Sierra Madre Council Shake Up –
By Terry Miller
Published: Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Joe Mosca is flanked by Jubulent supporters who gathered at the home of Bob and Rosemary Burnett. Mosca’s partner, Matt is pictured on the far right.
Photos by Terry Miller
Joe Mosca Most Certainly will be the Next Mayor of Sierra Madre
By Terry Miller
Sierra Madre’s most contentious election in recent history came to a spectacular close Tuesday evening with Joe Mosca, Josh Moran and Nancy Walsh being elected by a significant margin over their opponents who, according to many residents, ran a somewhat vicious smear campaign particularly against councilmember Joe Mosca.
At a victory party at firefighter and longtime supporter Bob and Rosemary Burnett’s home Tuesday evening, over-joyed voters watched as the votes kept coming in for the underdogs. Once it was obvious that they had won the election, it was time for Mr. Mosca to make a brief statement. Councilman John Buchanan introduced Joe Mosca “ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next Mayor of Sierra Madre.” Cheers could be heard for miles as Joe Mosca thanked his campaign staff and supporters for keeping up the good fight and not letting the unconstructive campaigning by some in the city deter them from the honor they won Tuesday evening.
“It’s a terrific victory for Sierra Madre, we’re ecstatic.” Said Sue Levoe – that very sentiment was echoed tenfold by the scores of well-wishers and campaign staff at Josh Moran’s family home too. It was hugs all around as people from all walks of life popped in to thank the victors for changing the direction of the city council. Long-time resident Karma Bell said she agreed with Sue’s comments and added that she’s “thrilled” with the upshot of the other side’s relentless attacks on Joe Mosca.
At the root of the problem, as is often the case in politics local, national or international, is power.
The previous Sierra Madre council was seriously split and left little wiggle room. The divisive and conflict-ridden approach some say the preceding council injected was detrimental to any communication and made progress slow.
The sitting mayor MacGillivray has been accused of being fanatical and disrespectful of those whom she opposes.
Case in point was the last City Council meeting which can been seen on our website: sierramadreweekly.com where the Matriarchal Mayor admonished Joe Mosca, a fellow city councilman, and publicly humiliated him for attempting to defend his record in office.
According to a high ranking Fire Dept official Tuesday evening who spoke with the Weekly said that he “lost all respect for MacGillivray” during the 1991 Earthquake in Sierra Madre. MacGillivary and other council members at the time were apparently on some sort of retreat out of town. Upon learning of her hometown’s serious quake which caused extensive damage, the then city councilmember MacGillivray returned to check on her own home’s status and then returned to the retreat without attending to the emergency. She and the council did not declare a state of emergency to qualify for emergency government money and the fire department’s hands were tied with the limited resources
During the course on the campaign trail a highly contentious and suspect blog kept posting accusations and inflammatory comments mostly by those who had not the courage to attribute their real names to the blatant acts of defamation.
The blog, after hearing the news, has since ceased to exist and claims it is on a spring cleaning of some sort.
The owner of said blog was candidate John Crawford who seemed to relish in controversy and rip apart personalities with whom he did not agree.
His tiny band of bias supporters, albeit anonymous, were extolling the demise of the town of Sierra Madre if its citizens did not vote for the Crawford/Alcorn/Watts ticket.
The endless ramblings of Crawford and his semi-literate broadband of digital disciples were not, it seems, impressing the community at all. That combined with MacGillivray’s recent city council outburst in which the ceremonial gavel was used repeatedly nailing her own coffin and sealing her fate, determined the outcome Tuesday evening.
The general consensus Tuesday evening in speaking with a number of voters was that the return of civility and graciousness to local government was essential, something “had to happen”. Those who voted in Tuesday’s election spoke loud and clear that Crawford’s misdirected energies were not going to overcome their carefully selected ballot choices.
The Eminent Domain measure also passed with 86% of the voters saying yes to the measure.
Here are the results:
Candidate Precinct 02A Precinct 06A Precinct 10A Absentee Uncertified
Totals
Crawford – Council 248 205 207 413 1073
Alcorn – Council 265 210 215 394 1084
Tice – Council 14 21 12 30 77
Walsh – Council 374 341 302 449 1466
Watts – Council 299 229 242 460 1230
Mosca – Council 426 378 359 541 1704
Moran – Council 443 366 354 480 1648
Measures
Yes on ED 536 481 438 790 2245
No on ED 103 80 81 108 372
Ballots 713 610 585 967 2875
One jubilant Joe Mosca supporter quipped that Crawford just barely beat Bill Tice’s vote count Tuesday evening.
One voter stood on the corner of Sierra Madre Blvd and Baldwin Tuesday evening as the polling places begged their last voters. Bearing not only the pre-printed Mosca-Moran-Walsh campaign signs but also a hand written sign which read “ Return civility to City Council – Vote” Paul Hapersarian helped the proletariat make that momentous decision Tuesday evening.
The next city council meeting is April 27 where the new elected officials will be sworn in and the new mayor selected.
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