Since there is an interest in knowing exactly how each Directors on the Orange County Sanitation District voted on Ordinance No. OCSD-23, which increased their meeting stipend by 25%, here is the breakdown:
Anaheim: Harry Sidhu voted NO Brea: Roy Moore voted YES Buena Park: Patsy Marshall voted NO Cypress: Phil Luebben voted YES Fountain Valley: Larry Crandall voted YES Fullerton: Don Bankhead voted NO Garden Grove: Bill Dalton voted NO
Huntington Beach: Cathy Green voted YES Irvine: Steven Choi voted YES La Habra: Tom Beamish voted NO La Palma: Mark Waldman voted YES Los Alamitos: Ken Parker voted YES Newport Beach: Don Webb voted YES
Orange: Jon Dumitru was ABSENCE Placentia: Constance Underhill voted YES Santa Ana: Sal Tinajero was ABSENCE Seal Beach: Charles Antos voted NO Stanton: Dave Shawver voted NO Tustin: Doug Davert voted YES Villa Park: Rich Freschi voted YES
Yorba Linda: Jim Winder voted NO Costa Mesa Sanitary District: James Ferryman voted YES Midway City Sanitary District: Joy Neugebauer voted YES Irvine Ranch Water District: Darryl Miller was ABSENCE County of Orange: Chris Norby voted YES
Why would Steven Choi, who is running for Assembly, vote for a 25% pay raise? I cannot imagine that would look good on any mailer. At least Harry Sidhu, who is also a candidate for state office, have some common sense and voted 'NO'.
In the wake of the Santa Ana Council's saturninedefenestration of EPIC Commissioner and blogger Thomas Gordon, three more city commissioners -- all former or current members of the Orange Juice blogpen -- have resigned there positions.
I sympathize with the message they're trying to send to this banana republic council, but my advice would have been to stay and fight it out. If the council wants them gone, make them pull the trigger themselves.
The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has set up web cams around district construction sites say residents can watch the progress of building projects funded by their Measure F bond.
Clearly, Newport-Mesa officials weren't told by Santa Ana Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez that such technology isn't available.
This came over the transom yesterday evening from Assemblyman Van Tran's office:
Assemblyman Van Tran Commits To Donating Salary Increase To Charity “I believe the people of California elected me to the Assembly with a salary already set.”
(GARDEN GROVE)- Today Assemblyman Van Tran pledged to return his mandatory salary increase to local charities and criticized the Citizens Compensation Commission for recommending such an increase in a time of overwhelming budget deficits.
On November 18, 2007, the Orange County Sanitation District Board of Directors passed Ordinance No. OCSD-23, which raises their meeting stipend from $170 to $212.50. This a whopping 25% increase. The vote tally was 14-8-3. Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu was one of the eight who voted no.
I do not know when was the last time sanitation directors voted to give themselves a pay raise, but a 25% increase seems unreasonable to most members of the public, especially to the voters when they are enduring a spike in their fees.
Firing of Thomas Gordon from Santa Ana's Early Prevention and Intervention Commission has been an especially shabby episode, and one that reflects extremely poorly on Councilman Sal Tinajero's character.
For starter's there's Tinajero's contention that Gordon yelled at him at a Traffic Commission meeting. Santa Ana activist George Collins recorded that meeting, and posted an audio clip of what he states is the portion of the meeting where Gordon supposedly yelled at him.
If that's yelling, then Sal Tinajero is a human radar.
Then there's the truly shabby manner in which Tinajero went about this business. I spoke with a friend and Santa Ana resident who said he had no doubt that the very last thing the city clerk did on Friday was to slip Tinajero's request to fire Gordon into the agenda.
Tinajero let Gordon know the hammer was falling by leaving him a voicemail a couple of hours before the Monday evening council meeting -- which Gordon didn't hear until later. The only reason Gordon knew prior to that was because a friend spotted the agenda item Friday night and told him. We're it not for that, it's entirely possible the council could have voted Gordon off EPIC, and he wouldn't have known until after the fact.
