Frank Ury
Mission Viejo Councilman Frank Ury is currently running for the Orange County Board of Supervisors but an embarrassing story is emerging in his city, and Ury is right in the thick of it.
According to Desi Kiss, a longtime resident of Mission Viejo who is running for their City Council this November, the City of Mission Viejo has only 9 parks with public restrooms out of 50 community parks?
Now you would think that Ury would support giving his fellow residents somewhere to pee when they are hanging out at Mission Viejo’s parks, but that turns out not to be the case.
Desi Kiss, candidate for the Mission Viejo City Council
Kiss reports that “on March 6, 2006 the MV City Council directed the Community Services Commission to develop a restroom master plan for their City parks. While this Plan was dormant for 8 years, on March 17, 2014, the issue was again placed on the Council’s Agenda by Mayor Trish Kelley and Council Member Cathy Schlicht. At the end of an in-depth debate with Mission Viejo residents, and serious areas of concern presented by numerous citizens, Council Members Rhonda Reardon, Dave Leckness, and Ury were against the much needed restrooms at the city’s fifty parks, and indicated that yet another in-depth study is required before the matter may be addressed by the Council AGAIN for a vote.”
So why does the MV City Council majority want residents to keep peeing on park trees instead of providing them with public restrooms? Well, as one might imagine, it is always the money. Leckness said that to build one bathroom the cost would be $300,000, while other council members mentioned figures as high as $600,000.
Nowhere to pee at most Mission Viejo parks
Ury said money is NO issue and he can place all of them in 2 weeks, but some residents don’t like them in their neighborhood. I guess Ury’s pals would rather that people pee on shrubs and trees?
Since a petition drive was conducted and there are hundreds of residents who would like the City to provide public restrooms at their parks, Kiss is proposing to place the matter on the November 4 ballot, in the event that the City Council fails to deliver a resolution as soon as possible. Kiss says that there was no need for another study, since the May 1, 2006 Master Plan recommendation was passed by the Community Services Commission with a 6-1 VOTE, and there was a significant population increase since that time. Moreover, 40 acres of new land annexation for a housing project development in 2013 made Mission Viejo an even larger city.
It will be safe to drink lemonade in MV’s parks again!
Kiss has a plan to install twenty new cost-effective public restrooms at our parks for a price tag not to exceed $ 2 million. His plan will bring the percentage of MV parks with restrooms from 18 % to 58%. That is still low as the neighboring cities of San Clemente & Rancho Santa Margarita have 75% coverage while Irvine is at about 50%.
Here is the list of 30 parks that are under consideration in Kiss’ plan: Tier 1: (top priority) Barcelona, Aurora, Napoli, Pacific Hills, Pavion, Crucero, Eastbrook, Pine Crest, Spendlove, Barbadanes and Sycamore. Tier 2: (2-nd priority) La Paws, Wilderness, Linda Vista, Madrid Fore, Preciados, Camino Largo, Agean Hills, Birchwood, Castile, Castlewood, Christopher, Coronado, Minaya, Seville, Valyerno, Doria, El Dorado, Vista del Lago & La Mancha.
Kiss propose 2 types of very low cost, low maintenance restrooms, (around 100-150 Sqft) with low-flow, no-flush & no- touch fixtures, ADA compliant, with solar panels and surveillance equipment that will discourage vandalism, violence and other activities.
OPTION A: A PRE-FABRICATED MASONRY BLOCK CONSTRUCTION w/ solar panels – TOTAL AVERAGE PRICE TAG /UNIT = $75K (FULLY INSTALLED @ the SITE).
OPTION B: STAINLESS STEEL UNISEX– w/ solar panels restrooms (10’-7”x 6’-0”x 8’-6” tall). TOTAL AVERAGE PRICE TAG/UNIT = $100K (FULLY INSTALLED @ THE SITE).
Public parks are important to the well-being of Mission Viejo’s families. That Ury doesn’t understand that makes him a truly terrible candidate for the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
I don’t think that Councilman Dave Leckness and Councilwoman Rhonda Reardon understand the need of public restrooms at our Mission Viejo parks either.
I agree. But since they are not running for the OC Board of Supervisors I decided to focus on Ury, who has some explaining to do…
Thanks Desi for your work in advancing this issue!
Ury will tell you what you want to hear–then pull the rug out later.
In reality this issue was brought to prominence by Zjulie Tulley who was appalled her Grandson had to pee in the bushes at soccer games.
