By John Earl
Surf City Voice

Surf City’s number one pilot, the Honorable Mayor Joe Carchio, who has been dubbed by the Voice as “the best mayor Surf City has ever had,” may very well reach the peak of his political career on Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. when he jumps into the city’s police helicopter, HB1, and is carried to the heavens for a two-hour fact finding and brainstorming tour.

Carchio requested the lift so that he can discuss the city’s helicopter outsourcing contracts with Newport Beach and Costa Mesa and to be updated on the copter program, according to an e-mail from Chief of Police Kenneth Small that was passed on to the Voice.

Tours have also been offered to all the other members of the City Council.

The Voice was alarmed at first. After all, when you factor in costs for gas and staff time, helicopter rides are expensive—about $675 per hour in this case, according to Small.

But Surf City’s taxpayers may rest assured that not a single penny of their money will be wasted by our mayor—whose spend-thrift ways with their money are well known.

That’s because, this time, Joe Carchio—our mayor and pilot—has his feet planted firmly upon solid ground.

“He’s going up during one of our normal patrol flights,” the Chief explained in an e-mail to the Voice. “There’s no special flight arranged for him, so there is no real cost associated with it.”

That’s a relief; unless, of course, somebody decides to give the mayor the controls to the copter for even a second, in which case Surf City’s citizens should be no more or less amused than when he is piloting their city council meetings.

One has to wonder how the mayor, even with his known communications skills, will be able to have a meaningful discussion about important city matters in a noisy copter cabin, where even if you shout you aren’t likely to be heard.

On the bright side, however, the mayor can apply the skills he has acquired after almost a year of running city council meetings without listening to or understanding what others are saying to him or being able to make sense of his own words. Based on that experience, all he has to do is say, as loud as he can, “That’s not going to happen while I’m the mayor of this city,” and everything will be fine.

At the next meeting of the City Council, after the mayor returns to earth, it will be a pleasure, as always, to hear him share his unique insights.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

“Ms. M. You don’t know jack shit about guns, obviously…Seriously. Are you freaking blind, stupid or just like to ignore inconvenient facts like your pal Al Gore? Any dumbass knows automobiles kill people by the thousands each year.” – - Ocean View School District Trustee Norm Westwell debates gun control with a Huntington Beach resident via e-mail discussion forum (March 15).

When the Huntington Beach City Council banned fireworks in 1987 little did it know that its action would give birth to an unstoppable human firecracker that, in the egoist tradition of Ayn Rand, would use the ban to create a quixotic public personae and an unlikely political career.

His name was Norm Westwell, aka the self-proclaimed “Firecracker.”

From reading his 2010 campaign website “biography,” it seems that Westwell is a self-made man – the egoist’s version of Woody Guthrie.

“Norm has never been timid,” his bio brags. “He bought his first dirt bike motorcycle at age 11. He became a certified scuba diver at 14. He soloed his first aircraft at 16. At 18 he set out to see the world alone and toured the United States by foot, thumb, and boxcar.”

Westwell moved to Huntington Beach in 1977. In 1989 he would join and soon become vice president of truWest, Inc. a Huntington Beach swim suit factory that has helped him and his wife raise their two children.

Starting in the late 90s, the Firecracker earned his nickname by repeatedly speaking out passionately at city council meetings in favor of rescinding the city’s fireworks ban and against government in general. His bombastic style became his trademark but many people feared that if he ever got elected to a public office he would be an embarrassment and promote policies aimed at destroying government rather than making it work better.

Firecracker ran for local and state political offices—city council, school board and state assembly, sometimes simultaneously—in 2000, 2002, and in 2004. He lost each time. But in 2006 the Firecracker’s perseverance—little money combined with hand-made signs placed high on trees and telephone poles—finally paid off and the self-made man with an AA degree was elected to the school board.

After his election victory Westwell went legit. Within a year his fellow board members chose him as their clerk. In 2008 he was reelected to the board with the endorsement of the teachers union—and his bio brags about it—and in 2009 he was elected, unanimously, as the board’s president.

When he campaigned for city council again in 2010, Firecracker had fully transformed into something more like Ralph Nader than the quintessential anti-environmentalist and champion of corporations that he was before.

