It is great to see that both incumbent San Clemente City Councilmen Jim Dahl and Steve Knoblock are seeking reelection.  Dahl and Knoblock have both provided sensible and mature leadership on issues of reasonable development and property rights protection.  Unfortunately, reactionary leader Charles Mann is also in the race and may be able to mount a credible challenge to claim one of the two available Council seats.

San Clemente has been riven by conflict between economic growth and reactionary forces (seeking to turn back the hands of time and return to the sleepy village of the past).  It is truly understandable that many in San Clemente lament the passage of some of the village's small town feel. 

However, some in San Clemente have come positively unhinged in their hatred for the  despised Talegans (regarded as tentacled, one-eyed, alien invaders who descended on the town in a fleet of Mercedes, BMW's, and gas-guzzling CO2-belching SUV's).  One local restaurant even canceled their "Talega Tuesdays" because of hostile rants by "Real San Clementeans".

Development issues like the 241 Toll Road extension (the deceptive "Save Trestles" campaign), Measure C (canceled development of nine holes of the Pacific Golf and Country Club), and Measure I (the "Save Shorecliffs" property rights grab) have galvanized and emboldened reactionary forces into a force to be reckoned with.  Charles Mann (exiled from Pacific Golf and Country Club after the "Battle of the Nine Holes"), a golfer turned would-be central planner, is the point of the reactionary spear.

Republicans should support Dahl and Knoblock, who (to borrow a phrase from the Register's Frank Mickadeit) combine the traits "sane" and "electable" in one package, rare traits in politics at any level.  San Clemente needs adult leadership, not populist petty tyrants spouting top-down mandates, like Charles Mann.