Just in case you missed the recent OCGOP showdown between Shawn Nelson and carpetbagger Harry Sidhu, we generously share a video clip showing Sidhu trying to to talk about defined contributions versus defined benefits.
Since this is the major problem contributing to government unfunded liabilities you would think a competent supervisorial candidate would be all over this – especially at a Republican nominating meeting.
Well see if you can understand what Yahoo Harry is talking about before stammering that he really doesn’t know anything about it! Enjoy this quintessential Sidhu moment.
The public relations and tax revenue fixated OC Children and Families Commission needs oversight. How do I know? Because of the amount of money these people pay to PR types and lobbyists – who just happen to be pals of Commission members. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in fact.
Last year the Riverside County Board of Supervisors addressed the same issue when their “First 5” Commission members were busted for distributing grants to their own organizations. Here’s a 2009 article from The Riverside Press-Telegram that talks about the problem. The solution proposed by the Riverside BOS was to subsume their “First Five” Commission into the County government structure.
Whether or not this sort of thing has been going on in OC is not known without a complete shakeout. But what is known is that the Commission has been paying for things like toothbrush distribution and facebook editing at a rate of $200 per hour – to a Matthew Cunningham, a pal of the current Commission Chairman, and a running board occupant of the John Lewis political machine.
Then there’s the small matter of the hundreds of thousands contracted for lobbying services to Phil Isenberg as well as our own local big-government gold digger – Anaheim Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.
When you awake you will feel completely refreshed...
It’s high time to place this Commission in a chain of command that puts ultimate responsibility in the hands of elected representatives – people who will have to account for grants and contracts awarded to political operatives, and to decide what sort of political lobbying, if any, is appropriate. And that would be the County Board of Supervisors.
Although I don’t think I’ll be doing much posting about non-contiguous cities in OC, something’s a brewin’ down in Surf City and a pretty rancid odor has wafted northward and reached our Fullertonian nostrils. What’s happening is a saga that should be an instructive reminder to us, and, alas, is far too typical of the prevailing attitudes within city halls everywhere.
The story is told in some detail over at the Red County blog by it’s proprietor, Chip Hanlon.
It happens that in 2002 the good folks of HB passed a charter amendment to require that the City allocate 15% of its annual budget to infrastructure. And naturally the bureaucrats in City hall have been ignoring the mandate ever since. Apparently they are counting debt service and other items as “infrastructure” in a way nobody ever intended. Millions of bucks are being deliberately diverted from city infrastructure.
And also, naturally, the HB City Attorney has cooked up a load of legal bullshit to back up the city staff’s self-serving interpretation of what the charter amendment really means.
It seems that people are finally talking about strengthening the language in the charter to make sure the switcheroo stops, and at least one of the employee unions made it clear that they will have none of it.
Sound familiar?
Anyway, the HB City Council met the other night to review recommendations from an ad hoc committee to address this infrastructure issue. They continued the item for a couple weeks, so it’s not over yet. Any takers on how they’ll go?
Its ironic that critics of what goes on in city halls are labeled as divisive. But the divide between ourselves and those who work for us is clearly demarcated and understood by the employees themselves, whose interests are sometimes spectacularly incongruent with ours.
The largest monthly tax-payer funded haul for local Kiducrat spokesman Matthew Cunningham seems to be January 2010, when he racked up an impressive $10,840 to wordsmith and social network as a PR shill for the big-government OC Children and Families Commission. Click on the document below to see what a “conservative” Republican wordsmith does for a living – apart from writing op-ed pieces for liberal Democrats.
My favorite line item is the last one – a blanket $800 charged for “account management” for the month, whatever that may entail. Say what? You mean the folks in charge bought into that baloney? Oh that’s right – nobody seems to be in charge at all.
But hey! It’s all about the kids, right?
It's all about making people feel good about themselves.
With every passing second it become more and more obvious that the Children and Families Commission is in dire need of some outside oversight to stop this exorbitant waste of money on overpriced PR efforts doled out to political operatives.
The Republican Party of Orange County is inviting supporters to start making phone calls this week, so get down there and help remind 4th District voters to fill out their absentee ballots.
More fun stuff from one of OCs repuglican welfare state spongers, Matthew J. Cunningham. $4,200 in 8 days, to be precise. And ten references to Facebook updates.
Funny how stuff kids do for free can be mined by a well-connected political operative for big bucks. Well it’s big bucks when you charge 200 clams per hour and have no competition.
I ran the table at the Children and Families Commission. Nobody seemed to notice.
What’s really startling is that the Children and Families Commission kiducrats are willing to pay somebody that exorbitant rate for a “social network” medium “work” that will have a completely negligible effect. Not negligible, you say? Prove it says I.
Oh, yeah. Be sure to reflect upon Mr. Conservative Republican’s daily billing totals and note the inevitable “account management,” whatever the hell that is. Who knew being a kiducrat payed so well?
Apparently part of Matthew Cunningham’s deal as wordsmith to the OC Children and Families Commission is to fill other functions from time to time – such as Ambassador to the Diocese of Orange with Dental Portfolio.
Here, in October and November 2007 we find Mr. Conservative Republican billing the taxpayers $200 an hour as coordinator of toothbrush distribution:
It seems as if the Commission was eager to insinuate itself into Catholic schools, too.