At least that’s how it looked in August when the city council race was heating up and Westwell joined with angry residents at City Hall to protest T-Mobile’s plans to install cell phone towers in two city parks. He warned of the possible dangers to children of radiation—“Let’s not experiment with our children”—and proudly pointed out that the OVSD board had denied the company permission to install cell phone towers at one of its schools. He also accused T-Mobile of trying to skirt a city charter provision that requires a public vote for in-park development.

Westwell, the Ocean View School District trustee, seeking to expand his political power base to the city council, had dropped the famed Firecracker moniker because people had told him that it was not in his best interests to use it if he wanted to be elected to the council. “When that many influential people tell me [something], I listen,” he told the Voice last August.

But changing political face was not the winning strategy that Westwell had hoped it would be and he finished only in 11^th place with 4.8 percent of the vote for city council.

Explosion
Westwell will remain on the school board at least until 2012 when his term ends, but recent online events were enough to make any voter wonder if he is fit to remain in office even that long.

Clearly, the Firecracker is back and more explosive than ever. Proof of that is in a recent series of e-mail rants by Westwell revealed during a debate over gun control in a local Internet discussion forum—he cursed and threatened others with violence after they disagreed with him and objected to his personal insults.

The drama unfolded after he posted a message opining that the police officers “DO NOT have any obligation to protect individuals from crime” because “individuals are responsible to protect themselves.” Westwell, who says he is a member of the NRA, explained that the police are here only to “ASSIST SOCIETY” but “NOT TO REMOVE ALL PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.” (Emphasis Westwell’s)

People who want police to protect them, Westwell argued, are a greater financial burden to the city than people who protect themselves by owning guns. He proposed that the city council pass a “Supplemental Law Enforcement Ordinance” that would charge all residents and businesses in the city $50 to supplement local law enforcement services. Gun owners could opt out.

Westwell’s premise for the proposed legislation, that “study after study has concluded that MORE GUNS = LESS CRIME” is given as a “not debatable…cold hard fact” although he never references a single one of the supposed studies. Of course, he admits, the progressive liberals and socialists will oppose such a law so it has little chance of passing.

It was Westwell, the born-again Firecracker, talking now, not Westwell the aspiring career politician.

From that point there were a series of e-mail exchanges in which Westwell responded to replies from others with further explanation of his theory of crime control as well as vulgar insults, name calling and threats of violence. Those critics are dumbasses, communists, and socialists—who hate the individual person—and he will fight them to the death if it comes to that. Or he will just beat their asses if they don’t watch their tongues.

“Just don’t try to force ME to be like YOU,” he wrote to this writer, in response to a mild satirical rebuke. “I would rather die first. It may come to that, we will see. John, I am prepared to die to preserve our capitalist society. Are you prepared to die for your socialist ideals? If so, I look forward to the upcoming battle.”

After John Scott, a respected Huntington Beach activist, opined that Westwell’s reply to “Ms. M” (Merle Moshiri, who leads Residents for Responsible Desalination – see the intro to this story) “does not instill me with a lot of comfort knowing he as a gun,” (Westwell did not say if he owns a gun or not) and that calling people “dumb asses” is the first step toward dehumanization, Westwell went into a delusional, grandiose, and threatening rant that readers might consider even more frightening since it came from an elected official who looks over our children.

Readers of the diatribe that follows in its entirety might wonder if Westwell is intellectually or emotionally fit for the important office he holds.

“If my words make you uncomfortable…BFD.  I could care less about your socialist feelings John [John Scott].

“You don’t know if I own a gun or not! Again you simply make up facts to support you (sic) pre-fabricated conclusion. It is the socialist means to the socialist ends.

“You have ASSUMED again. You know what happens when you assume. (happens all the time with you) You can take your PC speech and place it comfortably where the light doesn’t shine. It may be crowded thought (sic) with the rest of the BS in you have (sic) previously placed there.

“That is the whole point isn’t it? If you think I have a gun and you think I just might use it to settle a score. YOU will be less inclined to spew your bad socialist behavior or risk the consequences. Works very well for me. So be careful. Woooooo, scary.

