Last month, I penned a column about Mark Nuaimi, who is the elected Mayor of the Inland Empire city of Fontana, and who is also the Assistant City Manager in the nearby city of Colton. The reason for my penning my original piece banging on Nuaimi was an article I read in my morning perusal of
stories, in this case one about destruction of city e-mails. It seems that Nuaimi used his Colton e-mail to refer to some Colton residents as “urban idiots” – doh. As I often do when I am struck by someone or something, I did an internet search on this guy. I got a lot back, hence I wrote about him…. Anyways, you can read that column here.
Of course, when I wrote it, I didn’t know that Nuaimi’s paid political consultant was my good friend and FR blogger Tab Berg, who quickly came to Nauimi’s defense. At the time, I put out an open call for anyone with more information on this guy to send it my way. I figured that would be it for my writing on Mark Nuaimi.
Um, no.
This guy reminds me of the character Pig Pen in the comic strip Peanuts. You remember him, right? The kid who always had the cloud of dust surrounding him wherever he went? Well, that’s Nauimi. Or maybe I am being unkind to Pig Pen, who always seemed to be “innocently” in trouble… Not so much with Nuaimi…
One e-mail that I got of note, was a forwarded article where a columnist at the Black Voice News beats the crap out of Nuaimi, in essence calling him racially insensitive, for passing over his Council colleague Aquinetta Warren (with whom I serve on the State GOP Board of Directors) in 2006 for the post of Vice-Mayor. You can read that column here.
I got a few comments specifically criticizing Nuaimi for leading an effort to, in essence, rezone land owned by Wal-Mart right out from under them, placing new restrictions capping the square footage of allowable commercial retail on Wal-Mart’s property, making it no longer feasible for them to put in a big-box store. Can you imagine that? What if you bought some land to build an apartment building, and then after you buy it, the city rezones it so that you can only have two rental units on your property? Sounds like a “taking” to me… Nuaimi allegedly won’t even meet with the Wal-Mart folks now… I guess that’s analogous to running someone over with your truck, and then not getting out to see if they are okay…
Which brings me to my problem with Nuaimi. Hubris. While living in a democratic Republican, Nuaimi seems to think that he is the King of Fontana. I spoke with some of the folks in Fontana (though admittedly not Mayor Big Head himself) and they say that he is “passionate” about his “vision” for the city, and that he is committed to doing what it takes to realize that vision. The problem is that, even as an elected official, it’s not his city. It is not Nuaimi-land. But what we have here is someone who acts like he is playing “SimFontana” on his computer and that he gets to build whatever he wants wherever he wants. But it doesn’t work that way in America. Not everything is neat and tidy and tied with a bow. And that is because of an important American tradition – property rights. Respect for private property rights should mean that elected officials ultimately defer to the wishes of the property owner – something Nuaimi is apparently loathe to do if he has different plans for that person’s property…
Nuaimi isn’t winning popularity contests over in the nearby city of Colton, either. Over there, the hat that Nuaimi wears is that of Assistant City Manager. There’s apparently a big recall election going on over there. Sources tell me that if it is successful, high on the priority list would be finding a new Assistant City Manager…
Anyways, I am sure we’ll here from Tab again, again explaining away all of this as just being a by-product of Nuaimi’s “passion” – but I don’t buy it. Nuaimi is a Republican (I wasn’t sure so I checked into it). And that makes his embrace of using local government to coerce the outcome of development decisions that much more egregious. If someone (whether it is a huge mega-business like Wal-Mart or just a small family) owns a piece of property, and their plans for use of it are within reason, neither government nor Mark Nuaimi’s game of “SimFontana” should get in their way.
In closing, I find penning this kind of column emotionally draining. It irks me to write about Republicans who only think that government is the problem until they are running it. Then, suddenly, government is the solution.
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