Disturbing image of Van Tran courtesy of the OC Weekly
Our friend Scott Moxley was written a piece at the OC Weekly about how local State Assemblyman and would-be Congressman for the 47th District, Van Tran, actually flew his Chief of Staff down from Sacramento to vote in the recent California Republican Assembly nominating convention – casting a vote for his boss, of course.
Seems there’s some heartburn in some circles because the fellow, Paul Hegyi, somehow got himself affiliated with the Stanton Chapter of the CRA, where he doesn’t live, and also because Stanton isn’t even in the 47th Congressional District.
But part of Fullerton is, so we share this tale with you.
P.S. here’s a fun quote from Tran’s website: Let’s bring character and integrity back to Congress…
It’s a dubious proposition that Congress has ever had any character or integrity, but it’s a bit much to hear that from a guy who is ripping off the taxpayers by claiming a phony per diem in the State legislature, and whose wife was busted as part of an insurance fraud conspiracy ring.
As we reported last week, here, County Clerk/Recorder Tom Daly paid almost $50,00 in 2008 and 2009 to a campaign contributor to “study” the feasibility of developing an Orange County athletic “hall of fame.” We opined upon the irresponsible expenditure and questioned why the County Clerk would even embark on such a lame idea in the first place.
At the time of the post, our request for public records had resulted in scant documentation that this “consultant” Brett Barbre, had actually done anything at all to justify his $3000 per month bill. We were informed by the County that we didn’t have all their “work product” documents.
Now we do.
I don't remember and you can't make me.
The sum and substance of Mr. Barbre’s efforts for Daly is reflected in brief periodic memorandums sent to Daly’s office informing them of what he had been up to in the previous month. Even these cursory, written updates ceased after September 1, 2008, although Barbre continued to be paid by Daly through June, 2009.
The lack of accomplishment was clear; but the invoices kept coming in.
Curiously, in the summer of 2008 Barbre and Daly had gotten it into their noggins to create something called a prep sports honor roll dinner, some sort of tie-in to the original concept, presumably. They had even picked a date for the inaugural event. Amazingly no one seems to have even questioned why the County Clerk would be organizing such a blatanly non-public function that had absolutely nothing to do with his job responsibilities.
We will probably never know what was actually discussed verbally between the parties involved – including why they thought this hare-brained idea was in any way justified; or how they could ever defend the $50,000 paid to Barbre to do almost nothing. One thing is evident from the documents: by the summer of 2009 Barbre was no longer at the public trough, although by then he had already collected regular monthly payments of $3000, totaling $48,000 with nothing to show for it.
Almost fifty thousand dollars. Squandered. Wasted. Flushed down a rathole and into the pocket of a Daly campaign contributor.
Does anyone in the County government even care about this total dereliction of responsibility and breach of the public trust? Do the folks at the Orange County Register care? Do you?
UPDATE: Allan Bartlett has helped close the circle on the Daly-Barbre financial connection. Here is the link that shows a $1000 campaign contribution from Barbre back to Daly. Even if there is no overt kickback here it sure stinks like Hell.
– GC
Has there been fiscal misfeasance by Tom Daly at the County Clerk/Recorder’s office? As we previously indicated, here, OC Clerk Recorder paid self-styled public relations “consultant” and Municipal Water Board member Brett Barbre tens of thousands of dollars in 2008 and 2009 to assist in the creation of some sort of OC sports “hall of fame.” A public records search has turned up invoices from Barbre to Tom Daly’s department for almost $50,000, with almost nothing to show for it. Interestingly, as early as March, 2009 Barbre, who is a Republican, made himself conspicuous as an endorser of Daly in his now defunct campaign for 4th District County Supervisor.
What the records show is that in February 2008 the County Clerk’s office engaged the services of Barbre in a contract for $15,000 and later in a $3000 per month extension, to delve into the subject of creating a sports hall of fame museum.
What the consultant selection process was, why Mr. Barbre was chosen, what his qualifications were, and why the taxpayers were put on the hook for this dubious concept project may never be known. But what is known is that from May 2008 through June 2009 the County paid Barbre $48,000 with virtually no evidence of any accomplishment at all.
