SUNDAY STORYCampaign Superhighway

Meet the cast of the Costa Mesa City Council election subplot.

Byron de Arakal, a parks and recreation commissioner, is scratching his itches. Controversial Costa Mesa gadfly Martin H. Millard is pressing his agenda. Political observer and retired human resources specialist Geoff West is boiling, toiling and troubling over a caldron. And a mysterious writer who goes by the name Not Foolya has cropped up, leaving City Council candidates, bloggers and others in the community searching for clues to his or her identity.

In Costa Mesa’s blogosphere, where these and others frequently opine, few punches are pulled. But until Election Day, it remains unclear if all the name-calling and bloviating is bluster or bellwether.

Most evidence suggests bluster. A majority of City Council candidates say they aren’t paying much attention and that voters aren’t talking to them about the online commentaries. And readership numbers — vague but impressive for blogs focusing on a municipal election — don’t point to wide influence.

De Arakal says that blogs will become increasingly important in national and local elections, especially as blogs become profitable. But blogging’s importance is already being seen in big-ticket political races, such as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection bid. The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that Schwarzenegger employs a team of young people to keep track of media coverage, including blogs.

“It’s the wave of campaigning,” council candidate Chris Bunyan said, adding, “ ’08 is probably going to be the year of the blog.”

Bunyan is the youngest of Costa Mesa’s City Council candidates and sees the blogs as valuable campaign tools. “It’s a good way to get some feedback — they’re usually very honest,” he said of bloggers.

Aside from being honest, they’re also slanted. The consensus, though, is that they should be.

HITCHING UP

When Byron de Arakal has an itch, he scratches it. His blog, the Itching Post, allows him to do just that. “When I get involved, I have a lot of scratches,” he said.

And with the political season beating down doors, overflowing from mailboxes, monopolizing headlines and blaring from the TV, he’s got plenty to write about. He isn’t afraid to use words this paper won’t publish, and he certainly isn’t shy about dissing candidate Wendy Leece, with whom he sits on the parks and recreation commission.

“So, we received city council candidate Wendy Leece’s latest mailer in our post box today. And we think — after reading it — that either we or she has stepped into an alternative reality,” de Arakal wrote in an Oct. 13 post.

Whether de Arakal’s readers agree or disagree with him, “As long as people keep reading,” he said, “I’m happy.”

De Arakal gets from 80 to 200 hits a day on his blog, he said, and a spattering of comments, mostly from locals. That’s pretty good for a seven-month-old municipally focused blog in a town of about 108,000.

“Blogs are having significantly more influence on local and national politics,” de Arakal said. He wants to see his readership expand so that people will talk about the blog in the community. To get there, he must be credible. The role of citizen journalist is not for everyone, said de Arakal, who has a degree in journalism, runs a one-man public relations business in Newport Beach and is a former Daily Pilot columnist. Many bloggers don’t understand libel and other laws that govern mass communications and the principles of substantiation, he said. That means that readers have to be cautious about what they’re reading. “You’ve got to digest it with a couple of cartons of salt,” de Arakal said.

FULL-COURT PRESS

You can’t talk for very long about Costa Mesa’s blogosphere without Martin H. Millard’s name surfacing.

Reading Millard’s blog, West said, is “frustrating as heck.” At least two council candidates find it frustrating, too.

During a candidates forum hosted by the Daily Pilot on Oct. 18, Bunyan said that Costa Mesa shouldn’t aspire to be like wealthy Newport Beach or worry about becoming like Santa Ana, which by comparison with Newport is poor. Costa Mesa should focus on preserving and promoting its unique character, Bunyan said then. In a post on the same day, Millard listed on his CM Press reasons to vote for Mayor Allan Mansoor and parks and recreation commissioner Leece — among them: “If you don’t want Costa Mesa to be the new Santa Ana.”

“My view is that we should be the slightly less pretty sister of Newport Beach,” Millard said in an e-mail last week.

Bunyan said his comment at the forum was meant to refute Millard’s post. “That’s a scare tactic,” Bunyan said.

On CM Press, City Council candidate Mike Scheafer is referred to as “the walrus,” and candidate Bruce Garlich often gets the word “stinky” inserted between his first and last name.

Scheafer said Millard has every right to write what he does, but he has asked Millard to stop poking fun at his weight.

“His mustache makes him look like a walrus,” Millard said.

Millard describes himself as “politically agnostic” with a strong libertarian streak.

Some of his writings have appeared on the New Nation News website (www.newnation.com) and the Council of Conservative Citizens (www.cofcc.org) — groups the Southern Poverty Law Center calls racist.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit that tracks hate groups and runs tolerance-education programs. In an Intelligence Report from this summer, the center wrote at length about Millard’s influence in Costa Mesa and referenced some of his writings. (The report, “The Tinderbox,” is available in English and Spanish at www.splcenter.org/intel/intel report/article.jsp?aid=643.) Millard said he hadn’t read the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report, but, “Didn’t that group just write something negative about Pat Buchanan? I don’t mind being in Pat’s company.”

Millard said he has written for many websites, including the Sierra Times (www.sierratimes.com), and print publications.

“Generally, I let my stuff appear where it has some chance of reaching an open-minded and intelligent audience, so long as I’m compensated in one way or another,” Millard said by e-mail. “I write to be read.”

De Arakal said that CM Press isn’t as controversial as some of Millard’s other writings.

“I disagree with 90% of what Martin [Millard] writes,” de Arakal said. But de Arakal doesn’t go as far as some who say Millard’s voice is a dangerous one. “I’m a firm believer in the free market of ideas. I think Martin’s blog is just as important as mine.”

Not everyone is so sure.

