Did you know that former Santa Ana City Commissioner Thomas Gordon maintains a second home in Denver, CO? He has in fact served in City Commissions both in Denver and in Santa Ana. Yet Gordon today is attacking former Santa Ana Planning Commissioner Sean Mill, who resigned from his city post after Gordon and Liberal OC blogger Dan Chmielewski paid a private investigator to tail Mill to see if he was living in Santa Ana, according to the O.C. Register.
As it turns out both Gordon and Chmielewski have been caught red-handed previously by Mill. It was Mill who discovered that Chmielewski was running a business based in Santa Ana, a few years ago, but he had not at the time acquired or paid for a Santa Ana city business license. And of course it was Mill who brought up Gordon’s own residency issues when Gordon was a Santa Ana City Commissioner.
I myself had a run-in with Gordon a few years ago when I spoke to him and the other members of the Santa Ana Parks and Recreation Board about the need for a dog park here in Santa Ana. Gordon had previously bragged to me about how he flies his dog to Denver and takes that dog to Denver’s 12 dog parks. But of course Gordon opposed opening a dog park here in Santa Ana. God forbid that our residents enjoy the same amenities that Gordon has at his second home in Denver!
Gordon is also a Republican. He is in fact an elected member of the OC GOP’s Central Committee. You will see him on the ballot this November as he is running against Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Nelida Yanez. I don’t know why Gordon keeps running for office as Republicans can no longer win in Santa Ana. We saw this in the June election this year when Gordon’ friend, Tea Partier Robert Hammond, was booted off the Orange County Board of Education, in favor of a Democrat, Becky Gomez, from Tustin.
The only other people who are happy to see Mill leave our city are the gentrifiers and developers who he regularly questioned and held to a high standard as a Santa Ana Planning Commissioner.
Mill’s exit from our Planning Commission is not good news for Santa Ana residents. He was the only one on the Planning Commission who consistently looked out for us. When Santa Ana City Councilman David Benavides and his Planning Commissioner, Phil Bacerra, were trying to extend bar hours to 4 a.m., it was Mill who put the kibosh on that. He also was the only Planning Commissioner who fought back when the gentrifiers went too far.
Mill was also involved in quite a few other political battles over the years, including:
- Leading the charge against Benavides when that Council Member chose to honor Lupe Moreno, a self-loathing Minuteman at a City Council meeting
- Outing a Planning Commissioner who chewed out a teenager on the Planning Commission, leading to her ouster from that Commission
- Revealing that Bacerra was not obeying transparency rules set up by the Planning Agency for their Commissioners
Mill also gets a lot of credit for advocating for more affordable housing in our city. Thanks to his efforts developers now have to either provide affordable housing or pay a fee.
So was Mill living outside of Santa Ana? Like Gordon he maintained a home in Santa Ana, with his mom, who continues to recover from a stroke she suffered a few years ago. But he married a lady who lived in Riverside, in June of last year. So he was spending a few days out in that city during the week. But as he works in Irvine he was still living in Santa Ana a majority of the time. He recently was hired to coach football at Riverside Polytechnic High School, in the evenings, and was already planning on moving to Riverside permanently. In fact he had planned in advance to resign from the Planning Commission.
Mill moved up his resignation after Chmielewski and Gordon hired a private investigator to tail him. That was of course a ridiculous intrusion into Mill’s personal life. But beyond their personal beefs with Mill, these two men also are allied with Bacerra and Benavides. And Bacerra has been trying to take over the Planning Commission for years. He of course wanted Mill off of that Commission.
Mill has been in politics a long time. He graduated from UCI with a degree in political science. He was a Republican when he was younger and even worked for a GOP Assemblyman, Dick Longshore. And he was a staff member of the groundbreaking Wally George TV show, a long time ago. Mill was also involved in outing Curt Pringle and Tom Fuentes when the OC GOP illegally paid for uniformed security guards at polling booths. He has been a Democrat now for many years – but he is not a corporate Democrat, unlike Chmielewski and Bacerra. How ironic it is that Bacerra likes to brag about having breakfast with Pringle – who Mill crossed swords with many years ago.
Mill will be just fine. I am sure he will become very involved in civic matters in Riverside and I am sorry to see him leave our city. We all owe him a major debt of gratitude. You can expect that the Planning Commission will now lay down for all of the bad ideas coming from Bacerra and Benavides. And you can bet that we will be watching them very closely.
What a slippery slope.
Imagine if last week, Maybe it was a Thursday, Dan took a walk from his office to the nearby bar, the Swinging Door, on the way, he shared a conversation with someone about a loved one involved in an accident. He might end that conversation with “I Love You”.
As Dan enters the bar at a little after 12:30 pm and the cute young barmaid yells:
“Hey Dan”
“Hey Lauren” He replies. Taking the number three stool at the bar (#3 from the back).
“Dan You want a Gran Marnier?” The cute girl asks knowing his usual late morning cocktail.
“No Not today, I have a two O’clock meeting. How about a (unitelligable) house red”
She serves Dan a glass of red wine and takes his order: Chicken strips with Fries.
Dan watches Euro-cup soccer while obsessing on Facebook about Greg Diamond and other OC political figures (cover your phone Dan), while Dan nibbles and sips, oblivious to his surroundings, others are going over the FJ Cruiser down the street with a fine tooth comb. Laughing at the ridiculous stickers plastered on a otherwise good vehicle.
Dan can’t finish his lunch and leaves 1/3 of the order behind, gulps the last of the house red and returns to his office for his “2:00 PM Meeting” which can’t be confirmed. Judging by his attire, dirty jeans, loose fitting grey sweatshirt and well worn shoes, there was no such meeting.
So you see, Mr. Ford isn’t the ONLY PI in orange County, Sean Mill isn’t the only target of such attacks, Dan’s schedule and that of his family is quite predictable, making him an easy target, others not so much.
UP NEXT: HOW PHIL ALMOST MISSED THE BUS!
That’s the slippery slope Thomas Gordon and Dan Chmielewski built, introducing investigations to family life is INCREDIBLY stupid, when you have teenage, college age children whose LIVES could be ruined. The Liberal OC knows a lot about this, having stalked the children of politicians before. GOD HELP THOSE KIDS, AND FORGIVE YOUR FATHER FOR HIS SINS.