OC Political

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

Video: Last Tuesday’s Anaheim City Council Throw-Down

Posted by Matt Cunningham on May 6, 2013

The buzz in Orange County political circles since last week has been about the drama that occurred during the council comments that traditionally come at the end of the Anaheim City Council meeting.

The mayor goes last, and Tom Tait took the occasion to blast Councilwoman Kris Murray over her op-ed piece on single-member council districts in last week’s Orange County Register. it’s a symptom of how negative the dynamics of Anaheim city government have become that what is, at its heart, a disagreement over the application or interpretation of the California government code blew up into allegations of character assault.

Anaheim gadfly/wedding videographer Jason Young ripped a video that has been floating around other OC blogs — but in his Ministry of Truth-style, Jason was careful to omit Murray’s response and other key moments.

So in the interest of the whole truth, here is video of the entire incident:

 

You can read the rest of the post here.

Posted in Anaheim | Leave a Comment »

Buy Your Own Assembly License Plate

Posted by Chris Nguyen on May 6, 2013

LicensePlateA72AH/T to my friend Alex Vassar at the One Voter Project for this odd story.  Some of you may recall when OC Political broke the story of the DUI arrest of former 72nd District Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove).  A key tip in IDing Robinson was his Assembly license plate, which read “A 72 R” on it.  Robinson served in the Assembly from 1974-1986.

Well, now you can your very own “A 72 A” license plate.  The plates belonging to former 72nd District Assemblyman John Quimby (D-San Bernardino), who served from 1962-1974, are now available on eBay.  Quimby died less than five months ago on December 22, 2012, at the age of 77.  His eponymous Quimby Act of 1965 is the law that permits local governments to require developers to donate up to five acres of land for parks per every 1,000 residents expected to move into newly-constructed housing.

The plates are available for $300 until Wednesday, May 22 at 5:06 PM.  Shipping from Yolo County is free though Californians have to pay 7.5% sales tax, which on a $300 product is $22.50.  Click here for a quick look at State Assembly, State Senate, Congressional, and U.S. Senate license plates from the California DMV.

Posted in 72nd Assembly District, California | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Voice of OCVoice of OCEA & Brothers!

Posted by Lassie on May 6, 2013

I rarely blog here, but I decided to unveil a post that I have been sitting on about the funding of Voice of OC. The Voice of OC has been jokingly referred to as the Voice of OCEA and the Voice of OCEA and Brothers by many insiders around Orange County, due to funding coming from the Orange County Employees Association (OCEA). It’s commonly known around the county that the unions fund the Voice of OC but no one that I’ve talked to know how much.

I decided to try to put the pieces of the puzzle together and determine where the Voice of OC receives their funding and what motives they might have. My presentation to you will be simply presenting facts and allowing you to come up with your own conclusion.

In order to start my investigation, I went to one of the best sources of information on non-profit organizations: www.guidestar.org. The information that was retrieved from this website was rather fascinating.

Here is a copy of the form 990.

1) According to the “People” tab on the www.guidestar.org website, the current board of directors is a well-known group. Here is the most recent Board of Directors list; Joe Dunn, Erwin Chemerinsky, Henry Weinstein, Daniel Weintraub, John Cruz, Mario Rodriguez, Robert Magnuson, Stanley Tkaczyk, Loren Blackwood, Wylie Aitken (Chairman), and Norberto Santana (Editor-In-Chief, who also received over $100,000 in 2010).

Joe Dunn – former State Senator who represented the 34th Senate District (currently held by Senator Lou Correa).  He unseated former Senator Rob Hurtt and caused the Republicans to lose its first State Senate seat in Orange County.  Republicans have not being able to take back this Senate seat since.  After he was termed out of office, Dunn was appointed as the CEO of the California Medical Association in 2006, and he is the current Executive Director of the State Bar of California and is a founding partner of The Senators (Ret.) Firm, LLP.

Wylie Aitken– A lawyer, but better known in the Orange County political arena as the Chairman and Founder of the Democratic Party Foundation in Orange County.  He is famously known for providing political strategy and as a major donor to Democrats nationally and especially in Orange County.

Erwin Chemerinsky – The founding dean of University of California, Irvine School of Law. He is the author of a few different books including most recently two books titled; The Conservative Assault on the Constitution and Enhancing Government. It is my understanding that Chemerinsky also teaches political science classes.

Henry Weinstein– He is a founding member of the faculty at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He like Robert Magnuson (his profile is listed below) also held a position at the Los Angeles Times in the past.