“In any case, if I decided to kick your ass for the verbal abuse you inflict, I wouldn’t need a gun to do the job John. Using a gun in that situation would be like trying to kill ants with a nuclear bomb, necessary. Fortunately for you John, I no longer (well rarely anyway) simply beat the crap of rude people who think the law protects them and their rudeness. If I think you need a refresher course in that lesson, I will give it to you without your consent. I recognize of course that there will be a penalty to pay for such an act. I would of course be responsible for my actions and accept any penalty because of it. However, YOU will discover how the law does NOT protect you (sic) rude, groundless hate speech behavior from painful redress by those who you inflict it upon. You WILL think twice the next time you think it is behind your screen and spew hate speech and lies.

“This is not a offensive threat. It is a defensive promise. I am a peaceful man. I wish you no harm.

“I am like a porcupine. Just leave me alone and you will be just fine. Become a physical aggressor at your own peril. When it comes time to fight or flee. I historically fight. I find I feel much better after cleaning the clock of a socialist A-holes (sic) who have a holier-than-thou attitude and think I’m a pushoever peacenick.

“Be warned. The world is a dangerous place John and I can be a dangerous man when provoked. Dare to go there?

“If you continue down this road of coyly threatening me with violence I may be forced to react defensibly. Don’t tread on me John.”

In a time of growing fear and hate over political differences, when leaders and their associates have experienced serious vandalism, death threats, multiple murders and an attempted assassination in Arizona, are we safe when a local politician—one who as an educator helps decide the future of our children—hasn’t learned the first thing about peaceful coexistence from our nation’s most recent tragedies?

In the past, Norm “Firecracker” Westwell’s illogical rants were taken in stride, even in good humor. But there will be no more of that for Merle Moshiri. “I am afraid of this guy,” she told the Voice. “He isn’t a joke. He’s a public menace.”

Photo: Arthur Tolenttino for the SCV

Editor’s note: Norm “Firecracker” Westwell did not respond to the Voice’s request for comment.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

After being sworn in last Monday for his first term on the Huntington Beach City Council, Joe Shaw, who is openly gay, said he wasn’t surprised that he was elected.

“When I first came to Huntington Beach with my then partner eight years ago,” he reminisced in his acceptance speech , “we opened a business downtown and at once we were warmly embraced by the people of downtown, our customers and people from all over the city.”

Shaw says he and his partner were accepted “unconditionally and without judgment” and that “I looked at this beautiful city and its wonderful people and knew I had found a new home.”

Surf City does offer domestic partner benefits for city employees, but its citizens also reelected Dana Rohrabacher, one of the most homophobic representatives in Congress, by overwhelming vote margins for the past several decades.

Rohrabacher opposes marriage, adoption and military enlistment rights for openly gay or lesbian adults and he favors amending to the Constitution to define marriage as an act to occur between men and women only.

Rohrabacher’s anti-gay views might not be openly shared by most of his Surf City constituents, but they still hold sway in Orange County Republican politics and, at least indirectly, in Surf City politics.

One of the main reasons that the Orange County GOP didn’t endorse Barbara Delgleize—who lost fourth place in the city council election to Shaw by a handful of votes—is that she supports the right to same-sex marriage, according to reports in the Republican blog Red County, including one written by OCGOP Chairman Scott Baugh.

Robert Gentry, who served on the Laguna Beach City Council 1982 – 1992, was the first openly gay elected official in Orange County, but Shaw is the only one currently holding office in the county.

Shaw will concentrate on being the “best councilman I can be,” not the “gay city councilman,” he said. But he believes that his victory should provide hope to others.

“I must acknowledge it,” he said, “because it will make a difference in many peoples’ lives to know that this is possible in Huntington Beach and Orange County. It does get better.”

Lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered people want the same things in life that everyone else does, Shaw said, explaining the broader significance of his victory. “We want good schools, safe and well maintained streets, clean water and air, and abundant open space,” he said.

For his first-term priorities, Shaw hopes to tackle the city’s tough financial problems. “First, we have challenging financial conditions ahead of us. We have made some difficult cuts and will likely have to negotiate more. I intend to be fiscally prudent without harming our ability to provide our essential services,” he declared.

Not harming “essential services” is the obligatory mantra of even the most hawkish fiscal reformers on the city council, and those services are usually defined as police, fire and infrastructure, which includes just about everything a city government provides.

Protecting those services won’t be easy under the ongoing recession—likely to be exacerbated by plans to cut a $25 billion state budget deficit and federal tax cuts for the rich proposed by Obama and the new Congress—with little hope for state or federal bailout money for cities across the country.

