayor”, sitting up here and glaring at you, starting meetings anytime I chose to even if you and everyone else must wait, and voting to do whatever the special interests who got me elected want me to do.

RESIDENT – “I look forward to your answers. After all, you said, “Just ask Mark.”

MAYOR ZIPPY – I said “Just ask Mark” but I never said I would actually answer you or anyone else.