Daniel Weintraub – He has been a public affairs columnist for the Sacramento Bee editorial pages since 2000. Before working up in Sacramento, he worked at the Los Angeles Times for 8 years and Orange County Register for 6 years.

Robert Magnuson – He is the owner of Magnuson and Company, a strategic communications and management consulting firm based in Laguna Beach. His background includes over 20 years of working at the Los Angeles Times, where he was Senior Vice President in the organization.

Stan Tkaczyk – He is the current President of Rainbow Disposal Company and is the husband to Orange County Register Columnist Barbara Venezia. He was recently appointed to serve on the OC Fair Board by Governor Brown in 2012, where he serves with OCEA General Manager Nick Berardino on the Orange County Fair board.  Both were appointed by Governor Jerry Brown.

Loren Blackwood – I could not find much information about her other than discovering that she co-founded the Newport Beach Winery with her boyfriend Richard Moriarty, who is the heir to the Segerstrom fortune. According to the article, she handles the marketing for Newport Beach Winery.

Mario Rodriguez – He is the chairman of the Hispanic 100 and former Chairman of the Latino Coalition.

John Cruz – He is also on the board of the Hispanic 100.  He was appointed as the Appointments Secretary for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Cruz is also an attorney.

2) In 2010, the Voice of OC took in $450,707 in total revenue. According to www.guidestar.org on the 2010 form 990 that was provided by the non-profit organization, here is the breakdown of where the cash is coming from.   I’m only able to provide the 2010 contributors because that was the last time they made it available for the public to view.

Orange County Employees Association:    $269,500
California Endowment:    $82,008
United Food & Commercial Workers:   $25,000
Wylie Aitken:   $25,000
Joe Dunn:   $14,635
Stephen Garcia: $10,000
Jeff Teller: $5,000
Anne Andrews: $5,000
Other Contributions (under $5,000): $14,564

You can expect to see this donor list in all of my future posts on this topic to serve as a reminder of where Voice of OC is receiving their funding and what their interest could be.

3) In order to provide a broader picture of the organization, I will also present that in 2010, the Voice of OC had $381,520 in total expenses. After searching through the 2010 Form 990, I could not find an itemized list of specifically what they purchased with the money they spent.

However, the only major expense they spent was for the editor-in-chief, Norberto Santana.  His salary in 2010’s report was listed as $120,000 and $16,900 in other compensation.

As stated at the beginning of this post, I will not make any conclusions in this post, but simply leave you with this question:

Can a news agency/blog that appears to receive over 75% of their funding from public employee unions and high-ranking Orange County Democrats, write news stories that are objective in Orange County especially on high-ranking conservative Republicans? Was there ever an article written that didn’t lean to the left? More posts to come.

Here is a response to this article from Jennifer Muir of OCEA:

It’s no secret that OCEA provided seed funding for Voice of OC, and that since then, a number of other organizations and individuals have seen the impact of Voice’s investigative reporting and chosen to become contributors, as well. OCEA will continue to contribute for the following reasons: Voice of OC’s nearly 100,000 visitors per month, its string of investigative reporting awards from the OC Press Club, its recognition from the USC Annenberg School for Journalism, its inclusion on the Associated Press wires, its partnership with PBS, and its bipartisan Community Editorial Board. Journalists across the Country recognize the high quality and impact of Voice’s reporting, and Orange County is better for it.

Posted in Orange County | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments »

Michelle Steel v. Alan Mansoor: Who Stand to Gain the Most and Who Has the Most to Lose?

Posted by Dominus on May 6, 2013

While political insiders gossip about the possibility of Assemblyman Allan Mansoor giving up his third term in the lower house of the Legislature to challenge BOE Member Michelle Steel for the position of OC Supervisor, 2nd District, the Daily Pilot made the whole situation public last week.

Conventional wisdom predicted that Allan Mansoor will run for State Senate in the beginning of 2015 when incumbent Senator Mimi Walters vacate her seat after her installation on to the Orange County Board of Supervisors.  The most obvious threat to Allan Mansoor for this senate seat is Assemblyman Don Wagner.  Both Wanger and Mansoor were elected in 2010 so both are termed-out at the end of 2016.

Last week, Allan Mansoor did a huge favor to Don Wagner by telling the local press that he is mulling a run for OC Supervisor.

But Wagner is not the only one who stand to gain the most – Supervisor John Moorlach is also benefiting from a possible Steel v. Mansoor match up.

