OC Blog

Red County Radio: Interview With Santa Ana Councilwoman Michele Martinez

I just finished interviewing Santa Ana Councilwoman Michele Martinez for Red County Radio. We talked about her lonely battle to open up Santa Ana city government -- most recently by requesting that all council meetings be broadcast on television and over the Internet, and archived for five years on the city website.

Sounds reasonable. But it died for lack of a second and her colleagues found all manner of weaselly reasons to oppose it.

You can listen on the player below (the segment is about 15 minutes long).

Red County Radio: Interview With John Hanna

I interview John Hanna today for the second segment of Red County Radio, our newest feature brought to you via the miracle of BlogTalkRadio. John is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Rancho Santiago Community College District.

Our topics: the controversy surrounding the non-functioning firer alarms at Santa Ana College, followed by a discussion of Proposition 92 -- an initiative on the February 2008 ballot that would cut community college tuition and reserve a fixed percentage of the state general fund for community colleges.

Introducing Red County Radio

We're launching a new feature today: Red County Radio.

When Red County Editor Scott Graves and I were at the Blogworld Expo almost two weeks ago, we met with the good people at BlogTalkRadio. Their technology immediately struck us as a terrific service to add to Red County's repertoire of tools for bringing you political news, insight and commentary.

BlogTalkRadio provides bloggers with everything they need to host an Internet talk radio program. Their outreach to political bloggers is being quarterbacked by Ed Morrissey, owner of the Captain's Quarters blog and one of the country's leading conservative bloggers.

I enticed my fellow Orange County blogger Allan Bartlett to be the guinea pig on Red County Radio's inaugural broadcast. Allan has morphed into the de facto head of the Ron Paul for President movement in Orange County, so I had him on to talk about how that phenomenon has been unfolding in Orange County, and what it bodes for the GOP.

Click on the player below to listen to the Allan Bartlett interview:

And please be kind in your critiques: I'm a newbie at hosting a radio show -- Internet or otherwise -- but I promise to get better with practice.