OC Political

As those of you who read the blog today know, the City Selection Committee (who are the mayors of each Orange County city) met tonight to fill various seats on regional boards and commissions.  For details on each seat, read my post from this morning.

For those of you reading my live blog of the City Selection Committee, you may have noted the relative lack of vote recording (and indeed several of you emailed or texted me asking for to break the votes down more specifically). That was due to the auctioneer-like speed with which David Vazquez of ACC-OC read off the votes.  Thanks to David and to SCAG’s Kevin Gilhooley for helping me fill in the gaps during and after the meeting, so I can prepare this post below that shows how every single city voted for every single seat (except for a possible mishap in my notes regarding the OC Senior Citizens Advisory Council).

Only OCTA has population-weighted seats; three population-weighted seats and two one-vote-per-city seats are up this year while the other two population-weighted seats and three one-vote-per-city seats are up next year.  All other boards and commissions are appointed on a one-vote-per-city basis.

OCTA 4th District (Population-Weighted Seat)

The big headline of the night from the City Selection Committee is the decision of the 4th District mayors to unseat Anaheim Councilwoman Gail Eastman (R) from OCTA by replacing her with Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait (R).  Buena Park and Placentia voted for Eastman while Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, and La Habra voted for Tait.

While Tait won the vote 4-2, this was a population-weighted seat, so Tait won 81.44% to Eastman’s 18.55%.

OC LAFCO

LAFCO was the only seat that went to multiple rounds of voting.  This seat expires in June 2014 and fills the vacancy resulting from the resignation of Peter Herzog (R-Lake Forest).  Sam Allevato (R-San Juan Capistrano), Tony Beall (R-Rancho Santa Margarita), Cheryl Brothers (R-Fountain Valley), Dean Grose (R-Los Alamitos), Barbara Kogerman (R-Laguna Hills), and Steve Mensinger (R-Costa Mesa) sought the seat.  Brothers with 13 votes and Beall with 7 votes advanced to the run-off.  Grose had 4 votes while Allevato, Kogerman, and Mensinger each had 3 votes.

Awkwardly, Allevato and Brothers failed to win the votes of their own cities while Mensinger’s city was the sole city that failed to show up for the City Selection Committee meeting.

The second round delivered more intrigue.  In the Beall-Brothers run-off, each achieved 16 votes until it was discovered Placentia had not cast their ballot.  Placentia then voted for Brothers giving her a 17-16 lead over Beall (remember that Costa Mesa was not present to vote).  However, an appointment requires an absolute majority of the 34 cities, so 18 votes were required.

In the second round, all three of Allevato’s votes (Aliso Viejo, Laguna Woods, and Yorba Linda) went to Beall.  Of Grose’s four votes, three went to Brothers (La Palma, Seal Beach, and Villa Park) while one went to Beall (Los Alamitos).  Of Kogerman’s three votes, two went to Beall (Laguna Beach and Laguna Hills) while one went to Brothers (Anaheim).  Of Mensinger’s three votes, two went to Beall (Fountain Valley and Fullerton) while one went to Brothers (Irvine).  Brothers lost Dana Point to Beall.  Beall held on to all of his own first-round votes.

Since it requires an absolute majority of 18 votes to appoint, a third round of voting was held, again with Beall and Brothers.  Los Alamitos made the critical flip to give Brothers the critical 18th vote in the third round, allowing her to defeat Beall 18-15.

OCTA Districts 2 and 5 (Population-Weighted Seats)

In votes with less intrigue, the OCTA 2nd District seat was easily retained by Matt Harper (R-Huntington Beach).  Harper’s Council colleague, Joe Shaw (D-Huntington Beach), nominated himself and voted for himself, but Harper won all of the other cities’ votes.

The OCTA 5th District seat’s intrigue was second only to that of the 4th District seat.  Incumbent Frank Ury (R-Mission Viejo) survived a challenge by Robert Ming (R-Laguna Niguel).  Ury won the two largest cities (Lake Forest and his own Mission Viejo) Ming won three of the four medium-sized cities, but Ury held on to all the small cities.  For purposes of this, the large cities are populations over 75,000, the medium-sized cities are populations between 35,000-75,000, and the small cities are populations under 35,000.

OCTA Districts 1 and 3 (One City, One Vote)

The one-city-one-vote seats in the 1st and 3rd Districts were far less interesting than the population-weighted seats.

The OCTA 3rd District seat had zero intrigue, as Al Murray (R-Tustin) retained the seat in a vote by acclamation.

The OCTA 1st District seat was fairly simple since there’s only three cities that can vote.  Steve Jones (R-Garden Grove) retained his seat by winning the votes of his own city and of Santa Ana while Diana Carey (D-Westminster) won the vote of her own city.

OC Housing and Community Development Commission

This one was straight-forward.  Irvine Mayor Steven Choi (R) won the seat by unanimous acclamation of all 33 cities present.

OC Waste Management Commission Districts 1 and 3

In the 1st District Waste Management Commission seat, Michele Martinez (D-Santa Ana) won the seat with the votes of her own city and of Garden Grove while Margie Rice (R-Westminster) won the vote of her own city.  Rice had previously occupied the seat, but Martinez defeated Rice’s bid to return to the commission.

In the 3rd District Waste Management Commission seat, Mike Alvarez (R-Orange) won the seat with the votes of his own city, Irvine, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda while Beckie Gomez (D-Tustin) won the vote of her own city.  Gomez had previously occupied the seat, but Alvarez defeated Gomez’s bid to return to the commission.

San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy

For the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, Troy Edgar (R-Los Alamitos) retained his seat by the acclamation of all 33 cities present.

OC Senior Citizens Advisory Council

For the OC Senior Citizens Advisory Council, there were more seats than candidates, so every vote was by acclamation:

• 1st District Seat #1 – OC Political apologizes for illegible notes making this result unclear, but either the seat was continued to the next meeting, or the seat was won by Barbara Barker of Garden Grove, who is not a city councilmember
• 2nd District Seat #1 was won by Prakash Narain (R-Cypress)
• 2nd District Seat #2 was won by incumbent Lillian Kammerer of Fountain Valley, who is not a city councilmember
• 3rd District Seat #1 was won by Beckie Gomez (D-Tustin)
• 3rd District Seat #2 was won by Gene Hernandez (R-Yorba Linda)
• 5th District Seat #1 was won by incumbent Kathryn McCullough (D-Lake Forest)

1st District Seat #2, both 4th District seats, and 5th District Seat #2 were continued to the next meeting.

Orange County City Engineers Flood Control Advisory Committee

For the Orange County City Engineers Flood Control Advisory Committee, there was exactly one candidate per seat, so every vote was by acclamation:

• 1st District: Incumbent Marwan Youssef of Westminster retained his seat
• 3rd District: Mark Carroll of Irvine regained his former seat
• 4th District: Jim Biery of Buena Park regained his former seat
• 5th District: Steve May of Laguna Beach won this seat with no opposition

The City Selection Committee can fill seats on this committee only from the ranks of members of the Orange County City Engineers Association.

Orange County’s California Identification Remote Access Network Board (Cal-ID RAN)

This seat was continued to the next meeting.