Moorlach is at the end of his career with the County of Orange and is looking for a new public office to occupy.

THE BACKGROUND

John Moorlach detested the idea that Michelle Steel is going to succeed him.  He is convinced that Michelle and her husband Shawn Steel were some how responsible for the defeat of his effort to extend supervisorial term limits to three consecutive 4-year terms.

Moorlach preferred to have someone like former Huntington Beach Councilman Don Hansen or Costa Mesa Mayor Jim Righeimer take over his seat.

Jim Righeimer decided against a run for supervisor due to unfinished business in Costa Mesa.  Don Hansen is having second thought about this race, according to multiple sources.

So John Moorlach and company needed to find another candidate. They turned to Allan Mansoor.

They convinced Allan Mansoor that it is in his best interest to forgo a possible third term in the assembly to run against Michelle Steel.

Any political insider could have told Mansoor that the safer route to take is to run for re-election, then run for state senate in a special election from a safe seat.

But of course the people telling Mansoor to run for supervisor doesn’t exactly have his best interest at heart.  They’re just looking for the strongest candidate they can find to run against Michelle Steel.

THE POSSIBLE BENEFICIARIES

If Allan Mansoor does indeed give up his Assembly seat to run for Supervisor, John Moorlach is going to walk right into the 74th Assembly District.

Assemblyman Don Wagner will have little problem succeeding Senator Mimi Walters to the upper chamber.

THE RISK FOR ALLAN MANSOOR

Between Don Wagner and Michelle Steel, I believe that the latter is a more formidable opponent.  Taking on Don Wagner in a special election from a safe seat is the path with zero risk for Allan Mansoor.

Running against Michelle Steel in a regular primary and then general election will mean that Allan Mansoor will have to give up his third and final term in the Assembly.  If Mansoor prevail in this match then life is great.  However, should he come up short, unemployment at the beginning of 2015 is not pleasant for a former member of the Legislature.

CONCLUSION

Something for Assemblyman Mansoor to consider as he is about to start a family.

Posted in 2nd Supervisorial District, Orange County Board of Supervisors | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Ling-Ling Chang runs for council re-election AND Assembly?

Posted by Allen Wilson on May 2, 2013

Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R-Chino Hills, District 55) is serving his third and final term in the lower house of the California legislature.  Hagman is unable to run for another term due to term limit rules.

OC Political just learned today that Diamond Bar Councilwoman Ling-Ling Chang will be having her Assembly kickoff campaign at a fundraiser on May 31, 2013 in Rowland Heights.

The 55th Assembly District covers all or portions of the following cities:  Brea, Diamond Bar, Chino Hills, City of Industry, Placentia, Rowland Heights, Walnut, West Covina and Yorba Linda.  The district leans Republican as the registration is 41% Republican, 31% Democrat and 22% No Party Preference (formerly known as DTS).

Councilwoman Chang is serving her first term on the Diamond Bar City Council who is up for election this November. 

However, Chang has come out of the gate as the first Assembly candidate for the June 2014 Primary Election will raise some eyebrows for Diamond Bar voters.

We tried to reach out to Councilwoman Chang as to whether she is running for re-election for council AND Assembly and got no reply.

There are other potential candidates who are on the bench such as Placentia Councilman Jeremy Yamaguchi and Walnut-Valley Unified School District Trustee Phillip Chen, but have not declared as an Assembly candidate. 

There maybe a wildcard candidate that could change the dynamics in the contest this contributor learned today.

Suffice to say that the 55th Assembly District will be one of many open seats in 2014 to be watched by many political observers.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | 13 Comments »

Mission of Group Leading Council District Push In Anaheim: Roll Back Conservatism In OC

Posted by Matt Cunningham on April 30, 2013

The bland-sounding Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD) is an off-shoot of the left-wing union UNITE-HERE, and has been the lead organizer of the left-wing coalition pushing to carve Anaheim into 8 single-member council districts, drawn according to ethno-racial criteria.

This week, OCCORD is busily preparing for tomorrow’s May Day union rally, next week it’s focus will be on the final meeting of the Anaheim Citizens Advisory Committee meeting.

I’d wager few Orange County Republicans and conservatives have heard of OCCORD, so here’s a primer.

OCCORD recieves north of half-a-million in funding annually from a variety of non-profits, including the is The New World Foundation, a radical, New York City-based non-profit that funds left-wing organization in the United States and around the world.