But did it not occur to anybody auditing these invoices at the Commission that it was a wee bit inappropriate to pay somebody that exorbitant rate to talk to somebody at the Diocese about handing out toothbrushes? Was anybody at the Commission even reviewing these invoices at all?
By the way, anybody out there know how many toothbrushes you can get wholesale for $200? Oy vey! Just more lax or non-existing oversight by our friends on the Commission.
Ironically, in the fall of 2007 Mr. Cunningham was hard at work in the trenches as a loyal foot soldier for the Diocese. But that’s a whole other matter.
Using kids as a front to support your bureaucratic empire is almost something of a cliche. The educrats and teachers unions have been doing it for years. And so naturally the OC Children and Families Commission sings from the same sheet music.
Check out these billing entries from Matthew Cunningham to the Commission.
Okay, on January 15th, 2010 Mr. Republican is ghost writing an op-ed piece for a Democratic politician – the former State Superintendent of Schools, Delaine Eastin. A dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do do it, right? Besides the money is great.
The inability to write is not a partisan political issue...
Then we notice that about five weeks later the beaver-like Cunningham is hard at work disseminating the “Eastin op-ed” to literally dozens of readers via “social media tools”
A little digging and we uncovered this Sacramento Bee op-ed “by” Delaine Eastin dated 2/24/2010. Delaine is fighting hard for the dough that fuels the kiducrat machine, and that, parenthetically pays Cunningham $200 an hour. Is this the very same piece he wrote for the otherwise mute Eastin? Check it out and see if the style isn’t 100% Cunningham schmaltz – including the obligatory quotation from Abraham Lincoln. Be sure to read the comments as a reminder of Eastin’s troubled regime as Superintendent of Schools.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. The OC Children and Families Commission is paying hundreds of thousands a year in PR and lobbying expenses that are handed out to the politically well connected like Cunningham, who is good buddies with Commissioner Chair Bill Campbell and Hugh Hewitt. What is the procurement process for these contracts, and what quantifiable metrics are applied to judge the success and ultimately the renewal of these contracts?
It’s time to open the window on this Commission and let some fresh air into the room.
Pay no attention to that man in front of the curtain...
In a comprehensive indictment of the High Speed Rail Authority’s procedures and protocols, and its abilities to manage and oversee spending public bond revenue, the California State Auditor has taken a considerable step in derailing the proposed boondoggle. Read the highlights for yourself.
Although this doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t suspect, it does confirm the worst suspicions about poor planning and lax or non-existent oversight, and raises the worst spectre of all: a worthless, duplicative, hyper-expensive and disruptive system – a mere leg – say from Anaheim to downtown Los Angeles.
Tonight Pringle’s PR consultants are coming to town, not to ask our opinion about anything, rest assured. Rather they are coming to soft sell what’s already been decided. But there’s no reason why we can’t go and share our opinions, and maybe even ask Mayor Bankhead (who’s bound to be there) how come he stood up a couple years ago and told people that the City of Fullerton supports this disaster in the making.
They’re going to be at the Senior Center from 5-8 with a propaganda presentation at 6pm.
It appears that Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly has mastered two skills in his eight years as head of the Clerk-Recorder Department. First, he has become a top-notch spender and waster of our dough. Second, he has mastered the art of creating jobs at tax-payer’s expense while receiving campaign contributions from the relatives of people he has employed.
Last week Daly hired Bruce Matthias, here. We learned from his campaign financial statements that Matthias’s wife Sonja Matthias had contributed to Daly’s now defunct campaign for Supervisor 2010.
Well, we looked deeper into his statements and found even more good old jobs for the boys (and girls) featherbedding. Look at this list.
In 2006, The Oftelie Company, run by former transportation bureaucrat Stan Oftelie, contributed to Tom Daly’s campaign. Could it be a coincidence that Stan’s son was hired shortly after this contribution and while the County was losing jobs. Stan’s son works in the Archives and was brought in as an “extra-help” employee which means that no competitive hiring process was conducted to bring him on board. I wonder what qualifies Stan’s son to work in the Archives.
The Walt Disney Company has been quite generous in its giving to Tom Daly’s campaigns. Since 2002, Disney and people connected to Disney have contributed more than $4000 to Tom. That’s just as much as the OCEA. Chris Lowe is the Government Affairs Manager for Disney in Anaheim. Well, Lo and Behold, Daly hired Chris Lowe’s wife to work in the Archives as an extra-help employee which, again, means that no competitive hiring process was conducted. And again the hiring was done when the County could least afford it.
In 2003 and 2005, James A. Liberio Realty made contributions to Tom Daly. Not surprisingly, Mr. Liberio’s daughter was also hired as an extra-help employee. So no competitive process was conducted to hire her. I’m unsure of her duties or qualifications.
Even during these tough times at the County, Daly has been budgeting at least $200,000 per year for extra-help hires. Despite revenues and workloads being at their lowest levels ever, Daly feels it is more important to keep his friends employed than to protect the interests of the public. Extra-help employees are basically at-will-employees and can be let go at anytime. I think that time has come now!
And I’d like to know why these these campaign contributors don’t hire their own relatives. Perhaps these people are not employable. Who knows?
Somebody needs to flush out this swamp of cronyism. Isn’t that why we have County Supervisors?
