Both challengers of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens attacked the incumbent at a candidates forum tonight, but distinctions between all three were clear.
Former Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Hunt repeatedly emphasized the Second Amendment and his vow to make it easier to get concealed weapons permits, while Anaheim Deputy Police Chief Craig Hunter characterized Hutchens as a Los Angeles-style cop in a county where people expected more.
Click here to read the rest of my story on the forum.
County supervisors this morning approved a three-year contract agreement with the deputy sheriff’s union that calls for deputies to contribute toward their retirement and pushes back the retirement age for new hires.
The deal marks a compromise reached after six months of negotiations, as declining tax revenue and climbing retirement costs continue straining county coffers.
Supervisors got some pension reforms and no raises for deputies. The Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs got the county to agree to pay more toward their health care costs.
If the county had forced further reforms, it wouldn’t have gotten any pension changes at all, Supervisor Bill Campbell said.
“Politics is the art of the possible,” he said. “There were certainly things I wanted out of this negotiation that I didn’t get. I certainly got things, too.”
In all, county staffers say the new deal should save the county $4.5 million over three years. Read the rest of this entry »
California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer today lashed out at Anthem Blue Cross for its plan to raise premiums as much as 39 percent and have called on state and federal officials to take some action.
Feinstein called such an increase “unconscionable.. especially at a time when so many people are experiencing economic hardship.’’
So far we haven’t heard anything from Anthem or its parent company, WellPoint. Inc.
For starters, Feinstein said in a statement that she spoke with Darrell Steinberg, president pro-tempore of the state Senate and “urged him to introduce legislation that would grant the California Insurance Commissioner power to regulate insurance rates.’’
There are 25 other states that do that, she said, “and the state must move aggressively to protect Californians from unfair premium hikes.’’
County Chairwoman Janet Nguyen laid into Sheriff Sandra Hutchens this morning for her plan to reorganize her department, saying Hutchens temporarily promoted managers to circumvent the board’s scrutiny and implying that the plan opens the county to legal challenges.
Other county supervisors echoed Nguyen’s concerns and said the sheriff should have kept them better informed of her plans.
Supervisors voted unanimously to freeze all temporary promotions within the department and ticked off a list of potential issues for county staff to investigate.
“Law enforcement should not feel they can operate on a different level than other departments,” Nguyen said. “I want to make sure we work together as a county … Going forward, I for one, want to inform the public that I will not allow this sort of antagonistic attitude toward the board to continue. ”
Hutchens defended her plan, saying the budget hasn’t changed as a result of the changes she’s made and that Nguyen should not be micromanaging her department. And she pointed out that Nguyen’s staff didn’t attend a briefing for supervisor’s staff members on Monday.
“I think Supervisor Nguyen is confused,” Hutchens said. “I’m not a department head, I’m an elected official.” Read the rest of this entry »
Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake of Buena Park sent out an email Monday night, saying that perhaps his prayers had been answered with the death of Rep. John Murtha yesterday.
“Maybe God took him out,” Drake wrote. “Maybe God Answered our IMPRECATORY prayer that we prayed every 30 days.”
The Pennsylvania congressman, a decorated former Marine who fiercely opposed the Iraq war, died at the age of 77 after complications from gallbladder surgery.
I asked Drake if his statements weren’t distasteful, particularly coming immediately after Murtha’s death. He said that as a Christian, he didn’t buy into the sentiment of not speaking ill of the dead. Read the rest of this entry »
Toyota’s executives have dodged the bullet on facing angry lawmakers for a couple of weeks because of the blanket of snow that has hit the nation’s Capitol.
With more snow on the way tonight, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s hearing entitled: “Toyota as pedals: Is the public at risk?” will now be held on Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 10 a.m.
Expected to testify at the hearing is Toyota’s North America Chairman Yoshi Inaba, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and two safety experts.
Voters’ recall of Mission Viejo Mayor Lance MacLean will undergo a recount, as MacLean today submitted his request for a second tally of the Feb. 2 vote in which he lost by 19 votes.
Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said the recount will begin Wednesday, and will take from a week to a week and a half if all 38 precincts are counted. MacLean has not yet said how many precincts he wants recounted, but candidates often ask for a portion of the total to be tallied and then decide whether to continue depending on whether the margin of loss grows or shrinks.
The minimum cost of the recall is $600 a day, Kelley said.
In the most dramatic county recount in recent history - and the last to suceed - Janet Nguyen overcame a seven-vote deficit to Trung Nguyen in a 2007 race for county supervisor, and was declared the winner by seven votes. A court later determined she won by four votes. Read the rest of this entry »
Jim Lacy
Longtime Republican political activist Jim Lacy of Dana Point has teamed up again with Floyd Brown, author of the 1988 Willie Horton ad that helped bring down Michael Dukakis. This time they want to try to bring down President Barack Obama. And they’ve got an Impeach Obama Web site to prove it.
“Enough is enough. We’re calling for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama. And if you agree you can join us right now,’’ begins the message on the site.
Lacy was one of six people candidate Obama listed on his “Behind the Smears” page, during the presidential campaign. These were people who the Obama campaign said played fast and loose with the facts in an attempt to bring down his candidacy. I’ve asked the White House is they have any reaction to Lacy’s latest effort. But the administration tends not to comment on such sites.
Lacy says he’s fully aware that there isn’t any chance now to get Obama impeached. But that doesn’t dissuade him.
More DNA is being analyzed at a faster pace under a new Orange County forensics program run by Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and county CEO Thomas Mauk, according to a report being presented Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors.
The report recommends that the trio continue to manage the renamed Orange County Crime Lab, formerly the Sheriff’s Forensic Science Services, at least until June when budgeting ends.
For decades, the lab was under the supervision of the sheriff, but Rackauckas and Mauk were added in 2008 to settle the district attorney’s claims that he could do a more efficient job.
Under the revamped lab, 12,817 DNA samples were anlayzed in fiscal 2008-09, up from 9,361 in 2007-2008, the report said. Turnaround times fell for most types of crimes, dropping about 12 days for homicides and about 50 days for arson. Read the rest of this entry »
Republican eagerness to tap into the Tea Party phenomenon continues to grow, and county GOP Chairman Scott Baugh will continue his efforts to bring the two factions together with a rally on Saturday.
The road to this hybrid is slipperier than a 2010 Prius’ brakes, as Baugh discovered with the blowback from some fellow Republicans after his Jan. 18 speech calling for GOP officials and candidates to stop taking campaign contributions from public employee unions.
At the same time, he called for Republicans to unify in support of a proposed November ballot measure that would make it more difficult for those unions to collect dues to use for political purposes.
That proposed initiative is the purpose of Saturday’s grassroots-styled rally in Fullerton. Baugh’s working with activists to try to get 1,001 volunteers to show and vow to gather 100 signatures each for the ballot measure. Event details here.
And if the Red County blog’s assessment is correct, self-proclaimed “Citizen Power” initiative backers are going to need all the help they can get gathering signatures. Read the rest of this entry »