OCCORD’s grants came from the NWF’s “New Majority Fund” – which is its largest funding vehicle. The ambitious agenda of the New Majority Fund is  “building electoral majorities that can reverse the rightward trend across America” and helping groups like OCCORD to “grow in scope and scale to influence the broader political climate and reshape government at the municipal, county and state levels.”

Indeed, OCCORD’s mission fits perfectly into The New World Foundation’s larger goals, self-consciously casting itself as an agent for rolling back conservative politics and governance in Orange County.

In April of 2012, Norma Rodriguez, an organizer for the San Diego-based Center on Policy Initiatives (another recipient of financial support from the New World Foundation’s New Majority Fund) posted this OCCORD job opportunity:

“OCCORD- Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development is  a sister organization of CPI’s in Orange County, they are hiring a Researcher and Policy Analyst, please forward on to colleagues in OC or colleagues interested in moving there!!”

In the job posting, OCCORD Executive Director Eric Altman told potential applicants [emphasis added]::

“OCCORD is hiring a campaign-oriented Researcher/Policy Analyst.  We’re looking for a good strategic thinker who will keep digging until they find the information they need and who can communicate the relevance of their findings to multiple audiences ranging from policymakers to grassroots leaders.”

Altman concludes with this revealing caution [emphasis added]:

“Oh, and since this is Orange County, the epicenter of the modern American conservative movement, we need someone who doesn’t mind fighting  an uphill battle…”

According to another OCCORD job posting for the same position:

“The Researcher/Policy Analyst utilizes research and data analysis to reframe the debate about our regional economy and the role of government in our society, and integrates the research component into OCCORD’s comprehensive campaigns.”

That call to oppose the conservative movement and persuade Orange Countians to accept a larger government role in their lives is echoed in an August 2012 job posting by OCCORD for a Community Organizer:

“OCCORD is a leader in the emerging movement to reclaim Orange County, California, from the extreme laissez-faire policies and entrenched anti-immigrant sentiment that have long dominated our region.”

OCCORD paints a pretty clear picture of how it sees its mission: overturning the philosophical political underpinnings of Orange County and shifting our politics left-ward toward an increased role for government in the regulation of our lives.

Furthermore, it’s clear OCCORD views dividing Anaheim into eight single-member council districts as critical to its goal of “reclaiming” Orange County from the influence of free market and limited government ideas and “re-framing” the debate about the role of government in the lives of Orange Countians. That would tend to argue that single-member council districts will move Anaheim governance to the Left.

OCCORD’s present political focus is on re-structuring the governance of Orange County’s largest city to make it easier to elect liberals to the Anaheim City Council. The person ultimately hired for the Researcher/Policy Analyst position, Clara Turner, is a fixture at Anaheim Citizen Advisory Committee meetings, continually supplying CAC members with charts, graphs and arguments for dividing the city into eight single-member districts.

However, it is worth noting that OCCORD’s ambitions for its agenda — in its own words — is not limited to Anaheim but is county-wide in scope. And that ought to concern supporters of limited government who are either indifferent to what is happening in Anaheim, or have convinced themselves it is nothing to worry about.

Posted in Anaheim, Uncategorized | Tagged: , | 7 Comments »

Taking A Break

Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on April 29, 2013

As readers may have noticed I have not posted anything in a week. Since I work in the private sector, I get really busy at times with work. I am especially busy when I take on research projects such as the one that I am currently undertaking (campaign finance research). So, for the next couple of weeks I am taking a break from blogging and sending out a request to our other bloggers to try to post one item over the next couple of weeks.

Once I am back I have a great plan on a couple of debates that we plan to have on Anaheim Council districts and on Slate Mailers. I will still be around over the next couple of weeks for those of you that need to get a hold of me.

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Anaheim Is Beachhead In Union Campaign to Control OC Cities Via CVRA Lawsuits

Posted by Matt Cunningham on April 26, 2013

For the last several months, I have chronicled the ongoing controversy in Anaheim over single-member council districts over at Anaheim Blog.

Some background: Last summer, the ACLU, representing three radical activists, filed suit against the City of Anaheim under the California Voting Rights Act, alleging the current system of electing city councilmembers at-large dsicriminates against Latinos and demanding the council instead be elected form single-member districts.

In the wake this lawsuit, the council create a Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) to conduct a series of public hearings and make recommendations on how to increase public participation (this could include, or not, switching to single-member council districts). Mayor Tom Tait and the councilmembers each appointed two members to the CAC.