Shaw’s goals for Surf City’s future are optimistic, however, including a proposed 25-year mobility plan designed to accommodate future development with alternative modes of transportation, “including buses, trollies, trains and bike ways.”

Shaw seeks to develop a more sustainable city by encouraging projects like the Community Garden set to open soon in the southeast portion of the city and he will try to encourage new business creation through deregulation, making sure that “all of our citizens are treated as valuable customers by the city.”

Shaw also announced that he will reappoint Blair Farley to the Planning Commission. Farley, who narrowly trailed Delgleize in the election, campaigned with Shaw and co-victor Connie Boardman as part of Team Huntington Beach.

Photo: Arturo Tolenttino for the SCV

Election Final From the Surf City Voice:

This is the final Surf City Voice election update, a simple recap of all the 2010 election articles that you might have missed or would like to have easy access to in your own final review of candidates and issues prior to making your vote on Tuesday.

The list goes more or less in reverse chronological order:

City Advisor: No longer passionate about Carchio after being ignored 3 years
http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/10/city-financial-advisor-no-longer-passionate-about-carchio-after-being-ignored-3-years/
Councilmember Joe Carchio ignored his appointee to the Investment Advisory Board for three years, despite her many attempts to contact him with important

Jersey Joe’s Tax Woes: http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/10/jersey-joes-tax-woes-the-federal-govt-is-wrong-councilman-says/ Joe Carchio sounded bitter but said he doesn’t care if he gets reelected to the Huntington Beach City Council or not. “If people don’t want me to be a councilman, then fine; I don’t care, I don’t care, I really don’t care,” he recently told the Voice. Is Carchio, who has a long history of avoiding paying his taxes, guilty of “fraudulent conveyance”?

Wise Guy Carchio Threatens Journalist Over Investigation of Misuse of Public Funds: http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/not-so-wise-guy-jersey-joe-takes-city-threatens-9-11-war-when-caught/  In a fit of intense anger, expressed with squinted eyes, a tightly stretched face and deliberately pronounced words, Jersey Joe, everybody’s friend, threatened me with dire warnings of “war” and “9-11.”

Carchio Tried to Keep the Money He Took from the City in “Honest Mistake”: http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/carchios-payback-to-city-came-6-months-after-learning-of-honest-mistake/ Contrary to what Councilmember Joe Carchio wanted readers of the Register and Independent to believe, he did not pay back the money he tried to take from the taxpayers until after hee knew that the Voice caught sent of his scam.

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/10/joe-carchio-in-his-own-words-lying-about-divorce-misuse-of-public-funds-and-tax-liens/ Audio of Voice interview with Joe Carchio.

Will Joe Carchio be the next mayor of Huntington Beach? http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/08/the-days-of-our-lives-will-joe-carchio-become-surf-citys-next-mayor-will-don-hansen-become-a-journalist/

Fred Speaker, planning commissioner and city council candidate:

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/fred-speaker-crotchety-council-candidate-zips-lips-over-budget-slips/ Speaker—in his own words—is a “fiscally responsible” and “pay as you go” candidate who as an experienced small businessman knows “how to balance a budget” and who promises that he “won’t treat taxpayer dollars any less carefully.” But a Voice investigation of his past business practices also reveals a history of financial mismanagement, including a huge bankruptcy filed on the same day that the Bank of America won a lease fraud lawsuit against him as sole proprietor of Economy Auto Leasing.

City Attorney race:

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/08/who-will-control-surf-city-the-election-of-city-attorney-is-t-gabe-houston-eligible/ Is City Attorney challenger T. Gabe Houston an eligible candidate?

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/08/who-will-control-surf-city-the-republican-wrath-against-jennifer-mcgrath-part-1/ The war of words against City Attorney Jennifer McGrath by OC’s Republican Guard.

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/08/secret-e-mail-revealed-keith-bohr-bashes-the-city-attorney-she-responds/ Secret e-mail reveals Councilmember Keith Bohr’s irrational loathing of City Attorney Jennifer McGrath.

