All six of the candidates for two council seats, and about 200 residents, came to the event held by Mesa Verde Community Inc. at the Neighborhood Community Center.
Immigration did come up and was the subject of several audience questions, but none of the topics at the forum provoked anything stronger than bursts of applause and occasional laughter from the audience.
Bruce Garlich, a city planning commissioner, immediately brought up the staffing shortage on the city's police force, which has about 17 unfilled positions, and said he would address that issue first if elected.
Other candidates agreed that they wanted to make Costa Mesa safer, but they diverged on how, which is where the immigration issue came in.
"If I have to be the first one up here to say it, I am opposed to the program that's been voted on by the council majority" to train police for immigration enforcement, former Councilman Mike Scheafer said. "I believe it's a waste of our overtaxed police force."
But he turned out to be the only candidate to criticize the plan that strongly, though business owner Mirna Burciaga and author Chris Bunyan also opposed it. Garlich said he supported the plan's intent but considers it premature.
Mayor Allan Mansoor and planning commissioner Wendy Leece, whose glossy fliers and yard signs stood side by side on tables at the back of the room, disagreed with Scheafer.
Mansoor repeated several times that the immigration enforcement plan voted in by the current council majority would only go after illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.
He received applause when he said, "It's not going to take an officer out; it's going to take a criminal out."
