Rules to live by:
1) If you're going to accuse someone of breaking the law, make sure you aren't doing the same exact thing at that exact moment.
2) If someone says you did something as foolish as breaking rule #1, and they say they have video, don't call them a liar. It just won't end well.
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Watch this video. Yes, all of it.
An embedded YouTube video appeared here in the original post. View the original — embeds are preserved as links in this archive.
The man at the podium (wearing the shirt that everyone's talking about) is Larry McClements. On Facebook they call him "Larry from Yelp" and on Yelp they call him "Larry M.", but I usually call him "Larry."
Larry was driving around Santa Clarita on election day with a truck displaying a Maria Gutzeit for City Council sign (he was everywhere, I saw him twice without trying). He tells the story like this:
"So we were driving towards Newhall and saw someone we knew with a sign supporting a different effort. We waved and were chatting car-to-car and decided to pull over and chat. A lot of us who follow local politics know each other, so we respect each other and their positions."
OK, innocent enough. Then what?
“We pulled into the library parking lot and stopped on the outskirts. We were talking to each other when we saw a lady taking our picture repeatedly. I said, 'hey that looks like Marsha McLean.' Then we saw the city name tag and realized it was her. We told her to come over and talk to us. She started yelling at us that we were breaking the law. That’s when I turned on the video."
Larry shared the video on Facebook and it was big news for a few hours. But it was also election day, and fires burn hot – and quickly. As hopes faded for all but a few candidates, the story soon shifted. Before you knew it, we had a new council and a month-long über-drama of billboard petitioners and blockers. The video was forgotten before we really had the chance to ponder just how bizarre (and out of line) the once-and-former mayor's behavior was.
Some months passed, and Larry thought it was a good time to air his grievance about (attempted) intimidation by a councilmember on election day. Think of it: the most senior member of the city council, in official dress, trying to shut up a regular citizen. If you know Larry, you'd know that's an awful idea.
But Marsha McLean didn't know Larry.
As Marsha and her husband were documenting Larry's Freedom Truck, Larry was documenting them, and returning their snark tenfold. The tables now completely turned, and the McLeans scoot away, defeated, end of scene.
On the video, McLean was complaining that Larry was on public property (a free speech zone if there ever was one) but let's allow that she meant to complain about having a campaign sign so close to a polling place. Larry didn't realize at the time, but there was a polling place inside the library.
But while Larry was reviewing the footage recently, he realized that Marsha McLean had been doing the same thing. She was parked in the same lot, and her car (an Acura, ever the sign of a turn-of-the-millennium SCV VIP) had a Marsha McLean for City Council campaign sign emblazoned on the side. And to top it off, she was wearing her official City name tag—on election day, engaged in election hijkinks.
This fits well with McLean's sometimes desperate campaign strategy in the waning days of the election. In the previous council meeting, she actually campaigned from the council dais, which is a major no-no. You might also recall how she used the official city seal in a campaign mailer.
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(She was also cited by the FPPC in April for not including her sender information on a campaign mailer.)
Of course there's a certain silliness and theater to all of this, but a candidate for office shouldn't pose as a city official and try to intimidate another campaign on election day. That's really inexcusable. And it's even worse to use your position (not to mention the last word) to call that citizen a liar when he shares that incident with the council.
But even if Larry never gets and apology, at least he has the pleasure of sharing this with us, right?
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