Candidates’ Questions:

Infrastructure: http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/07/huntington-beach-election-city-council-candidates-question-2-infrastructure/

Bolsa Chica and the Ridge: http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/07/question-1-city-council-candidates-speak-out-on-the-ridge/

Poseidon Resources, Inc. (desalination plant proposal for Huntington Beach):

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/defactualization-bogus-polls-emerge-from-sea-bottom-before-poseidon-hearing/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/07/probolsky-register-poseidon-bogus-desal-poll/

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

When Joe Carchio ran for city council in 2006 Angela Rainsberger aggressively campaigned for him because he told her that he would listen to the residents of Huntington Beach.

At councilmember Don Hansen’s suggestion, she signed her name to a flyer that went to every home in the city and endorsed Carchio along with incumbents Cathy Green and Gil Coerper. All three candidates won in the election.

Carchio is the lone incumbent city council candidate seeking reelection in 2010, but he won’t be sending out any flyers with Rainsberger’s name on them this time because, she says, he didn’t listen after all. In fact, she claims, Carchio ignored her phone calls for three years after he was elected.

The problem started shortly after the election. Carchio came to Rainsberger’s home to talk about her request to be appointed to the Planning Commission. Instead, Carchio put crony Fred Speaker on the Planning Commission and appointed her to the Investment Advisory Board which would give her the important task of analyzing and advising the City Council on the City’s investment policies in a yearly report:

In preparing this report, the Board shall review the Investment Policy, Annual Financial Audits, and any other investment information determined by the Board to be applicable to the Annual Report. The Board will review and make recommendations in its Annual Report, on the following items: Investment Policies, Annual Investment Audit, Cash Management, Proposed State and Federal Legislation, Compliance with Investment Policies, Anticipate Exposure to Loss, and other areas as outlined in Municipal Code 2.110.030, including performing other duties or studies as directed by the City Council.

Considering that Rainsberger had over 15 years of experience in corporate finance, with an emphasis on “systems efficiencies, controls and financial reporting,” according to a 2005 Orange Coast magazine article, appointing Rainsberger to the IAB during an economic recession that was about to devastate the City’s budget finances may have been—no, was—the smartest thing that Carchio ever did as a member of the Huntington Beach City Council.

The problem was that Rainsberger took her job to help protect the City’s investments seriously, but Carchio apparently did not, as she indicated in a recent e-mail sent to the Voice.

“Never once while I sat on the board did he return my numerous calls. He voted on financial issues without receiving my advice. It was a complete waste of my time to attend IAB meetings, review investments and formulate advice that Carchio would never receive. City Council members vote on important fiscal matters that impact the safety and return of the taxpayers’ assets. It was a great disappointment that during economically turbulent times that Carchio failed to follow up to gain a better understanding of these important issues.”

In November 2009 Rainsberger fired off an angry e-mail to Carchio that finally got his attention. “I was wondering why you would appoint me as your advisor to a city board, have me volunteer my very precious time, and then fail to return my 10+ voice mail messages I have left for you over the last three years,” she wrote.

In response, Carchio claimed that the number she had called was “an old city number that has not been used for several years.” But the prefix to that number is not used by City Hall and a year later it is still in service with Carchio’s easily recognized voice along with a computer generated voice telling callers that Carchio’s mailbox is full and cannot take new messages at this time.

Generous readers of the Voice might give Carchio the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps there was some legitimate reason, such as technophobia or a forgotten voice message retrieval password, for not responding to his appointee to the IAB for three years. But wouldn’t a concerned councilmember have taken the initiative to find other normal means for maintaining contact if he really was “passionate about Huntington Beach,” as Carchio’s campaign signs promise?

Speaking of reining in the city’s financial problems, Rainsberger also told the Voice of a meeting she had with Carchio at City Hall about the Downtown Specific Plan after she finally managed to contact him in November 2009. She was concerned about the problem of drunk driving, related to the many bars that already exist downtown, but Carchio told her that the City’s police helicopter program helped contain the DUI problem.

To prove it—or perhaps to offer a nice perk to an angry former supporter before the next election—he offered to arrange for the two of them to go up for a ride in a police helicopter. “You’ll get a kick out of it,” she recalls him promising.

Rainsberger, still obviously more concerned about the City’s financial future than Carchio, turned down the offer due to her concern that Surf City taxpayers would have paid for an unnecessary and expensive use of police time and resources.

By John Earl
Editor
Surf City Voice

It’s an election year. You need information to help you vote and most of the local election news you get will come from local newspapers.