Our request for “all activity status reports” and “lists of work completed” turned up three short memorandums and an incomplete spreadsheet listing Orange County High Schools and their mascots.
We have been provided with no evidence to suggest that any of the activities outlined in Barbre’s contract were ever achieved. Added to the evident lack of accomplishment seems to be a reluctance to publicize the hall of fame brainstorm at all. Very telling is a sentence from a January 15, 2009 memorandum from Barbre to Tom Daly, in which Barbre says about the whole idea: I would suggest keeping it fairly low key until the budget mess at the state and the county are behind us.
Right. No sense in letting the public know that the Clerk/Recorder Tom Daly is squandering public money on such a hare-brained scheme during a recession, including giving Barbre $3,000 a month to ponder the sports hall of fame concept, while county employees are about to be laid off.
A very big sports fan.
We have been informed by the County Public Information office that we are not in possession of all the work product documents, and that something else is forthcoming. This strikes us as particularly odd since Barbre’s questionable “services” were concluded nine months ago and our records request was made several weeks ago. We can’t help but consider the possibility that something is being fabricated up after the fact to make it appear as if the $48,000 slipped to Barbre by Daly produced more than a few short memos and an incomplete list of Orange County’s High Schools and their mascots. Well, we’ll soon find out.
The final disturbing piece to this puzzle is the fact that Brett Barbre’s name appears on Tom Daly’s March, 2009 fundraiser host committee list – the event in which he launched his abortive campaign for County supervisor; and that later, in the summer of 2009, Barbre assumed the office of ambassador to the OC GOP Central Committee for newly-minted Republican Renee Ramirez, Daly’s employee and hand-picked successor for the County Clerk’s job.
First column, six down.
Ironically, we note that Daly pulled the plug on his supervisorial campaign last Friday – the very same day we presented ourselves at the County to pick up the Barbre documents.
That’s the story so far. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture of either competence or probity within Tom Daly’s bureaucratic regime. The self-styled fiscal conservative seems to have been anything but conservative with public funds, and, as will become painfully evident in subsequent posts, this episode is not a lone example.
Hall of fame? Really? Maybe what we need in OC is a hall of shame – for politicians who abuse the public trust. We’ve got a recommendation for the first inductee.
Check out the indignant posts here and here, by outraged carpetbagg’ stalker Matthew J. Cunningham as he endeavors to bag and tag Villa Park’s Tom Umberg during the 1st Supe District Special Election in 2007. Jeez, Cunningham didn’t even live in the 1st District but boy was he bent all out of shape!
Wow! What huevos! Videotaping the neighborhood, snooping on the living arrangements of the entire Umberg family, including offspring, and generally making a nuisance of himself!
And so we recognize the intrepid Jerb for his cunning and resourcefulness –a full three years before our admin decided to visit the completely suspicious Casa Sidhu #3 – Sidhu’s third “residence” in but a single month.
According to a Sunday Los Angeles Times story, here, the high speed rail (HSR) project, every big-government lover’s answer to all our problems, is starting to receive more unwelcome scrutiny lately. Skyrocketing projected costs and ticket prices, federal subsidy guarantee requirements, incomprehensible ridership projections, and property takings that include, apparently, some part of Buena Park’s Metrolink Station or the adjacent residential development are causing folks to take a harder look at this fiasco in the making.
Things have gotten so bad that even lefty Long Beach State Senator Alan Lowenthal is upset.
HSR should be a source of great alarm to everyone in north Orange County, both in terms of its cost to the taxpayers, the damage that it will do to established communities, and also because so many clueless but ambitious politicians like Harry Sidhu and Lorri Galloway are using it as a mantra to solve unemployment woes in California, and in particular Orange County.
When and if this monstrosity is ever built, the jobs will go to giant out of town engineering firms. Most of the construction workers will be imported from the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County – just like they are on every public works project. The only local recipients of reliable employment benefit will be the lobbyists like Anaheim’s outgoing mayor, Curt Pringle and his ilk who are promoting this giant money sucking vortex in their own interest.
And just watch as the onerous environmental laws that the rest of us have to live by are waived for the politicos pet project.
