Barbara Venezia: Fired up - and often wrong - on Facebook

During the day I periodically check Facebook.

I know I shouldn’t be that curious about what my more than 1,600 Facebook friends — the majority of whom I’ve never met — post about their lives, but it’s my guilty pleasure.

And there are times when I see posts that inspire columns, so it’s not all just fun and games.

That was the case last week, when I wrote about attending Costa Mesa Mayor Steve Mensinger’s birthday celebration at Skosh Monahan’s restaurant after seeing former council candidate Chris McEvoy’s “Boycott Skosh Monahan’s, Stop the Over Development” Facebook page.

The column raised questions about respectable levels of protest.

I asked whether it’sfair to go after Councilman Gary Monahan’s livelihood with a boycott because of his politics. He has six kids to feed.

The answers, which came by way of comment threads and emails, were interesting. Folks on both sides of the issue offered compelling thoughts.

Though we’ve all gotten used to sharing on Facebook, how well do people really vet what they post?

Some mistruths sure can fire up things in this city.

For example, because of the way Facebook works, Mensinger’s comment thread reposted on my page regarding a local resident claiming she had discovered that the Orange County fairgrounds was planning to reduce its sound-attenuation budget for the Pacific Amphitheatre project.

As you can imagine, she had no shortage of “friends” chiming in as well.

Mensinger posted advice on how to get to the bottom of things — and editorialized on the subject as well.

Only problem was, the posting was wrong.

The sound budget isn’t being cut, according to my two sources — my husband and fair board member Stan Tkaczyk, and interim fair CEO Doug Lofstrom.

Since my husband is probably one of the few people on the planet without a Facebook account, when I disclosed my information source, let’s just say he wasn’t amused.

When we arrived at the mayor’s birthday event that night, Stan politely set the mayor straight on the subject. And he told Mensinger to feel free to check with him any time he had a fairgrounds question — preferably before commenting online.

Mensinger assured him he would.

And this week, Costa Mesa blogger Geoff West found himself on the wrong side of a poorly vetted posting as well.

Resident Julie Mercurio, who manages the page “Costa Mesa Public Square,” posted her thoughts on West and why he wasn’t at the first Meet the Mayor event of the year Sunday.

She accused West of lurking outside with a camera and said someone called his actions “creepy.”

“Why would he not come in? He denigrates so many so often, what would make him opt to lurk outside taking pictures versus coming in?” she wrote.

Her comments lit a match, and Mercurio’s followers had their own unflattering words about West and theories as to why he didn’t enter the meeting.

West shot back on his blog, explaining that he had an “unanticipated family social engagement and had not planned to attend the mayor’s meet and greet.”

However, on the way home after lunch, with his guests in tow, he stopped by City Hall to see “what kind of a crowd showed up,” he wrote.

He further explained, “I was not ‘lurking’ and I had no camera with me. Lies ... I spent five minutes, max, from the time I left our car until I re-entered it.”

West wrote that he didn’t go into the meeting because he had nothing to say.

I followed up with Mercurio on Facebook. She explained that the information on West came from a Costa Mesa Public Square member.

“It wouldn’t be out of character for him to be outside of an event in search of a ‘scoop,’” she wrote in a message to me. “Thanks for the inquiry. Please tell your readership about CMPS; we’re working hard to make it the best place for Costa Mesa residents to get involved in the city!”

Granted, this whole thing sounds silly, but it speaks to a larger issue in this town that I’ve seen grow more disturbing over time: the manner in which conflicting sides of issues choose to engage in dialogue.

For meaningful communication to initiate change, there really is no place for name-calling, snarky characterizations and misinformation.

Awhile back, the Daily Pilot started using Facebook for comment threads in order to cut down on the anonymous, crazy postings.

This worked for a while, but over time the level of nastiness when articles appear about Costa Mesa politics seemed to return. I’m amazed that folks have no qualms about adding their names to these postings.

I get the fact that politics makes people passionate — and there are lots of folks who feel no one in this city is listening to them — but at first blush it seems Mensinger is taking an initial good step to remedy this with these community-outreach Meet the Mayor meetings, walks and coffees.

Now whether this is a publicity stunt that stands a chance of successfully building bridges, only time will tell.

But the tone has to change on both sides of the dialogue, and maybe some people should just stay off Facebook for a while.

BARBARA VENEZIA, whose column appears Fridays, lives in Newport Beach. She can be reached at [email protected].