“I really think he’s a dangerous guy,” West said about Millard. Millard called that a “silly” and “paranoid” thing to say.

West also characterized Millard as “brilliant,” saying that much of the change he has sought in the city has come to fruition.

“I’d hesitate to take credit for anything,” Millard said. “Some want it to appear that there’s a cause and effect between what I say and what is done. I wish I had such power, but I don’t.”

BUBBLING OVER

On Geoff West’s A Bubbling Cauldron, Millard isn’t mentioned by name — only as a person who resembles his “theoretical character Your Neighbor.” “That ticks him off,” West said. “That’s OK — that’s part of the reason I did it.”

But, West said, he has to watch his step.

“Blogging is unencumbered by editing,” he said. “As a result, sometimes you step in it and have to figure out how to step out of it.”

He’ll take that risk, though, because he wants an outlet for his thoughts and opinions.

His appetite for commentary was whetted when he wrote his first letter to the Pilot in response to a column de Arakal had written — and it was published. From then, he’d have two, sometimes three, letters a week in print.

He has similar enthusiasm for his blog, though he doesn’t post quite that regularly. “Right now, it’s taking up more of my life than I’d like it to,” he said.

And his friends and acquaintances have noticed.

“More than a few people when they talk to me will say, ‘You’re not going to put this in your blog, are you?’ That cracks me up,” West said.

West launched A Bubbling Cauldron a year and a half ago because he had more to say than there was room to have it published in the Daily Pilot or other newspapers. His blog posts, like his letter-to-the-editor submissions, are long affairs with wide-ranging subject matter. He said he’s most proud of a remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that he posted in September 2005, and a piece memorializing his best friend. Mostly, though, he keeps it political and local.

He disparages Mansoor’s plan to have the city’s police trained to enforce federal immigration laws, and he stumps for Garlich and Scheafer, the candidates supported by the political action committee Return to Reason, of which West is a member.

“I’d much rather have a letter published in the Pilot because I know people read it,” he said. And, he said, a letter reaches a broader audience and probably has more influence.

On his blog, which doesn’t have a traffic counter because of technical limitations, it’s hard to know who’s paying attention. He said he gets up to 80 hits a day.

“It’s my assumption that my blog is read by the same people over and over,” West said. And a lot of those people probably agree with him on most issues, he thinks.

His blogging goal is to inspire more people to participate in local politics. Because of his blog, he knows a few more people are paying attention than used to, and the city is better for it, he said.

HARPER INCOGNITO

So just who is behind the Goat Hill Harper? A writer called Not Foolya, of course.

“I don’t know who’s writing it,” West said. “I’d love to know.”

There are theories.

One is that it’s Millard posting under a pseudonym. Both blogs post fictional portrayals of events in Costa Mesa, and both support Mansoor and Leece and frequently disagree with the Daily Pilot’s news coverage and editorial decisions.

But, “Never heard of it,” Millard said by e-mail.

Scheafer’s sons, who regularly read Goat Hill Harper and the city’s other blogs connected the word “harper” with the surname of former Daily Pilot reporter Lolita Harper.

“I have no idea what’s going on in Costa Mesa,” Harper said by telephone last week. She works in Fontana for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. “It’s not me.”

West said he once posted a comment on the blog and got an e-mail from someone called Clint Connor. A search of voter registration records and Daily Pilot archives turned up nothing on that name.

And this reporter posted a comment on the blog and received an e-mail from someone who signed his or her e-mail as Not Foolya. The name Eric Christensne was attached to the e-mail address. But again, nothing in the archives or voter registration records. An online search turned up several people named Eric Christensen, even one in Costa Mesa. But for now, at least, the blogger behind Goat Hill Harper remains an enigma.

LOGGING OFF

Who’s posting on Goat Hill Harper and what the bloggers write may not matter much come Nov. 7. Every candidate but Bunyan and restaurateur Mirna Burciaga said voters aren’t talking to them about what they’ve read on the blogs.

“Quite frankly, I don’t think a lot of people are reading them,” Mansoor said.

Burciaga said someone had asked her about a post on Millard’s blog, but she dismissed it as too negative to bother with. She said she doesn’t read the blogs, but her husband does. She stops him and asks if business is slow when he tries to tell her about what he’s read on a blog. Her campaign, her family and her business are better uses of her time, she said. “I think people who are reading blogs probably have nothing better to do,” Burciaga said.

Leece echoed that.

“The citizens of Costa Mesa have better things to do with their time than to spend time reading blogs,” Leece said.

And Scheafer wonders about their influence.

“I really don’t think it has an effect on Joe Voter,” he said.

But Bunyan is convinced that if not now, blogs will have a significant place in future elections.

“Joe Voter is writing the blogs,” Bunyan said. “It’s a good way for Joe Voter to express his or her concerns,” he added.

But typical voting Costa Mesans don’t generally pay such careful attention to the minutiae of City Hall and council elections. Whether they’re paying attention to the election as it’s fought online is, like Goat Hill Harper, a mystery.

“It’s a phenomenon that I don’t think has been around long enough to evaluate,” Garlich said.

COSTA MESA’S BLOGS

WHAT’S A BLOG

Blog is a combination of the words “Web” and “log.” Some bloggers — people who write a blog’s content, or posts — write about news; others write about their personal life; still others use it as a forum to post pictures.

Anyone with an Internet connection can create a blog, and many have.

Search-engine giant Google runs a popular, free blogging service, which hosts Byron de Arakal’s, Martin H. Millard’s and Not Foolya’s blogs. To sign up with Google’s service, all a potential blogger needs is a working e-mail address, the patience to complete a few simple steps, and something to say.