The truth is a Casualty of the new Regime

Last week I reported on the uncivil behavior demonstrated by the new Council, focusing specifically on Councilwoman Neeki Moatazedi's conduct. One reader pointed out that included in my description was a number of false statements made by Moatazedi and he asked me whether or not these lies constituted a pattern. I have to confess that having suffered being around Scott Voigts for so many years, lying by people in office is no longer the startling event most people perceive it to be. So I reviewed my notes and sure enough, there is a pattern and it is disturbing. While I was busy doing this, I was listening to a news broadcast listing more than 5,000 false statements made by Trump since he took office. Apparently there are now daily "fact checking" episodes in which the latest lies are broadcast and then revealed. Let's hope it doesn't come to that in Lake Forest. But here are some of Moatazedi ’s lies and false statements -

1. Over a year ago, as early as January 2018, Moatazedi was spreading lies. On her FB page she criticized Col. Tom Cagley, calling him “an 80 year old who has yet to say what he will do for our city…” (see photo) despite the fact that Tom wasn’t 80 years old and despite the fact that he issued a long list of things he wanted to accomplish, many of which he went on to accomplish (e.g., Traffic Commission, Term Limits, etc.). Ironically, Moatazedi's own list of things she wanted to accomplish was lost in a long list of platitudes that she borrowed from Tettemer.
2. Prior to running for City Council, Moatazedi’s FB page said she lived in Laguna Beach. When confronted with this fact at the Candidate Forum she admitted that she lied when she posted that on FB.
3. In 2018 one of her campaign flyers claimed “I’ve spent my entire career in the private sector…” (see photo) yet the facts are clear that she works for So Cal Gas, a regulated subsidiary of Sempra Energy which describes itself as “regulated utility”. Sempra is not merely a utility it is a publicly owned utility (NYSE, SRE). It's hardly "the private sector".
4. In 2018 a campaign mailer said she planned to “work with our school district to build new schools in Lake Forest.” The City has nothing to do with new schools being built in the City. The decision to do this rests solely with the School district. This lie is reminiscent of Robinson’s lies in 2012 when he promised to decrease class size, another issue the City has no control over.
5. During a campaign event in 2018 Moatazedi said she was “poor” and therefore had to rely on funding from special interests (developers). But a resident pulled her file and estimated that the properties listed as belonging to her were worth several million dollars. He asked her for a comment but instead she verbally attacked him. In any event she promotes herself as a Project Director for So Cal Gas and unless I’m mistaken, their salaries would hardly put her on welfare or in the poor house.
6. During the campaign she complained on her FB page that long-time LF resident Bob Holtzclaw was her opponent’s “campaign manager” and also claimed that Bob “assaulted one of my supporters.” Bob worked on the campaign but was never the campaign manager and any look at the footage shows that Bob didn't shove anyone. Moatazedi’s lie here is reminiscent of the lies that Hamilton et. al. told after an elderly recall petitioner was punched to the ground in front of Stater Brothers and they blamed the person who rescued her.
7. In the run up to the election, Moatazedi said on her FB page that “SVUSD has expressed an interest in placing a new school on the Nakase site.” In fact SVUSD never did this. SVUSD has said that the current schools are sufficient. It‘s the developers who proposed the new school (and helped fund Moatazedi’s campaign), not SVUSD – SVUSD has said all along that there was no need for a new school and even if there was a need, that there were no funds to build a new school.
8. Despite denials by her opponent that he didn’t know about the mailer that showed one of her own PR photos, and despite the fact that the person responsible was identified, she continued to blame her opponent.
9. Dwelling on her own publicity photo showing her in a bikini, Moatazedi claimed that publishing the photo was “potentially illegal”. There’s nothing illegal about posting someone’s own photo, and if there had been Neeki surely would have pursued the issue. Mark Tettemer’s supporters published a completely false statement about me, calling me a “militant atheist” but even this type of slander is not illegal.
10. On her campaign FB page she says she will place “the needs of the residents above special interests” but an analysis of the required FPPC forms will reveal more than $100,000 of special interest money funding her campaign. If she votes with the same historical consistency of her supporters Dwight Robinson and Scott Voigts, she will vote in favor of any project or contract proposed by the special interests, not the residents. To date she hasn’t raised a single issue responsive to resident needs.
11. At the second Council meeting in January, Moatazedi angrily responded to a resident’s request for information and she accused him of “threatening” her. I spoke with the resident afterwards and he claims that he never “threatened” her and is going to request a copy of the phone conversation to prove that her allegation is false (Moatazedi works for the gas company and according to the resident their conversations are taped “to ensure good service”).
12. During a reply to a resident who submitted several documents to the Council, Moatazedi said “All these documents are false and I didn’t even read them”. If she didn’t read them, how did she know they were false?

Anyone can make a mistake and issue an incorrect statement now and then. But here we have a distinct pattern of false statements and we have a lot of them, over a long period of time, and dealing with a variety of subjects. Moatazedi may even be a contender for the crown if she continues at this rate, unseating Scott Voigts for the nefarious distinction of being the worst liar in the City’s history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is a former City Council member and Mayor. He is one of the organizing members of Lake Forest Community Action Network. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook