Costa Mesa Unplugged:

That zephyr that just blew through here was 2007. It’s gone. Finis. Kaput. Years these days are like teenagers. They have no attention span, and they hang around just long enough to clear out the ice box and empty your wallet.

Sigh.

So as we send away the two-thousand and seventh year of our Lord to wherever it is consumed time ends up, we stop to noodle on what the next 12 months are likely to deliver to Costa Mesa’s front porch. From where we sit, we’ll sum up the coming year’s programming in one word: Politics.

I know. The excitement is too much, eh?

Three of Costa Mesa’s five city council thrones are in the election mix in 2008. We’ll guess the wagering on the outcome of the political battle will favor at least the retention of the current council majority; Mayor Allan Mansoor, Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever and rookie Councilwoman Wendy Leece.

Of the three, only Bever’s seat is on the ballot, as are those of Councilwomen Katrina Foley and Linda Dixon. And when we say seat, we mean the chair they occupy.

Foley and Bever are already out in the tall grass hunting for campaign cash, so they’ll be in the battle. Bever likely won’t have any trouble locking down a second term.

Foley can anticipate that the city’s “Improver” movement (the voter bloc behind Mansoor, Bever and Leece) will shell her relentlessly — despite the majority it now has on the council — in a bid to further tighten its grip on the city’s tiller. But as the lead vote getter in the 2004 general election (15.8% of the tally), Foley is probably a lock if she pursues a bullet-voting strategy with her base.

One thing’s for sure; Foley won’t be aligning her campaign with the Return To Reason political action committee, the group of Costa Mesans who backed former Councilman Mike Scheafer and former Planning Commissioner Bruce Garlich in the 2006 election cycle. “I’m running on my own,” Foley said.

As for Return To Reason, Bill Turpit — a founding member of the group — writes that “we do not expect (the group) as an entity to be active in the 2008 election.”