So, why are the OC Register (publisher of the weekly Huntington Beach Wave) and the Los Angeles Times (publisher of the weekly Huntington Beach Independent) giving their readers (you) pabulum instead of real reporting on local issues? Why is a small news blog with a budget of under $1,000 a year kicking the pants off of corporate media giants with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and huge staffs?

We understand that the editors of the Times and Register are embarrassed about being consistently out reported by the Surf City Voice since we started it last April as the online successor to the former print edition of the OC Voice.

So we don’t expect local corporate news media editors to link to or mention our stories about misuse of public funds and lying by public officials, or how city council candidates can parlay shady past business experience into “pro business” resumes that qualify them to hold public office and manage your tax dollars, or how a candidate for the office of City Attorney is arguably legally unqualified to run for office, or how your city council has been voting to help a water profiteer suck up hundreds of millions of tax dollars for a white-elephant project you don’t need while telling you, falsely, that it is a “privately funded project that poses no risk to the taxpayers.”

But, come on, with their huge budgets and supposed news-gathering expertise, can’t the (not) Independent and Wave even do some basic, well-researched, not to mention investigative, reporting for the benefit of their subscribers and the consumers who keep them profitable despite the ineptitude of their corporate parents?

How much more circulation and advertising will the “mainstream” media have to lose before their CEOs realize that “dumbed down” or “advertorial” journalism will not save them from themselves?

Can’t their reporters be encouraged to ask a few thoughtful questions of our elected representatives or the people who want to become our elected representatives?

Before the Independent reported that council candidate Fred Speaker wanted to use his business experience of balancing budgets to help the city through its financial crisis, did its editors bother to look into his known record of bankruptcy or a court case in which he was found responsible for passing fraudulent car loans to a bank? The answer is no. Only the Surf City Voice reported thoroughly on Speaker’s actual business background.

And, so far, not a peep in the Independent or the Register about the arguably ineligible city attorney opposition candidate or incumbent council candidate Joe Carchio’s misuse of taxpayers’ money (and his failure to pay it back until months later and only after he knew the Voice was on to him) or his history of huge tax liens levied against him by county, state and federal agencies.

The Voice has reported on lots of 2010 election related issues that have been totally ignored by the Wave and the Independent. You can click the links provided below to review all of those stories.

Apparently the Independent and Wave can’t keep up.

Maybe their owners think that they are the only games in town, so who cares what the readers think?

Well, if anybody thinks that you don’t have other choices, they’re wrong.

You do have another choice and it has been offering you the kind of local news reporting that is vital to maintaining effective, democratic government. That choice is the Surf City Voice at www.surfcityvoice.com . It offers real reporting—that requires hours, days, weeks or even months of research and hard work to produce—instead of stories that are little more than rewritten corporate or government press releases.

If you share our concerns about local journalism and democracy, we ask you to support the Surf City Voice as an alternative source for vital news of our community left unreported by the competition. We ask you to give that support in any way you can; first, by reading our articles and by linking your neighbors and friends to us; second, by donating what you can by clicking the PayPal link at the end of each article or on the side column on every page of our web site. You can find that link at the end of this editorial.

But we’re not selfishly telling readers to abandon the Independent or the Register. In fact, we would welcome the competition—if only it existed. Competition is good for journalism and good for democracy—there are plenty of potential scoops for us all and the Voice, even with its tiny but enterprising staff of under or never paid volunteers can’t do it all.

So far, we aren’t the least bit worried about being “scooped” by our main competitors because they really aren’t trying to do the job that their readers would like to expect from them.

Maybe those editors just need a little free-market incentive from their neglected readers, perhaps in the form of phone calls and e-mails to the editors of the Wave and the Independent. So, why don’t you, as readers, contact them yourselves and ask them to do their fair share of the work.

Here’s the contact info that you need:

Times/Independent:

Michael Miller – Editor: (714) 966-4616; e-mail – Michael.miller@latimes.com

Register/Wave:
Angela Potter – Editor: (714) 796-2254; e-mail – apotter@ocregister.com

In the meantime, here are some, but not all, of the stories exclusively published by the Surf City Voice on important topics that have been ignored by the Register/Wave and the Times/Independent.

