His Master’s Voice
Posted by OC Insider on September 10, 2012
Anaheim city council candidate John Leos was on the OCEA Board of Directors from 2008 until early this year. OCEA is the union representing County of Orange employees. OCEA also represents its affiliate, the Anaheim Municipal Employees Association. He was also a director of the OCEA Political Action Committee. OCEA spent north of $200,000 trying to elect Leos to the Anaheim Council in 2010.
You get the picture: Leos is the public employee union candidate for Anaheim city council.
Leos has tried to distance himself from OCEA. He left the union board of directors this year. He and his supporters started putting out the word that he was unhappy with OCEA and its tactics. Sure. That’s believable.
But only last year, in an interview with OCEA Magazine, Leos had this advice for fellow union members looking to get more involved:
Q: What do you suggest other OCEA members do if they want to get involved?
A: Become a steward and attend rallies. Also, read all the emails (from OCEA General Manager Nick Berardino) and ask your co-workers to do so.
Oh my. “Read all e-mail from [Nick Berardino] and ask your co-workers to do so.” That’s a bit too much of a “We hear and obey, Dear Leader” mindset for our comfort.
You can read all of the interview here.
Oh wait – sorry. The OCEA has scrubbed that incriminating content from their website. Fortunately, you can see read it in the PDF version of the Winter 2011 OCEA Magazine here. Go to page 24.
OC Political 
Skylar said
Thank for this. Leos is the Union Candidate of Union Candidates. It’s still hard to believe Tom Tait has endorsed this guy.
And Brian Chuchua has practically made himself Leos’ running mate for city council! The OC GOP Central Committee needs to wake up to that fact when they consider endorsing Chuchua next week.
Steve said
I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous this would be to Anaheim’s economic future. We simply cannot afford this experiment!
Please refer to this chart Mayor Tait used in his State of the City address in 2012: http://www.anaheim.net/images/articles/4722/fullsize/slide24.png
Why in the heck would Tait even mildly entertain placing this high-profile Union Board Member in charge of Anaheim’s coffers??!!!! In essence, OCEA has been strategically spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to handpick the man who will sit across the bargaining table from them – Meanwhile, Leos would act as “management” for his own personal union’s contract negotiations on behalf of AMEA??!!! Huh??!!! Again, I cannot emphasize enough how extremely disastrous this would be to the future economic health of our city!
The cost of public-sector pay and benefits (which in most cases far exceeds what comparable workers earn in the private sector), combined with the hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities for retired government workers, are already weighing down Anaheim’s budget. And as staggering as these burdens seem now, they are guaranteed to grow exponentially in the years ahead. Do you really think that if given the opportunity to serve on the dais that Leos would even fathom to make the cuts necessary to turn this situation around?
To serve the people of Anaheim is impossible for John Leos; he is a union man through-and-through, first and foremost. It is in his blood. Leos cannot serve two masters.
Andrew A. Sailer said
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Who Would A Councilman John Leos Listen To? « Anaheim Blog said
[…] himself gives us a strong indication according to this post from the OC Political blog, which spotlights an 2008 interview from OCEA Magazine (Leos was on the […]
Patrick Vogland said
Awesome post! I will keep an on eye on your blog.