Good point Joe. And isn’t having kids pee in the bushes also exposing them to perverts? Ury is endangering the children in Mission Viejo!
Having known Ury for 20 years one thing I have learned is that you need to challenge his wing it comments. In discussing the restroom issue at a recent council meeting he said we have enough money to build six restrooms in a week. He also said the city would need to interface wth the 6,000, that’s right six thousand homes, around Barbadanes park to see if they approve. Hello. We only provide notices to residents within 500 feet of a project. Beyond that the last park in which a restroom was built was Melinda. I wrote about this outhouse at the time in the Orange Juice blog. As we own a home in that immediate area, and I verified this with a neighbor, we were never contacted as to our desire or opposition to a restroom being installed so the kids and adults playing soccer would not have to find a bush or tree to pee behind
Imagine what a train wreck Ury would be as a County Supervisor?
It appears that Desi Kiss has been posting using multiple accounts on other sites, making it seems as if residents support him. He has used the following usernames on those sites: “manodlini”, “Josephina” (the supportive one), “apricot” and “sammy”.
He might be using an IP address that is used by others in the same office or building or a service like AOL which uses the same IP for all users.
But that aside why would anyone be opposed to providing public restrooms at MV parks? I would think that most folks would agree with Desi.
Sam ??, or Dan !
Probably Dan…
Sam=Dan
What is sad is that we have Flo Jo park with restrooms yet, until now, the city does not schedule any soccer games in that park’s active area. Mayor Kelley agreed with me on that point at a recent council meeting. Schedule games where we have restrooms. Let’s not go overboard here. We do not require a restroom in every park. However, when teams rotate in soccer matches, where you might be spending a few hours, there needs to be some accomodations for both the kids and adults with weak bladders. Worst case provide Porta potties. In most cases these games are not close to where the participants live. We’ve heard that some people have actually knocked on park neighbors doors to ask if they could use their bathrooms. We have the money so why the stall?
Sorry that my name did not appear. I do not hide from my comments wherever they appear. Larry Gilbert
So who is taking a picture and posting a photo of children urinating? You people are sick and disturbed to post this photo.
Google images. Shouldn’t you be more concerned with the fact that Ury has blocked installing bathrooms in most of your parks?
Anonymous. Those are “free” Google image photos that anyone can access on line and post to make a point. I use them often but non for this story. I.e. See my Pinocchio pictures on my Facebook articles. They were from Google. Larry Gilbert
The images shown on Google Image searches are mostly NOT “free” to post for any reason. They are copyrighted by the original person taking them, and you cannot legally post them anywhere without permission.
Oh Sam you are such a grouch! Why don’t you tell us why Ury won’t give MV kids in the parks a place to pee?
No Dan — you are the sick person !!
I’d like to share this update for those interested Mission Viejo taxpayers. The public restrooms was a BIG issue during the 2014 City Council election. Actually council members Reardon and Leckness who opposed the restrooms lost their bid for re-election, while another opponent, council member Frank Ury, who will be termed out at the end of next year, will have the opportunity to cast his vote on October 27, 2015 on the Mission Viejo public restroom matter. Reference: CIP 304 – Pavion Park Restrooms.
Mission Viejo has officially 55 parks and to date only 9 have public restrooms. A new facility, La Paws park was opened to the public recently and has no public restroom either.
However in the after-math of the issues debated during the 2014 CC election, the new Mission Viejo City Council on 01/19/2015, recommended and/or approved funding for two restrooms (at a total price tag of $ 500,000 per restroom), the 1st of the much needed restrooms will go into Pavion Park, hopefully asap, perhaps as early as the Spring of 2016, if CIP 304 will be approved on 10/27/2015.
The Pavion park’s restroom structure will be a stone front modular design, pre-engineered & pre-fabricated “shipped-to-the-site”unit. Upon approval by the Community Services Commission, that is planned for October 20, 2015 it will be sent to the City Council for their approval VOTE on October 27, 2015.
We the residents have all been waiting for this pending action for years! It is about time!
PS: It is interesting to mention that my plan to provide 20 restrooms for a total price tag NOT to exceed $ 2 Million as illustrated in the above article was ignored, and city staff decided to propose only two(2) restrooms for an outrageous total price tag of approximately $ 1 Million, despite the fact that the City has approximately $ 20 Million of unfunded liabilities and the $ 7.7 Million approved Aquatic Center rehab project is scheduled for construction @ the start of September 2016.
Thanks for the update!