Tag: Norberto Santana

Posted onBehind Closed Doors

The Voice of OC(EA) Shoots; Scores!

by 18 Comments on The Voice of OC(EA) Shoots; Scores!

Hell, yes! Pookas 'n everything...

Okay, we’ve had some harsh criticism of the Voice of OC in the past, but today Norberto Santana came out with a great expose about OC Fair-employed lobbyist Dick Ackerman, husband of former carpetbaggress Linda, both of whom are residents of Irvine.

I told the DA everything was on the up and up. And that's what he went with!

Last year our do-nothing DA whitewashed Ackerman’s role in the ’09 OC Fair sale matter, saying he didn’t lobby the Legislature in violation of State law. How did the DA reach this conclusion? It wasn’t through investigative work, that’s for damn sure. Naturally, Amen Corner repuglicans like Matthew J. Cunningham crowed when the whitewash came out, but they’ll be eating crow soon enough. See, Santana got hold of Ackerman’s Nossaman Law Firm’s original billing records. And even though those records were laundered through some “environmental” consulting firm called LSA, the details prove what we here at FFFF have known since the fall of 2009: Ackerman was acting as a lobbyist and that in 2010 the DA was covering it up. The Nossaman billing records show phone calls to members of the State Legislature at $500 an hour. And that was illegal.

I gotta eat the feathers, too?

We didn’t have the billing, of course. We just had Dicky-boy’s own words:

“In order for the fair to be sold, it would require budget language to authorize the state to sell it,” he said. “I did some preliminary work to get the language in the budget.”

Preliminary work? Well, that’s one way of describing it; and that pesky budget language sure wasn’t going to jump into the bill all by itself, now was it?

Well, Friends, don’t expect any legal remedies anytime soon. Just remember the name: Ackerman. When you hear it, or read it, or smell it, you can bet some monkey business is afoot.

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Posted onDead heads

The Voice of OCEA Provides Forum For – OCEA

by 3 Comments on The Voice of OCEA Provides Forum For – OCEA

Bloggers of the world arise...

If you needed any more evidence of the evident symbiosis between the The Voice of OC and it’s paymaster, Nick “Bullhorn” Berardino of the OCEA union you need look no farther this blog post by Norberto Santa. Please notice that 30 of the 31 comments are just pro-union/OCEA propaganda. 30 of 31.

Aw, c'mon Norberto, nobody's buying that...

Could Berardino be instructing his troops to frequent the union-sponsored blog just to keep the traffic up? Why not? It’s all one big, happy family, and The Voice never claimed to be objective – just non-profit.

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Posted onDead heads

The Joke of OC

by 7 Comments on The Joke of OC

Listen up, Supes! We finally got our own news outlet!

We’ve recently seen the true purpose of “The Voice of OC,” and organization that promotes itself as a “non-profit investigative news agency.” We’ve noticed that the manager, Norberto Santana has never said a word about any of the manifest malfeasance taking place in Democrat Tom Daly’s Clerk-Recorders office, but has found time to publish what a amounts to a political hit piece on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson – public enemy #1 as far as County unions are concerned.

It continues. The Voice has recently detailed in five separate posts a DA investigation brought about by charges made against Assessor Webster Guillory by County personnel and publicly advertised by OCEA union chief Nick Berardino. So what, you ask. Here’s what: not once has Santana mentioned that the OCEA provided start-up captial for the Voice of OC. That’s an obvious conflict of interest, and one that any ethical operation would make known to its readers.

What’s also interesting is that the blog comments section has become a forum for a raft of public employees pretending to give a rat’s ass about government efficiency. You will even find LibOC blogger and dead beat, Chris Prevatt on the list. Typical.

Say, Norberto, why not publish something on Tom Daly’s cronyism, waste, or bad real estate deals? At least then the Clerk-Recorder personnel could have a chance to weigh in and let Berardino know how his members feel about OC’s biggest money squanderer.

Well, “The Voice” never claimed to be impartial or objective. Just non-profit.

