The Eternal War of Chris Olps upon the City and the Residents of Poway.
On September 7th, 2021 in what normally would be a strange and sad sight, but has become a commonplace occurrence at Poway City Council Meetings, five time failed candidate for City Council/Mayor stepped up to the podium to deliver yet another in a long series of vague and condescending comments complaining about the city, its leadership, and an innumerable set of perceived failures.
Like most people in the room, but with far more diligence, the city staff tried in vain, again, to understand what specific issues or addressable concerns Mr. Olps was bringing forth. As always, there was only perplexed bewilderment upon their faces. And in that moment, that very moment, everyone in the room felt the same thing as Mr. Olps appears to feel each and every day: A vague sense of frustration and confusion as to what was actually going on.
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| Mayor Steve Vaus |
But on that evening, something was different. Instead of retreating back to his seat and back to the various public and private social media domains of conspiracy mongers that he runs to cultivate and groom his cult of followers, he delivered yet another inescapable bill to the City, and to the residents of Poway, in the form of the start of a recall petition levied against our Mayor, Steve Vaus.
A master of trivial details, Mr. Olps has set into motion a series of events that may lead to a recall election outside of the normal election cycle, costing the City of Poway upwards of $500,000, and likely close to $1,000,000.
In a twist of fortunate comeuppance, the notice itself was flawed, having neglected to include any statement or evidence that its signatories were actually residents of Poway. A rather common mistake for Mr. Olps, as it seems he still has trouble understanding in which city he lives.
Alas, it was little more than a short reprieve and Mr. Olps was able to round up the slightly fewer than 30 or so people who actually live in Poway and seem to enjoy starting these types of things, having them sign on the dotted line.... Which almost failed again as they did not all actually sign. Much to the relief of the exasperated City Clerk, she was able to cobble together enough information for 10 of the signatories to verify that they both live in Poway and are of voting age, so a third go around was not needed. But these displays of technical incompetence by Olps and his crew had already pushed any mathematical hope of this being a less expensive but pointless exercise of a June recall election out the door and into the domain of special election territory.
At some point in this process, Olps was able to track down Mayor Vaus and try to hand deliver the newly collected documents. Mayor Vaus was, as a matter of course, unable to accept them as this was an inappropriate venue for such election related materials.
For some reason, the Olps team made a video of the process and, quite frankly, it just looks like a sad and broken man who has spent too much of his adult life chasing a bizarre fantasy; and the repeated failures to bring this fantasy into our reality have simply broken him down. This fantasy somehow involves him becoming a person on the City Council or the Mayor, and thus becoming able to right all the wrongs of the world as he sees them.
It is a terrible thing. To see a person who is, perhaps a fool, but obviously intelligent in ways that surely have use in this world, squander this potential by repeatedly not learning from his errors. We all make errors, of course, but they help teach us the better and proper path. But, to just not to see them.... Something that should make all of us shudder inside, even for a bit.
Pity.
Pity is the right word for such a person who cannot see what they have become. Perhaps, though, this mirror is the hardest to gaze upon, even for the best of us. And in that vein of introspection, we here at powayvotes.org cannot help but think that this website has been too harsh upon him. Perhaps playing some small role in his descent into this madness. Not madness in the traditional sense of the man on the corner, babbling to the demons in his mind, but that madness where a person loses connection with the social compacts that define how we interact within our society. An insidious madness that can escape obvious notice, and is all the worse.
For those of you who are close to Mr. Olps, however you can, please encourage him to get help and find a more productive path for his life. He no doubt has many options and skills that would be far better spent than on this fools errand.
Editor's note: Stay tuned for more posts on this "recall" effort, what it really is, and why it will cost enough to force the City of Poway to cut parts of community services for everyone.