It seems that Matthew J. Cunningham, editor of the dismal Mauve County forgot the lesson he once learned when his wife left him in charge of the laundry and he threw his white bikini briefs in with the old lady’s red blouse.
For the past year Cunningham, has been studiously avoiding discussing the subject of why his mentor, boss Repuglican John Lewis was supporting Democrat Tom Daly’s campaign for County Supervisor; and even, some said, running it through a surrogate.
Color me mauve.
Only recently Cunningham brought on a contributor named Cynthia Ward to post pro-Daly junk and attack the other candidates. That backfired last Friday afternoon when Daly quit, and now the blog is stuck with a sanctimonious NIMBY liberal – one of those types who are Republicans only because dear old dad was.
Cunningham claimed from the get go that Mrs. Ward, who calls herself Colony Rabble, was brought on board to give an “Anaheim perspective;” better still he also claimed that his blog was a big tent “right-of-center” operation, presumably big enough to include a person who is about as conservative as Eleanor Roosevelt. Nobody was buying that load of horse shit.
So Daly is gone, but Ward is still around. Will anyone even notice? Consider the transparently orchestrated attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson by some semi-literate goon named Thomas Anthony Gordon that came out of left field last week in mauve land. What was that all about? Pretty bad for a self-purported conservative blog.
A regular Noel Coward.
Will the former “Red County” operators now do the right thing by getting behind the race’s only real conservative, Shawn Nelson, a man who actually lives in the 4th District? Don’t bet on it. The Mauve gang have already demonstrated their attachment to self-interest and revenue uber alles.
It looks like the mauve are mauve for good, and no bleach is gonna fix that load of laundry.
The other day the OC branch of the California Republican Assembly voted to endorse Harry Sidhu in his carpetbagging quest to be our next County supervisor. Good heavens, now that’s a switcheroo! Just look what the CRA had to say about our buddy Sidhu less than two years ago– when the office-hungry politician ran for another job he wasn’t qualified for:
One of our Friends has alerted us that over at the Mauve County, blog where the atmosphere is getting bluer every day, Matthew J. Cunningham has scribbled out one of his tedious Excedrin-not-included posts, this time attacking an excellent post written on our blog by John Seiler, right here.
This was Seiler’s post that described the attempted smear on Shawn Nelson by somebody called Thomas Anthony Gordon – a semi-literate goon from Santa Ana, on the Mauve blog. We previously had some fun with goof-ball Gordo and his Mauve County playmates, here, and here.
Too many big words...
What’s really funny is that Gordon is apparently incapable of addressing Seiler’s post himself – too much subtlety of thought going on, no doubt – so into the breach leaps Mr. Wordsmith to counterattack – a pretty good indicator that that Cunningham was the one who helped set up Gordon for all this nonsense in the first place, just like we thought.
What’s really funny, or pathetic, depending on your point of view, is that John Seiler is a strong libertarian conservative – the very traits that should be applauded on a “right-of-center” blog. But no. According to Cunningham, Seiler, whose keyboard Jerb couldn’t carry, is just another Ron Paul nut. Apparently Seiler’s concept of limited government is way out of fashion at Mauve Central where self-interest has always trumped principle.
Well, Jerb has one thing going for him. We know he reads our blog regularly. And even though he has stopped posting comments here under multiple aliases, we’re pretty sure that his ongoing contact with a citizen’s blog that promotes responsible government will do him some good.
Those rascals in the white van have been hard at work lately. Or a least that’s what they keep telling us; and we keep providing them with vicodin tablets and Everclear.
Our narcotic investment seems to have paid off the other day for the boys have provided us with the the transcript of a conversation between members of the Tom Day for Supervisor campaign and a blogger from what used to be known as “Red County.” The conversation here seems to be about how the latter can help the former. Believe it or not.
John Lewis: Okay. Chris are you with us?
Chris Jones: Yeah I’m here.
JL: Okay, good. Raining up there? Aw, who the hell cares. Okay. Matt Cunningham is, um, here too.
CJ: Yeah. Hi Matt.
Matthew Cunningham: inaudible, high pitched squeak.
