OC Political

A right-of-center blog covering local, statewide, and national politics

Archive for August, 2012

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Red County Appears To Be Going Away

Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on August 3, 2012

The rumor that I have just been made aware of is that today i the last day that Red County (Orange County) will be up online. One of the reasons that we started this blog was because we believe that they lost sight over there as to what it meant to be a local blog. As many of you know I got my first real start in blogging at Red County and it is actually really sad to see it go away.

I am actually sort of sad to see it go because it used to be a really good blog back in the days when Matt Cunningham, Chip Hanlon, etc… were running the show over there. Once they started censoring posts that writers were trying to put up and also leaving a 3 day delay between when posts were submitted and posted I realized that things were just not the same.

As we approach 100,000 hits here at OC Political we (Erik Brown, Chris Nguyen, and myself) want to thank the readership and hopefully welcome in some new readership from those that used to read Red County.

Posted in Orange County | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Redistricting Put Chapel and McLoughlin in Same RSCCD Seat; Alvarez Joins Slugfest

Posted by Chris Nguyen on August 2, 2012

Mark McLaughlin, David Chapel, Claudia Alvarez

Mark McLaughlin, David Chapel, and Claudia Alvarez

You may have seen Emami’s Twitter-style post, so here’s a more in-depth examination of the race for Rancho Santiago Community College District Board, Trustee Area 5.

In what may be the most awesome November slugfest not involving Republicans, Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez, has pulled papers to run for the RSCCD Trustee Area 5.   There are already two incumbents in the seat, as the RSCCD board recently switched from a multi-member three-area at-large election system to a vote-by-area system.  When they drew the lines for Area 5, they put three incumbents into Area 5, but Brian Conley chose to retire in June, leaving David Chapel and Mark McLoughlin to duke it out in November.

Now, we have a three-way slugfest with RSCCD Trustee Chapel (NPP), RSCCD Vice President McLoughlin (D), and Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Alvarez (D).  City council members have typically been able to defeat sitting school board members for school board seats (for example, Costa Mesa Councilwoman Katrina Foley unseated Newport-Mesa Unified School District Trustee Michael Collier 55%-45% in 2010).  Here, Alvarez is a sitting Councilwoman running for a single college board seat where two trustees are already in the race.

Alvarez has several advantages:

  • City Councilmembers’ general ability to unseat school board members
  • The pro-incumbent vote is split between Chapel and McLoughlin
  • She is the sole woman
  • She is the sole Latina
  • She has higher name ID, due to her Council seat and her 2006 bid for Assembly (she lost the primary to Jose Solorio, who incidentally is now running for RSCCD Trustee Area 1)
  • She has the largest warchest

This will be a tall order for Chapel to beat both McLaughlin and Alvarez.  It will be a similarly tall order for McLaughlin to beat both Chapel and Alvarez.  Of the three, Alvarez has the clearest path to the RSCCD victory in November.

For those wondering, Area 5 is:

  • Fountain Valley north of Edinger Avenue
  • Garden Grove south of Garden Grove Boulevard between Harbor Boulevard and Euclid Street
  • Santa Ana north of 17th Street and west of Santiago Street
  • Santa Ana between Euclid Street and the Santa Ana River
  • Santa Ana north of Civic Center Drive between Bristol Street and Flower Street

For visual learners, it’s the yellow portion on this map:

Posted in Costa Mesa, Newport-Mesa Unified School District, Rancho Santiago Community College District, Santa Ana | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

BREAKING NEWS: Claudia Alvarez Pulls Papers For College Board

Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on August 2, 2012

Many of you may have read recently about Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez failing to convince a judge to allow her to run for a 4th term on the Santa Ana City Council. It apparently didn’t take her very long to come up with another office for her to run for.

According to the Orange County Registrar of voters filing log Alvarez pulled papers today to run for the Rancho Santiago Community College District, Trustee Area 5. This race currently holds 2 incumbents vying for just 1 seat and Alvarez jumping in makes things very interesting.

It is still very early to make a clear prediction as to who would win, but if the election were today I would say Alvarez is the clear front-runner for the seat.

Posted in Rancho Santiago Community College District | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Brown Bringing Tax Hammer Down On Lumber

Posted by The Master Cylinder on August 2, 2012

Perhaps the state motto should be changed to “The Taxman Cometh. And Cometh. And Cometh.” That’s the animating spirit of state policy under Governor Jerry Brown, whose Adminstration deals with the huge perma-deficit by levying taxes hither and thither without regard to the human or economic cost.

The Brown Administration’s is proposing a budget trailer to “reform” the Timber Harvest Plan by creating a Lumber Retail Sales tax that would be assessed on the purchase of any lumber product at the point of sale.  The funds generated from this tax would be used to fund state and industry regulatory agencies.

At what cost? This proposed tax would target small businesses and do-it-yourself consumers who utilize lumber products. Many of these small businesses, which use lumber regularly, have already been devastated by recent financial events.

Home builders, carpenters and roofers – just to name a few – were very successful during the housing boom, and now many can barely find work.  Under this plan, when these hard-working Californians do find work, their cost of doing business will be even higher. How can any intelligent policy maker or elected official consider this is a smart plan to promote economic recovery.

Why would any administration want to harm consumers and small business by forcing them to pay additional taxes? Is making it harder for a prostrate industry to recover pro-growth or even compassionate? That’s a question the Brown Administration and supporters of this tax need to answer.

Posted in California | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

“Bulldozer” Bruce Broadwater Seeks Return to Garden Grove Mayoral Seat

Posted by Chris Nguyen on August 1, 2012

Bruce BroadwaterLong-time Garden Grove Councilman-turned-Mayor-turned-Councilman “Bulldozer” Bruce Broadwater (D) has made it official: he’s pulled and filed papers to run for Mayor of Garden Grove again, confirming that his June 27 mayoral fundraiser was no mere exploratory effort.

With Mayor Bill Dalton (R) termed out, Broadwater is the early front-runner for the mayor’s seat, unless Mayor Pro Tem Dina Nguyen (R), Councilman Steve Jones (R), or Councilman Kris Beard (D) decide to challenge Broadwater for the seat.  Jones and Beard are both up for re-election to the council this year, but Nguyen and Broadwater would get free passes since neither of their council seats are up until 2014, so even if one of them makes an unsuccessful bid for mayor, they’re still on the council.

The sole other person to pull papers for Mayor against Broadwater is businessman Myke Cossota, who made an unsuccessful bid to unseat Dalton in 2010, losing in a landslide 74%-26%.

Broadwater has been either Mayor or Councilman for 18 of the last 20 years.  Specifically, he was a Garden Grove City Councilman from 1992-1994, Mayor from 1994-2004, when he termed out and ran for Orange County Supervisor (losing in the runoff 55%-45% to Lou Correa), and returned to the City Council in 2006, where’s he been ever since.

For those of you wondering, “Bulldozer” Bruce Broadwater acquired his nickname from his aggressive use of redevelopment and eminent domain.

Posted in Garden Grove | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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