OC Voice

The Surf City Voice has replaced the OC Voice and new posts will no longer be made at this url. To read Surf City’s number one public interest news service, please visit www.surfcityvoice.com

The mid-term 2010 Congressional elections are over and the exaggerations are front and center. “A tidal wave,” “an earthquake,” “a tsunami,” cried the Republican victors and their media acolytes.

Previously, the Voice showed how the council’s backroom political dramas have come to center stage at city council meetings. But recent e-mails obtained by the Voice give a sharper picture of the passion and acrimony flowing through the political veins of the city.

Costa Mesa mayor Allan Mansoor, a candidate for state assembly, unveiled his plan to “discuss” immigration reform in the city and the state. He also blamed the ACLU for a lawsuit it filed to challenge the constitutionality of the city’s solicitation ordinance, which is enforced in a discriminatory fashion toward day laborers and prohibits certain forms of free speech.

The citizens were snarling mad. Coyotes were invading their neighborhoods and city officials hadn’t done enough to stop them, they said. The citizens made it clear they weren’t going to take it anymore.

The OC Voice was the first to break the story of alleged police harassment under the ordinance and the possibility that a lawsuit would be filed by the ACLU on behalf of the day laborers in October, 2007. This is the fifth of five parts in video. This segment shows the musical overture to the press conference announcing the lawsuit led by the Mexican folk band El Centro.

This segment of “Day Laborers vs. Costa Mesa” shows the English version of the press conference held on Feb. 2, 2010 in front of Costa Mesa’s city hall to announce a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and others on behalf of day laborers whose First Amendment rights were allegedly violated by enforcement of a city ordinance.

Day laborers in Costa Mesa are suing the city to repeal its anti-solicitation ordinance which they say has led to First Amendment violations and harassment by police.

Part II of a three part video response by Costa Mesa Chief of Police Christopher Shawkey to issues related to a lawsuit filed against the city on behalf of day laborers to stop enforcement of a city ordinance that they say violates their First Amendment rights.

Costa Mesa day laborers sue the city over alleged violations of their First Amendment rights and Chief of Police Christopher Shawkey responds. First of a five-part video report.