According to the CRA, eight lawmakers received percent 100 scores on the 18 bills recorded. On the other end of the scale, 61 of 120 lawmakers received “perfect” zeroes. Once again, the Orange County delegation was strong, with seven of 13 lawmakers representing all or parts of Orange County scoring 90 or better.
Last night I read Art Pedroza's post about that evening's Santa Ana City Council meeting, where they deliberated the fate of EPIC Commissioner Thomas Gordon and Councilwoman Michele Martinez's proposal for broadcasting council meetings; and this morning I called the Santa Ana City Clerk's office to verify the roll call vote on those items.
I really am astounded at the contempt Santa Ana councilmembers -- with the bright exception of Michele Martinez -- apparently hold their constituents.
When the state government is in the grip of an ongoing fiscal crisis that the state legislature has been unable to come to grips with, what is one to do?
California's legislative salaries, already the nation's highest,
will rise to $116,208 today for all but a handful of lawmakers who have
declined the hike while the state fights a massive budget shortfall.
Thirteen
legislators – four Senate and nine Assembly members – have asked the
state controller to kill their $3,110-a-year raise.
Orange Juice reports the Santa Ana Council will vote today on whether to remove OJ blogger Thomas Gordon from its anti-gang commission, known as the Early Prevention and Intervention Commission (EPIC).
Obviously, appointed commissioners serve at the pleasure of the elected council, and I believe an the appointing councilmember should have the prerogative of dismissing "their" commissioners. Thomas is the EPIC Commissioner for Ward 6, which is represented by Councilman Sal Tinajero.
In this day and age, there is no technological excuse for not making it simple and easy for citizens to watch their city councils in action. The only excuses can be political ones advanced by city staff and councilmembers themselves.
As the bloggers at Orange Juice have repeatedly pointed out, the Santa Ana City Council has been retrograde in this area. Not only have they not begun broadcasting and archiving city council meetings on the city website, they don't even televise every council meeting. Given some of the hair-brained expenditures that have been approved by the City Council, financial considerations cannot be considered a serious impediment.
Direct the City Attorney to prepare an ordinance amending Santa Ana Municipal Code Section 2-100 by requiring that all city council meetings be videotaped and televised on a public access channel, be made available as streaming online footage on the city's website, and be made available in an online searchable archive on the City's website for at least five years.
The reasons for approving Councilwoman Martinez's request are manifest:
An occupational affliction among election officials is keeping one eye alert for open rungs further up the political ladder.
The possibility of Rep. Loretta Sanchez's seat opening in 2010 (or 2012) if she seeks higher office has naturally entered into the calculations of central OC politicians regarding the 1st Supervisor District race.
Chris Prevatt has an interesting post on the topic over at TheLiberalOC.com in which he raises the possibility that neither Sanchez nor Sen. Lou Correa would endorse a Joe Dunn for Supervisor race:
This came over a few days ago from Assemblyman Van Tran's office:
ASSEMBLYMAN TRAN JOINS WITH ADJUTANT GENERAL OF THE CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD TO PROMOTE 2ND ANNUAL CHRISTMAS TOY DRIVE FOR LOCAL MILITARY FAMILIES
(Costa Mesa – CA) On Tuesday, December 4, 2006, Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Costa Mesa) will hold his 2nd Annual Christmas Toy Drive in partnership with our local U.S. Marine Corps ‘Toys for Tots’ program to bring some holiday cheer to our families who have a parent serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The event will be held from 5pm to 7pm.
The good Assemblyman beat to the punch. I'll defer the content of Pipes' very good speech to his well-written post. The following is some of my insight:
Last night the crazies taped their mouth shut. Thank god! I guess its the only way they can seal their combustible hatred. One of those taped had Fox News written across their mouth. Tell me, how does that relate? Oh yeah, the "Zionist Jew" controlled media as Amir Abdel Malik Ali likes to say. Thanks to Daniel Pipes, though, who pulled no punches against the radicals and the shakedown artists who try to intimidate free speech on campus.
The MSU and their cohorts did demonstrate a few things tonight: 1. They are anti-American 2. Their narrow mindedness and intolerance makes them incapable of engaging in thoughtful debate. 3. They constantly lie and intimidate to achieve ideological goals.