Joe Carchio, incumbent city council candidate:

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/10/jersey-joes-tax-woes-the-federal-govt-is-wrong-councilman-says/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/not-so-wise-guy-jersey-joe-takes-city-threatens-9-11-war-when-caught/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/carchios-payback-to-city-came-6-months-after-learning-of-honest-mistake/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/10/joe-carchio-in-his-own-words-lying-about-divorce-misuse-of-public-funds-and-tax-liens/

Fred Speaker, planning commissioner and city council candidate:

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/fred-speaker-crotchety-council-candidate-zips-lips-over-budget-slips/

City Attorney race:

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/08/who-will-control-surf-city-the-election-of-city-attorney-is-t-gabe-houston-eligible/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/08/who-will-control-surf-city-the-republican-wrath-against-jennifer-mcgrath-part-1/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/08/secret-e-mail-revealed-keith-bohr-bashes-the-city-attorney-she-responds/

Poseidon Resources, Inc. (desalination plant proposal for Huntington Beach):

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/09/defactualization-bogus-polls-emerge-from-sea-bottom-before-poseidon-hearing/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/07/probolsky-register-poseidon-bogus-desal-poll/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/06/poseidon-desal-deal-govt-may-rescue-junk-bond-project/

http://www.surfcityvoice.org/2010/05/sucking-up-aes-must-modernize-but-what-about-poseidon/

HB City Councilmember Jersey Joe speaks about his misuse of public funds, lying to the public about his marriage, the strange sale of his (?) restaurant and the multitude of tax liens levied against him over the years–in a spontaneous interview recorded Sept. 26. 2010. To provide a better reading view of documents that appear in this video report, either press pause and/or click the option to maximize the viewing screen. You can also view the report on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D4VnG5D1wg

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

Joe Carchio sounded bitter but said he doesn’t care if he gets reelected to the Huntington Beach City Council or not. “If people don’t want me to be a councilman, then fine; I don’t care, I don’t care, I really don’t care,” he recently told the Voice.

According to Carchio, his performance on the council has been second to none going back a century. “I have given more to this city than any other councilman that was ever here,” he declared unequivocally.

Carchio spat those sour grapes out near the end of a recent (Sept. 26) interview with the Voice, an interview that he had tried for a long time to avoid; before it was over, he had complained that this reporter was dishonest, untrustworthy, driven by a vendetta and no longer his friend.

He also issued a threat.

Carchio's $50,252.24 federal tax lien for upaid taxes in 1994 and 1995.

This reporter was attacking him and his family, Carchio alleged, because of my supposed ties to local community groups that opposed his past council votes in favor development on the upper Bolsa Chica mesa and in southeast Huntington Beach, and he wouldn’t put up with it.

“If you’re going to start a war, you’re going to start a war,” he warned. “You’re going to start a 9-11 with me, John.”

Under pressure from a Voice investigation of his past business practices and misuse of public employee benefits, Carchio had confessed that he is not married and had kept his ex-wife enrolled on his city paid health care plan even though she was no longer eligible—the latter being an “honest honest mistake,” he said.

That mistake had cost the City’s taxpayers $2,782.73 for 19 months of care. The overpayment ended when Carchio cut his ex-wife from his health plan (except for vision coverage which came without extra premiums) last March; but, as reported exclusively by the Voice, he didn’t pay back the money until six months later—three days after the Voice inquired about his divorce status.

Carchio promised to make a tell-all statement to the OC Register the next day (Sept 27) explaining what happened. “I’m going to the Register tomorrow…I got the whole thing laid out. I’m going to tell them. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Then, showing a bit of remorse, Carchio said he would take the heat for what he did and hinted that a public apology would be forthcoming.  “In a statement that I’m going to put out, I will take the heat. I am so sorry,” he said.

Eleven days later the Register hasn’t published anything about the topic and there are no signs of a public apology or statement of any kind. In fact, there was no sign of Carchio himself at a candidates’ forum on Monday, Oct. 4, and it was rumored that he wouldn’t be attending the debate to be held this Thursday (10/7/10) at the Huntington Beach Central Library. Continue Reading

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

Six months after he took his ineligible ex-wife off of his city paid Blue Shield HMO plan, and only days after he received clues that a Surf City Voice report on his misuse of that plan was imminent, Huntington Beach City Councilmember Joe Carchio walked into the Human Resources department at City Hall and paid up $2,782.73 in reimbursement to Surf City taxpayers (Editor’s note: The City subsequently confirmed that Carchio actually owed more than the Voice originally estimated: $6,627. The full amount has been paid).

