Buzzing About Mark Rosen

Martin Wisckol posted on Total Buzz about the possible candidacy of Democratic Garden Grove Councilman Mark Rosen for the 1st Supervisor District should Lou Correa be elected to the state Senate this November. Art Pedroza followed with his take on Orange Juice. So I thought I'd chime in, too.

Obviously, Rosen will throw his hat into the ring should a special election take place. Why not? It'll be a low-turnout special election in which the winner is the first-past-the-post. There's no run-off, so a candidate with a good support base and sufficient funding could conceivably walk into a supervisor seat with  25% of the vote -- or less.

I don't know Mark Rosen and haven't seen him in action much. I will say I was impressed by his comments at an OCTA Board of Directors meeting earlier this summer. OCTA was debating whether to join the Joint Powers Authority set up by some water agencies to conduct a feasibility study of the Sana Ana Mountain tunnel -- or to create their own JPA and try to get the $18 million in federal funding (courtesy of Rep. Gary Miller and Ken Calvert) for their JPA.

Rosen opined he didn't see the sense of creating another government bureaucracy for the purpose of spending $18 million on a single study, and advocating an interagency working group approach instead of a JPA (which struck me as sensible).

On the other hand, Rosen voted for an irresponsible requirement that Garden Grove police officers always be in the top six in the county in terms of compensation. That's an abdication of responsibility that places Garden Grove taxpayers at the mercy of OC municipalities that are unable to resist the demands of their police unions. Given that the question of "who governs?" -- the taxpayers or the county employee unions -- is one of the central political and governmental questions the Board of Supervisors will face in the coming years, I don't think putting police salaries on de facto autopilot upward trajectory is a positive recommendation.

I'm surprised neither Wisckol nor Pedroza mentioned former Garden Grove Mayor Bruce Broadwater as a potential candidate. Broadwater is running for Garden Grove City Council this November, and will presumably win. According to one of my Garden Grove sources, Broadwater maintains he's definitely going to run in a special election for the 1st SD.

Why not, after all?  Broadwater ran a strong run-off campaign against Correa, doubling his 22.8% primary vote to 45.5% in the general. Correa, by comparison, only increased his from 44.3% to 54.5% -- meaning Broadwater picked up a large majority of those who'd supported Westminster Councilman Kermit Marsh and Santa Ana Councilman Brett Franklin in the primary. That surge was fueled in part by the ability of Democrat Broadwater to attract Republican votes.

That was less than two years ago, and Broadwater is the only potential candidate who has run district-wide -- and run very strongly. If he does decide to run, he'll once again be an incumbent councilman, possessing a fresh donor and volunteer list, and with very recent experience running a strong campaign for the 1st Supervisor District seat.

Comments

Broadwater is planning on running for Correa's seat. He doesn't care about his former buddy Rosen being in the race. In fact, he was recently seen on the 5th floor feeling up Supervisors for potential endorsements should the seat be vacated. He was adivsed that his interests were premature.