During the beginning ceremonies, they made an apparent statement of solidarity that it's not only Daniel Pipes they hate. When UC Irvine College Republican President Cameron Gailbraith lead the pledge of allegiance, every single Muslim Student (and cohort) remained glued to their seats.
Second, even though they were told that a disruption of the speech would not be tolerated, they still decided to impede the speech by holding up signs that spoke in typical empty platitudes against America and Israel. Even though Pipe's did make the distinction between radical and moderate Islam, somehow he's a racist. How is taking a stand against radical Islam racist? That is yet to be answered, and still needs to be clarified. Omar Zarka makes an attempt over at the MSU's website but falls short when he tries to characterize his organization's extremist views as moderate:
Daniel Pipes is known for being one of the premier Islamophobes within
the US. He persistently slanders the Muslim community by labeling
moderate Muslims as terrorists.
The following are some of the events that Zarka has sponsored:
Amir Abdel Malik-Ali: A radical islamic cleric and supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran who advocates that Israel be wiped off the map.
Yvonne Ridley: An operative for the Iranian government press who believes the Taliban to be decent people and Bush and the American military to be brutal savages.
If this is moderate then I don't know what more to say.
There's been some interesting and amusing commentary this week about Mike Schroeder in the context of Sheriff Carona's legal troubles and the OC GOP. OC Register editorialist Steve Greenhut and TheLiberalOC.com blogger Dan Chmielewski write about the power of Mike Schroeder and the fear they believe OC GOP Central Committee members feel toward him.
Steve wrote on Sunday:
Many no doubt find the sheriff unfit to be the county's top cop, but
there's reason not to buck the party establishment, especially
Schroeder, who is known for his aggressive efforts. Schroeder, after
all, is waging a "burn the village" campaign against Supervisor Janet
Nguyen, through legal and other complaints that will hobble her
campaign to retain her seat.
In an event sponsored by Hillel, Anteaters for Israel, and StandWithUS, controversial Harvard law professor and criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz will make his case for Israel and Middle East peace at UC Irvine this Thursday at 4:30 pm. AFI has the details: Alan Dershowitz and The Case for Peace in the Middle East
Date and Time: Thursday, November 29, 2007, 4:30pm - 6:30pm
At a regular scheduled meeting on November 16, the California Republican Party axed its counties "Executive Director" program because of the lackluster fundraising operation and the ongoing financial problems plaguing the organization. When Ron Nehring (pictured right) took over the party's chairmanship in the aftermath of the '06 election, the CRP's treasury was in red, with nearly $4 million in debt left behind by Duf Sundheim.
As some may know, the CRP's county Executive Director program, with an annual cost of about $260,000, was created in part to pay for salaries of county executive directors for the purpose of cultivating more Republicans and maintaining an active GOP presence in the region.
The David Project and the UC Irvine College Republicans are sponsoring a lecture by Middle East Expert and Senior Giuliani foreign policy adviser Daniel Pipes on Wednesday. Last time Pipes spoke, the Muslim Student Union shouted him down.
It's my pleasure to announce that Dr. Daniel Pipes will be visiting UC Irvine on November 28, 2007. Dr.
Daniel Pipes is an American historian and counter-terrorism analyst who
specializes in the Middle East. He has written 18 books, maintains a
blog, and lectures around the world presenting his analysis of world
trends.
Dr. Pipes is
the founder and director of the Middle East Forum, a former member of
the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and a regular columnist for
the New York Sun and The Jerusalem Post. Take advantage of your chance to hear one of the most widely respected experts on the Middle East at UC Irvine.
Date:
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Time:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location:
Pacific Ballroom D, UC Irvine Student Center
Directions to the student center are available here.
Rick Reiff's weekly OC Insider column in the OC Business Journal is in a certain respect a forerunner to this and other OC political blogs -- sort of a proto-blog. Rick's been penning the column, which usually contains at least a couple of political new items in addition to business stuff, since 2000. Rick for instance, broke the news about the formation of the New Majority in his column back in 2000.
