"More than a few Newport Beach residents say Councilman Steve Rosansky needs to clean up his act. And by "act," they mean his house. The vacant property, purchased by Rosansky more than four years ago, sits in the Newport Shores neighborhood. Locals have long been miffed by the dwelling's battered stucco, peeling paint and occasionally knee-high weeds. In one oft-told anecdote, an opossum died inside and attracted rats."

And yet, if you surveyed 1000 people in the US how many would say "I don't want to have a Bentley, I don't want to have a really nice house in a neighborhood where they whine about the trashy houses, I don't want $500,000 worth of jewelry and I don't want to have spent the last twenty years building a business so I could have all of those things."

Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer to that question: ME! And my husband.

Don't want a Bentley. Don't want a car at all - we're car-free by principle. Don't want a fancy house in a "nice" neighborhood. Absolutely don't want $500,000 worth of jewelry - I'd sell it if I had it and use the money for better things, like feeding hungry people and helping at-risk kids learn so they can get themselves into better situations. And since I don't want any of the THINGS, I certainly don't want the job that would let me buy them.

It's usually a mistake to assume that what motivates you are the same things that motivate somebody else.

One of the miffed locals ought to get on their 4000 dollar lawn tractor and head on over to Steve's place.