And that’s why it’s quickly becoming the known as the Voice of OCEA.

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Posted onHarry Sidhu

The Voice of OC Speaks; The Words are Nick Berardino’s

by 25 Comments on The Voice of OC Speaks; The Words are Nick Berardino’s

When The Voice of OC, which portentously calls itself “a non-profit investigative news agency” started, a lot of people were skeptical. Despite the “non-profit” tag that was obviously meant to make  people think that something non-partisan and even objective was going on, it was well-known that the Orange County Employees Association were putting up money to fund the effort.

After several months of posting completely inane and worthless drivel, and completely ignoring stories like Harry Sidhu’s fake addresses and perjury and Tom Daly’s serial misfeasance, the issue is no longer in doubt.

Today all the true colors of this effort and it’s puppet manager Norberto Santana were run up the mast with what amounted to a gratuitous attack on Shawn Nelson, basically parroting Berardino’s recent hit piece and including some lame ass press release by the Fullerton cops who are mad at Nelson for using pictures that he owns.

But get this: the title of the post was changed after it was first posted!

It started out as: “Who is Supporting Nelson and Who is He Defending?” and was altered to the more salacious: “Has Nelson Defended Sex Offenders? Either Way, He’s in Trouble with the Cops.”

Whatsa matta Nick? The first title not nasty enough? No problem you own the editorial board!

The plot thins...

Of course the “article” includes friendly links to Matthew J. Cunningham the Prop 10 welfare king, and the creepy Chris Prevatt, one of Berardino’s other tools.

The Voice of OCEA cannot let Shawn Nelson win this election. There is too much at stake for the union. And next time you come across Norberto Santana you may rest assured he is the proud bearer of the union label – bought and paid for. Let him know you know.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

The John Lewis Poll & The Voice of OC

by 8 Comments on The John Lewis Poll & The Voice of OC

Harry, the numbers are looking good!

I had some hopes for “The Voice of OC” as a source of information in Orange County, even though it was started by a former Democratic officeholder and funded by the County employee’s union.

Then on Friday I read Norberto Santana’s follow up to an earlier post about a poll repuglican John Lewis supposedly did that included results showing Sheriff candidate Bill Hunt within 1% of Sandra Hutchens. The problem was that neither the undecideds nor a % for Craig Hunter were released. How come? Lewis said he was restrained from saying. But it rendered the numbers pretty meaningless.

Instead of telling Lewis to cram his bogus “poll,” Santana gave the guy some more free publicity – whether there was even a real poll or not. And almost no inquisitiveness into who Lewis was working for or even if (as is quite likely) he’s just working for himself.

Well Santa was too incurious to press the matter, but I’ll speculate freely. I’m pretty sure Lewis is not working for Hutchens or he wouldn’t have released the numbers at all; ditto Hunter. Is he working for Hunt? Pretty unlikely since the unindicted members of Team Carona still show little but disdain for Hunt who would be unlikely to pay Lewis to do a poll in any case.

So who has the money and the resources to hire Lewis? The AOCDS union does, and since they are backing Hunt it would make sense – although the missing Hunter data would remain odd indeed – unless he, too were catching up with Hutchens. It would also make sense since the union is also backing a candidate in another important June race.

If Lewis were working for the his old Measure D pals the Lewis poll results in the 4th Supervisor’s race will indeed be interesting. If they are even released, it’s a safe bet that Harry Sidhu will miraculously receive credible numbers despite a campaign marked by perjury, carpetbagging, ignorance, and general buffoonery. Shawn Nelson is bound to come out badly since neither the AOCSD nor Lewis can tolerate a Nelson victory. Or are we too cynical about Lewis doing a phony “push poll”? Maybe. But we do recommend counting your fingers if you ever have to shake  his hand.

Anyway, Lewis also has a way of working on spec so he can make lobbying calls later, so  maybe he’s just trolling. What his motivations for hiding the Hunter data might be will become clear by early June.

But c’mon Norberto. Why wait?

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