Rick's had some interesting items in this week and last week's columns:
OC rules at the Sacramento-based California Medical Association. Richard Frankenstein, a lung doc in Garden Grove, is new president of the 30,000-member advocacy group. The 57-year-old physician pronounces his last name “Frankensteen.” How many times has he been kidded about it? “You mean how many times per day? Have at it.” He shares power with Chairman J. Brennan Cassidy, a family doc in Newport Beach, and with an even scarier name for OC Republicans, Joe Dunn, who has completed his first year as the association’s CEO. Dunn, a former Democrat state senator, is rumored to be eyeing the central county supe seat; he’d be a formidable candidate even if the GOP weren’t divided over Janet Nguyen and Trung Nguyen
I recently discovered this new blog about some of the possible replacements for Sheriff should Mike Carona be indicted on federal corruption charges. Paul Waters, the current police chief for the City of Santa Ana, and someone who is often mentioned as a possible candidate for Sheriff, seems to be getting a lot of attention on this new blog - http://www.smartsheriff.blogspot.com/. While I do not know if everything posted on "smartsheriff" is accurate, this bit of information about Paul Walters is alarming, if it is true:
He endorsed Lou Correa for Senate, Lockyer for Treasurer and made commercial spots for Loretta Sanchez...
Update: In a speech to UC Davis students, Ridley wasn't reluctant to display her hatred to our brave soldiers.
"Thank God I was captured by the most evil, brutal regime in the world and not the U.S. military," she said.
I guess the Taliban isn't so bad after all, well..... that's what Islamic activist and journalist Yvonne Ridley implies as she recounts her experiences as captive. As I wrote in my submission to New University, Ridley painted a rosy picture of the regime:
Or that any of the 9-11 hijackers were
ever trained under their asylum. Ridley’s Taliban is in fact a glorious and
merciful one: one of handsome and valiant soldiers, glowing ivory-clad clerics,
and cure-all doctors as she expressed in her speech last Tuesday. Wow! I guess we Westerners are pretty naïve.
This reminds me of that scene in The In laws, when Alan Arkin warms up to the "lovable" Latin American Dictator who talks to his hand puppet just before Arkin and Peter Falk go before the firing squad. I digress.
I attained footage of Ridley's lecture at UC Irvine which you can watch below. Listen to the cackling audience during Ridley's speech -- mostly of MSU members -- who are humored about how ignorant and misunderstanding we Americans are about the former Afghan regime. Also listen as she doesn't mention the Taliban's involvement in the asylum of the September 11th hijackers.
After the Urban Land Institute (ULI) reported its findings on possible methods to revitalize Little Saigon into a more modern tourism area, one member of the Westminster City Council - Tri Ta - received a lot of unpleasant phone calls from residents of the mobile home parks located on Bolsa Avenue.
In one of its many recommendations, the ULI suggested that the mobile home parks, which are mostly occupied by Vietnamese-American seniors, should be removed to make room for commercial and/or cultural developments. Well, let's just say that the mobile home residents weren't too keen on that suggestion and about 30 of them gave Councilman Ta (pictured left) an earful over the phone.
I've been told that Tri (pronounced Tree) with the Mayor, along with the City Manager, held a community meeting last night at the Mission Del Amo mobile home park to reassure local residents that the ULI's recommendation is just that, a recommendation and that nothing will be decided upon without inputs from the community.
Amir Abdel Malik-Ali on capitalism and materialism.
Since New University is only accepting submissions from uncritical eyes, I have decided to publish my own critique on Islam Awareness week here first. I've also included some accompanying video.
I also wanted point out that the student paper already published two op-eds trumping the MSU's message. In the first, Nathan Tumazi published a hit piece on David Horowitz. The other piece by former Anteaters for Israel and UCI Hillel President Alex Chazen, can be characterized as nothing less than Chamberlainian; rolling over and appeasing the MSU for what he perceives as an educational message. I didn't think any of the MSU speakers were very informative at all.
Compromising Principles to Achieve Ideological Goals
By Jonathan Constantine
The goal of the organizers of Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Week was to publicize the reality that university faculties willingly turn a
blind eye to the dangers of radical Islam and instead teach a rose-colored vision:
terrorists are freedom fighters and barbaric responses to Westerners are justifiable.