JL: Okay. Let’s get to it. We need some blog presence to go after Nelson, right?
CJ: Yeah. I’ve been trying for almost a year, you know, anonymous comments here and there. No traction, you know.
MC: And you got busted for that.
CJ: So did you, Jerbal.
JL: Forget it. Cut it out. We’re supposed to be working together. You both screwed up. Okay. What we need is a real person to start hitting Nelson on Red County.
MC: We’ve gotta be careful, not too obvious. Chip might pull the plug. He’s not too smart, but I think he’s starting to get, you know, um, suspicious.
CJ: Yeah, but it’s gotta be a real person. Then we’ll start commenting under different names.
MC: I can’t do it. What about Gordon?
JL: Gordon? Who the hell is that?
MC: Some dummy that used to blog for Pedroza. From Santa Ana. Doesn’t know his ass from from a pothole on 5th Street. He doesn’t know anything about the 4th District.
CJ: Perfect. Can he write?
MC: No. Well, sort of. You’ll have to write it for him.
JL: He may not want to attack a Republican. Will he want something?
MC: Dunno. He’s not too bright but he’ll probably want something. We can tell him he’s getting even with Pedroza for something. That’ll work. If he wants something you can offer him a, um
CJ: A banana?
(general chuckles)
JL: Okay. Jones writes the thing up then stupid puts his name over it. Great. Good. Okay. Then Jones and you can add to the threads anonymously. You’ve both had practice with that. If, er, whats’ his name?
MC: Gordon?
JL: Yeah, Gordon. If he wants something we’ll tell him Daly’s gonna give him a job if he gets in.
MC: Hey wait a minute. What about, you know, Laura? How many jobs is Daly offering around?
JL: Oh hell don’t worry about it for chrissake. Nobody’s gonna hire…
MC: Gordon?
JL: Right. Gordon. He’s just a plausible…you know…
CJ: Stooge?
(more general chuckles)
JL: Okay. Lets get, um, him on the phone.
MC: Gordon?
JL: Yeah, him. Hmm, looks like the cable company’s working outside the office again. Okay let’s make the call…
At this point transmission was disrupted by interference, rendering the balance of the transmission inaudible.
Over in the purpling swamp of what used to be the “Red County” blog, Matthew J. Cunningham just topped himself, hypocrisy-wise.
Oops! I did it again.
Cunningham has been throwing out backhanded support for Tom Daly, a Democrat, in the campaign for 4th District Supervisor for a year now. Lately he has employed a pro-Daly blogger to actually promote Daly outright. That struck some people as odd for an allegedly “right of center” blog. Of course we know that Cunningham is just a gofer for John Lewis, the political impresario and lobbyist who is the mastermind of the Daly effort. That explains a lot. Including the lame post the other day by some fat-headed goon called Thomas Anthony Gordon attacking the race’s only real conservative – Shawn Nelson. And of course Daly’s campaign manager also chimed in, again using different aliases, to try to reinforce the theme.
Cunningham has been spinning the whole Daly thing by proclaiming that his is not a Republican blog, just a right of center one. When (and if) you get past the obvious discordance of a right of center blog supporting a union-backed Democrat and attacking a real conservative, you’re likely to find some real hypocritical treasures – as an alert Friend did today.
Opining in a comment in post thread about the Mission Viejo recall of RINO Lance MacLean, Cunningham has the nerve to criticize the recallers for causing the replacement of a Republican with a Democrat!
Say what?
Isn’t that exactly what John Lewis & Co. are promoting in the 4th Supervisor campaign? Replacing Republican Chris Norby with a County employee union backed Democrat – Tom Daly. For fun, check out last year’s Daly’s fundraiser host committee.
The union bosses and lobbyists arm wrestled for front row seats...
Lest you think a Democrat can be a real conservative just take a look who’s backing Daly – County union bosses Nick Berardino (OCEA), Wayne Quint (AOSD), and Joe Kerr, head of the County OC Firefighters. Of course they could be backing Daly because of his fiscal conservatism, huh?
Oh well. It’s not as if this were something we didn’t already know. Still, the hypocrisy is quite remarkable.
