Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
We all make the occasional “bad call”, but can you imagine anyone in the private sector keeping their job after spending $18,000 to collect a proclaimed $600 debt? What if that debt was provably not even owed (according to the Judges ruling, here: http://savenewport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Judgment.pdf), and the person who you said owed it only ever wanted an apology and retraction?
During the saga following Dixon directing the use of taxpayer money to investigate someone simply because they opposed her political policies (https://apps.newportbeachca.gov/quest/attachments/269919_VoiceMessage.wav), Dixon then made a provably-incorrect outburst at City Council saying that I owed the city “a bunch of money” in an attempt to overshadow my testimony when I attempted to save the Downtowner against her “free” ($44 round-trip) bus idea (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3RkM1VmYJ8) which she keeps calling a “trolley”.
Well, after SaveNewporter Jon Pedersen filed a Public Document Request Act, we received a heavily redacted article that shows no hourly rates, a redacted billing summary, and nothing except a bunch of final billing numbers that the city paid to outside council. So much for “transparency in government”, huh? Read the CIA-esque redacted document, here: http://savenewport.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/292417_00291552.pdf
Since the courts ruled that I never owed the money in the first place– and that was the entire basis of the lawsuit– I have emailed Dixon and requested an apology in the same forum in which she made the accusations– tomorrow’s City Council Meeting. It will start at 7pm and can be viewed livestreaming at http://savenewport.com/council. I am hoping for both an apology to myself for the erroneous proclamation from the dais and an apology to taxpayers for spending $18,000 of taxpayer money to essentially collect a debt that wasn’t even owed. Of course, if she apologized for directing taxpayer-funded employees to investigate a political opponent for the purposes off her own political advancement, that would be the icing on the cake.
I don’t know whether or not she will honor the judges ruling and admit her errors, but I am– once again– willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in hopes that her tactics have changed. After all, if we never give people the opportunity to change, then they never can!
