Fun With Local Politics

I spend most of my blogging time looking at national issues, but occasionally it's fun to talk about some local stuff as well. Mission Viejo, for all of its tranquil appearance, is quite a hotbed of political squabbles. Every week the local paper is full of letters from concerned citizens lambasting one council member or another for some perceived grievance. I even wrote a letter a couple of years ago apologizing for not being terminally upset like everyone else in town.

We have a couple of issues involving the school districts that have really got some folks panties in a wad. For some reason, we have two school districts in this town: Saddleback Valley and Capistrano Valley. My family attends Saddleback Valley schools, and my wife works in Capo Valley schools. Thanks to the differing vacation schedules, my kids are rarely off school at the same time as my wife. In fact, this year the Easter breaks (or should I say Spring breaks to be politically correct) are two weeks apart.

Capo Valley School District will be gaining a new high school in 2006 and the high school boundaries are being redrawn to accommodate the new school, and this has really ticked off the residents of north Mission Viejo. Tesoro High School (where my wife runs the career center) opened in 2001, and most north Mission Viejo kids attend there. The new boundaries, as proposed by the school chief, takes all of the Mission Viejo kids and ships them down to Capo Valley High school which will result in morning and afternoon commutes changing from about 8 minutes to 25-30 minutes. I wouldn't be surprised if this one ends up in court.

The second hot issue of the day involves the high school sports leagues throughout the county. For many years Mission Viejo High (where my kids go) have been the powerhouse of the South Coast League, regularly taking the league championship in football. In fact, the other schools in the league have pretty much been blowouts where our starters are out of the games by halftime.

There was a move this week at the principal's meeting by San Clemente High to move Mission out of the South Coast League and to the Sunset League. This would benefit San Clemente since they had the second strongest football team in the league, though they were regularly spanked by Mission. The move to the Sunset league would have meant some very long trips for all of the Mission sports teams every time there was an away game (most of the Sunset League teams are in Fountain Valley and Westminster).

Fortunately another option was proposed by a principal from Orange that kept Mission in the South Coast League and moved El Toro and Trabuco Hills elsewhere. Both of those schools had gotten tired of having their helmets handed to them every year during football season and wanted to get out of the South Coast League. Aliso Niguel and Tesoro were moved into the South Coast League, which means Mission will play Tesoro and my wife's loyalties will be severely tested. What's interesting now is that the South Coast League consists of 5 Capo Valley schools and 1 Saddleback Valley school. All of the other Saddleback Valley schools have been moved elsewhere.

Poor San Clemente will still be fodder for the Diablos of Mission Viejo. You can send your condolences for San Clemente High right here.