Conversely, the Muslim Student Union invited a series of speakers last week in
an attempt to save face in their defense of the third oldest Abrahamic faith.
Though they did deviate from their archetypal anti-Israel campaigns, they
didn’t at all deviate from the Qtubist radicalism that has developed in the
minds of so many Westerners since 9-11. Two of their speakers, Yvonne Ridley
and the infamous Amir Abel Malik-Ali weren’t very informative, and acted as
mere proselytizers of recycled and erroneous ideas about the “superiority” of
social justice in the Islamic world.
Last Tuesday, Yvonne Ridley -whose admiration of the
Taliban is indicative of what appears to be terrible case of Stockholm Syndrome-
was invited to tell her story about her captivity in Afghanistan and her subsequent conversion after an oath to her captors to read the Koran. Laughable
are her assertions on the Koran’s contributions to women’s lib akin to “a Magna
Carta” as none of the early writings of the big three monotheistic faiths
purport neo-liberal ideas on gender equality.
While the Koran does ascribe certain freedoms to women, her
idea that the imposition of the veil is some kind of symbol of freedom from
sexual objectification is hypocritical and equally absurd. Certainly modesty
and chastity are honorable virtues, but it’s important to note that these
virtues didn’t solely originate in the Islamic world. They have deep roots in
the West and are central to the tenets of Christianity and Judaism which both
continue to fuel the culture of free, independent, and democratic societies. Exalting
the imposition of the hijab, niqab, and burka is not only inconsistent to her
innate hyper- feminist principles but resembles the justification of the
battered woman who refuses to admit that she is in an abusive relationship.
Also fitting are
her anecdotes as a captive in Afghanistan.
Sneering Bush and Blair for disparaging the Taliban as a brutal regime, she
seemed to use her apparent delusion to dispel any pre-conceptions about
madrassas and terror training camps. Or that any of the 9-11 hijackers were
ever trained under their asylum. Ridley’s Taliban is in fact a glorious and
merciful one: one of handsome and valiant soldiers, glowing ivory-clad clerics,
and cure-all doctors as she expressed in her speech last Tuesday. Wow! I guess we Westerners are pretty naïve.
Of less substance was Amir Abdel Malik Ali who spoke in
typical platitudes against materialism and Western corporate culture as an
oppressor to third world and Islamic countries. While a desirous and excessive
pursuit of material pleasure is inevitably corrupting to the soul, he made stark
generalities about the United Stateseconomic system as morally inferior to the Islamic economic order because of
its prohibition on the practice of usury. In fact, in Islamic banking, interest
is built into the home and sold back to borrowers by lenders at a profit, effectively
laundering the practice of usury into the purchase price. Absent of interest
deduction, this proves more costly than the “gotta have it now” culture of
American materialism.
On one hand Amir Abel Malik-Ali says collective greed
will ultimately result in our demise; on the other hand he says that the United States government makes sure that the
Islamic system is not imposed because it would surely emit shockwaves of market
failure which would also result in our demise. I guess we’ll just have to pick
our poison.
I caught this OC Register article via Orange Juice. While the focus of the story is the "Renaissance Plan" for developing the city's downtown, this paragraph caught my eye:
Monday's meeting of the City Council was the second in as many months held without the usual television cameras broadcasting the discussion on the city's cable channel. City leaders have said the off-camera but public meetings foster a more open and in-depth conversation about big issues facing the city, such as transportation or development.
That is one of the most flatulent rationalizations I have heard in a long, long time. Councilmembers are public officials, for crying out loud. If they cannot conduct public business in the plain sight of constituents watching from home, they ought to re-consider whether they belong in elected office.
While the San Clemente City Council considers passing a resolution sure to end up in a Bill Hunt for Sheriff campaign mailer, nearby Laguna Beach City Council tonight votes (and may have already voted) on adopting Menton, France as a sister city in order to "provide opportunities for members of the Laguna Beach residential and business community to experience and explore cultural exchanges, education programs and a sharing of information related to governance, energy, water, economic development and environmental conservation."