Proof of Carchio's reimbursement, made Sept. 23, 2010.

The larger reimbursement estimate first reported by the Voice was incorrect because it included only the city’s share of overpayments to the health plan and not Carchio’s own premiums. But Carchio paid the amount, in full, on Sept. 23, only three days after he was confronted by the Voice about his divorce, which he had kept secret from City officials and much of the public—even though his two Facebook accounts and an official biography published on the City’s web site all claimed that he was married.

In a contentious interview with the Voice on Sunday, Sept. 26, Carchio acknowledged an “honest mistake,” but falsely claimed that his ex-wife had been on the City’s health care rolls while ineligible for only one year. Records obtained by the Voice through Public Records Act requests, however, including the reimbursement invoice, provide proof that starting in September 2008 she was enrolled for 19 months in regular health care, dental and vision plans through last March (2010) when Carchio switched her to the vision plan only for another 6 months.

From March 2010 through September, even though his wife was still enrolled in the vision plan, there were no premium charges for the City for the extra person.

However, the timing of Carchio’s withdrawal of his ex-wife from enrollment in all but the free vision plan as of last March—by which time, if not sooner, he certainly would have noticed his “honest mistake”—and his subsequent reimbursement not until six months after that withdrawal and several days after learning of the Voice’s investigation—suggests that Carchio was trying to skip reimbursement for his “honest mistake” until repayment became unavoidable.

Councilperson Joe Carchio, Surf City's Wise Guy: "You're going to start a 911 with me!" Photo by Arturo Tolenttion for SCV

In the Sunday interview Carchio claimed that he had “rectified” his “mistake” after having his ineligible ex-wife enrolled for only one year, not two years as records prove, and implied that he had long ago paid up.

“I realized that the mistake was made…because I looked at my check and I was getting more money,” he told the Voice. “So I went to HR, I rectified it, paid the balance.” When asked when he dropped his ex-wife from enrollment Carchio said “In March of last year.” Actually, the drop took place in March, 2010.

During the interview Carchio was furious and threatened this reporter. “If you’re going to start a war, you’re going to start a war,” he warned. “You’re going to start a 9-11 with me, John. I’m not going to put up with you attacking my family, attacking me and going after me…”

Carchio also accused this reporter of waging a “personal vendetta” against him.

Surf City taxpayers might wonder how long Carchio’s apparent scam would have continued if he had not been caught by the Voice.

They might also consider the need for affordable health care for all people and the hypocrisy of politicians who, as members of America’s ‘fiscally responsible’ political party, vote or speak against public health care for other Americans  but love to have it for themselves, and their ex-wives.

Click here to read the previous Voice report.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

Sunday, Sept. 26, was a hot day in Surf City.

For me, however, most of the heat came from a chance encounter on a street corner with a local politician, not from the late blooming summer sun.

That politician, Joseph John Carchio, a.k.a. Jersey Joe, possible former owner of Jersey Joe’s Italian Eatery at 424 Olive Street, would insult my integrity as a person and a journalist multiple times; no problem there, that goes with the territory.

But I was shocked—and nerve racked for the rest of the day—when Carchio, an otherwise congenial member of the Huntington Beach City Council since 2006, and with whom I had enjoyed a professional but cordial acquaintance the past four years, lashed out. In a fit of intense anger, expressed with squinted eyes, a tightly stretched face and deliberately pronounced words, Jersey Joe, everybody’s friend, threatened me with dire warnings of “war” and “9-11.”

Was the threat just a bluff of hot air from a reelection candidate, who is desperately trying to hold on to his seat on the council, amid embarrassing revelations by the Surf City Voice that he could have to pay back thousands of dollars to the taxpayers for health benefits that he had kept his ex-wife signed up for even after their divorce, a divorce which he had not revealed to the city or the public while maintaining on his two Facebook web sites that he is married and has eight children?

No doubt, with the emergence of Measure O—the city ballot infrastructure proposition that is partly aimed at the alleged excesses of the city’s public employees—in a time of great economic hardship and budget cutbacks for the city, the otherwise unemployed city councilperson has landed in the worst crisis of his political life. Continue Reading