What has ensured is a carefully-orchestrated effort by a left-wing coalition of labor unions, “community organizations” and the Democratic Party to game the process so the council will place on the ballot a measure calling to doubing the council to 8 members, elected from single-member districts instead of stabding before all Anaheim voters.

I have written extensively on who these organizations are, where they recieve their funding and their strategy.

The stakes in Anaheim are huge. If this left-wing coalition prevails, Anaheim will almost certainly go from being one of the largest cities in the state and the nation with a GOP majority to becoming a mini-Los Angeles.

In Anaheim, the political Left gets it. Unions like the OC Labor Federation and UNITE-HERE, union spin-offs like Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD), the Democratic Party of Orange County, the ACLU — they all get it and ar actively engaged in trying to impose single-member council districts on Anaheim. In contracts, Republicans in Orange County have been either oblivious or impotent, and in some instances actively working to achieve the Left’s goal.

What is going on in Anaheim isn’t isolated, but the opening of a campaign to turn Orange County blue in terms of control of city councils. Writing in UniionWatch.com on April 2, Kevin Dayton goes into detail on how the unions and their left-wing allies are using the California Voting Rights Act to litigate their way into greater political control of local governments.

Unions Will Control Mid-Sized Cities with California Voting Rights Act

by Kevin Dayton

Unions firmly control the political agenda in California’s largest cities, but civic leaders and citizens in some of the state’s smaller cities are still resisting the union political machine.

Some of these cities, with populations from 100,000 to 250,000, include Escondido, Oceanside, Murrieta, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Santa Clarita, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Clovis, Elk Grove, and Roseville. These are cities where a dominant faction of elected and appointed officials generally puts a priority on efficiently providing basic services at a reasonable cost to their citizens.

Not surprisingly, city councils in some of these cities have attempted to enact home-rule charters or have exercised rights under their home-rule charters to free themselves from costly state mandates. This greatly agitates unions, which have long worked to attain their unchecked control of the agenda at the capitol.

Union officials want California’s cities to submit fully to state laws regarding collective bargaining for public employees and government-mandated wage rates (“prevailing wages”) for construction contractors. As reported in www.UnionWatch.org throughout 2012, public employee unions and construction trade unions spent huge amounts of money to convince voters in some of these cities to reject proposed charters.

Obviously unions don’t want to spend $1 million in dozens of cities every two years to defeat proposed charters, as they did in Costa Mesa before the November 2012 election. And soon they won’t have to spend any more money.

Unions are now implementing a tactic to alter political control of these smaller cities. It is likely to succeed in turning almost every California city with a population of 100,000 or more from fiscal responsibility to “progressive” governance based on theories of social justice.

Unions and their attorneys are masters at exploiting the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to attain unrelated economic objectives that benefit unions. And now unions are using the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (Election Code Section 14025 et seq.) as a tool to ensure the adoption of union-backed public policies at local governments.

You can read the rest of the article by clicking here.

Posted in Anaheim | Tagged: , , , , | 21 Comments »

Assemblyman Travis Allen – Bonfire Rally in Support of Our Fire Rings

Posted by OC Insider on April 25, 2013

 Link to Facebook Event: Click Here

Bonfire Invite-page-001 (2)

Posted in 72nd Assembly District, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Orange County, San Clemente, Seal Beach, Sunset Beach Sanitary District, Surfside Colony Community Services District | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

Rep. Campbell Questions Treasury Secretary on New Entitlement Spending, IMF Funding

Posted by Newsletter Reprint on April 19, 2013

This came across the wire a couple of days ago from the office of Congressman John Campbell:

For Immediate Release: April 17, 2013

Rep. Campbell Questions Treasury Secretary on New Entitlement Spending, IMF Funding

Click to Watch Video

“In the president’s budget, it shows that this new entitlement, at the end of the 10 year budget window, has a deficit of $5 billion. And, over time, the entitlement will increase while the revenue source will decrease. Isn’t this exactly what got us into the deficit problem we’re in? Aren’t you just replicating it with a new program?”

Washington, DC – At a House Budget Committee hearing on the presidents FY 2014 Budget proposal, Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), a senior Member of the House Budget Committee, questions Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on how the president expects to use a new cigarette tax that he hopes will discourage smoking to perpetually pay for a new, permanent government program.  Moving to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Campbell asks Secretary Lew if President Obama thinks it is wise to send $63 billion in taxpayer dollars to the IMF when so many domestic programs are currently under pressure due to Sequestration.

Full Transcript of Line of Questioning Between Rep. Campbell and Secretary Lew:
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in 45th Congressional District | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

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