I suppose it also helps that Menton is a resort on the French Riviera. According to this travel website:
Of all the Côte d'Azur resorts, MENTON– the warmest and most Italianate, being within a couple of kilometres of the border – is the one that retains an atmosphere of aristocratic tourism, being even more of a rich retirement haven than Nice.
Naturally, members of the Laguna Beach City Council will need to jet over to beautiful Menton in the interest of sister city harmony and good relations. This is the brainchild of Mayor Toni Iseman, so perhaps she can lead the delegation to the good, bronzed people of Menton.
In other useful action, the Laguna Beach council was set to vote on a resolution urging the adoption of a Tom Bradley postage stamp.
Also last night at the GOP Central Committee, Chairman Scott Baugh took a few minutes out of the meeting to recognize and say good bye to a long time activist/staffer.
Kellee Lanza is leaving Congressman's Rohrabacher's office and Orange County all together. She is moving to Sacramento to join her husband and to seek other challenging opportunities.
Many of us had the opportunity to see Kellee grow up over the years. Kellee came to Orange County at 19 to serve as an intern with Congressman Royce's office. Later that year, Greg Haskin hired her at Congressman Cox's office. At that point, Kellee was the youngest paid staffer in the entire House of Representatives. Not bad for a 19 year old.
Kellee is also a proud republican volunteer. She is an alternate member to the OC GOP Central Committee, the Community Liaison Representative to the Huntington Harbor Republican Woman Federated, and many other Republican Party organizations. Yes, i'm going to say it - she is Tim Whitacre's alternate.
Kellee made many good friends in Orange County and we are all sad to see her leave. Good luck Kellee!
No, I'm not talking about Dick, but rather his better half, Linda Ackerman. Last night the Republican Party of Orange County Central Committee unanimously voted to support Linda in her bid to replace incumbent Barbara Alby as RNC National Committeewoman. Not feeling well today so i'm keeping everything short.
A friend just informed me that Assemblyman Bob Huff is looking for a new District Director to run his Diamond Bar office. Applications will be accepted until December 3, 2007 and interested candidates can send it to:
Junay Gardner Logan Chief of Staff, Assemblyman Bob Huff State Capitol, Room 4098 Sacramento, CA 95814 Fax: (916) 319-2160 Junay.Gardner@asm.ca.gov
I'm curious to know why his current District Director left, especially when Huff is running for state Senate against Dick Mountjoy. During the campaign time, a District Director is sort of like the de facto campaign manager until a real one is brought on board, but I digress...
Bill Christiansen, who was executive director of the OC GOP for many years and has been interim COO of the California Republican Party for several months, has been named to that position permanently. Congratulations, Bill!
This just came over the transom from Assemblyman Van Tran's office:
ASSEMBLYMAN TRAN PRESENTS EDUCATION GRANT TO MAGNOLIA HIGH Barona Education Grant given to Magnolia High for groundbreaking classroom strategy
Anaheim – This afternoon, Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Costa Mesa) joined with the Barona Tribe of Mission Indians to congratulate Magnolia High School for receiving an education grant recognizing their “outside the box” classroom strategy.
Sen. Tom Harman has snagged an appointment from Gov. Schwarzenegger:
Tom Harman, 66, of Huntington Beach, has been appointed to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. He has served in the California State Senate since 2006, where he represents the 35th district. In this position, Harman serves as vice-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Human Services Committee. From 2000 to 2006, he served in the California State Assembly, representing the 67th district. Harman previously was a member of the Huntington Beach City Council from 1995 to 2000 and was an attorney in private practice for over 30 years. This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no salary. Harman is a Republican.
No salary, but you probably get to go one some cool junkets.
In this day and age, there is no technological excuse for not making it simple and easy for citizens to watch their city councils in action. The only excuses can be political ones advanced by city staff and councilmembers themselves.
In an event sponsored by Hillel, Anteaters for Israel, and StandWithUS, controversial Harvard law professor and criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz will make his case for Israel and Middle East peace at UC Irvine this Thursday at 4:30 pm. AFI has the details:
This just came over the transom from Assemblyman Van Tran's office: