OC Blog

Update: County Retirees Lawsuit Against The County

I posted on Tuesday the Retired Employees Association of Orange County -- represented by the San Francisco law firm of Moscone, Emblidge and Quadra -- has filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the county, charging breach of contract, promissory estoppel, violation of due process and impairment of contract under the state and federal constitutions.

The aim is to stop changes in the medical retiree system due to take effect on January 1, 2008. The Board of Supes enacted these changes in September of 2006 in order to reduce the huge unfunded liability of the medical retiree program.

In any case, I have a copy of the complaint here for your reading pleasure.

Norby's Campaign Finance Reform Goes Down

OC Board of Supervisors Chairman Chris Norby's proposal to junk most of TIN CUP is replace it with a system that is simple, transparent and comprehensible lost for lack of a second -- which is a shame. Everything Norby said at today's Board meeting is exactly right, and it's greatly disappointing the other supervisors didn't follow his lead.

Norby's proposal would have, among other things, raised the contribution limit to match the state's of $3,600 per person. As readers well know, I think contribution limits are inherently arbitrary (as limitations maven Shirley Grindle herself admits) and ought to be scrapped entirely, but increasing them to even $3,600 is an improvement.

A Mini-Civics Course On Recalls

Talk of recall is in the air. Steve Greenhut called for one today over at Orange Punch, and Sup. John Moorlach told Peggy Lowe he'd support (but not lead) one.

During the public comments, the Supervisors queried Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley about the benchmarks for qualifying a county-wide recall.

Kelley said it would be necessary to gather the valid signatures of 151,409 registered OC voters -- or 10% of registered voters -- within a six-month period. I learned the 6 month window is in jurisdictions with more than 100,000 registered voters. I presume the time frame is shorter in smaller jurisdictions.

Sup. Campbell said he thought the requirement was 10% of the votes cast in the previous election, but Neal Kelley said that was the standard for judges.

Campbell then asked County Counsel Ben De Mayo if OC, being a charter county, could adjust the requirements. De Mayo said he couldn't answer for sure without further research, but he believed that to be the case.

Moorlach Charter Amendment Won't Make February Ballot

It doesn't look like Supervisor John Moorlach's proposed charter amendment will be on the February 5 ballot.

Board Chairman Chris Norby said he'd vote to put it on the ballot. Then Supervisor Nguyen stated she can't vote to place it on the February 5 ballot, but wants the Board to continue studying the issue during Carona's 60-day leave of absence.

Supervisor Bates has expressed her agreement with Supervisor Campbell that some kind of mechanism is necessary to deal with situations akin to Carona's, but she's not going to vote to place Moorlach's charter amendment on the February ballot.

Looks like it's back to the drawing board.

UPDATE (12:02 p.m.): They just voted 3-2 against placing Sup. Moorlach's proposed charter amendment on the Feb. 5 ballot.

Supes Debating Moorlach Proposal

If you're able, I recommending tuning into the live webcast of the OC Board of Supes and watching their lively discussion of Sup. John Moorlach's proposNew Postal.

Sup. Norby agreed to provide a second for the purposes of discussion if Moorlach would agree to delete the provision exempting supervisors from the proposal. Supervisors Bates, Moorlach and Norby are debating about how the, the proposed charter amendment would deal with the question of replacing a supervisor who was removed or placed on leave of absence.

Now you have District Attorney Tony Rackauckas speaking, with Assemblyman Todd Spitzer and Bill Hunt on deck.

I don't think Sup. Moorlach's charter amendment is going to make the February ballot. The other Supes have too many questions and concerns about the implications of such a charter amendment to want to rush something through a vote today, when they can take more time to think it through and place it on the June ballot if they choose. Sup. Campbell pretty much said he's not willing to put anything like this on the February ballot. Sup. Bates is definitely not voting in favor of it. Considering the battle Sup. Nguyen has been waging to hold onto her seat, I can't see her voting for this.

Video: Chris Norby On John Moorlach's 'Impeachment' Proposal

Here are the final segments from my interview with Supervisor Chris Norby yesterday afternoon (you see the other parts here and here, including his de facto call for Carona to resign). here, he addresses Sup. John Moorlach's proposed charter amendment that would institute a de facto impeachment process by which the Board of Supervisors could, under specified circumstances of wrong-doing, remove other county elected officials from office by a 4/5 vote:

Moorlach Tribunal: Good Intentions, Bad Idea

I have spoken with a quite a few Orange County conservatives in the last several days since Supervisor John Moorlach unveiled his proposal for a county-wide ballot measure that would give the Board of Supervisors the power to remove other county electeds, under specified conditions of misconduct, by a 4/5 vote:

"Any elected county officer other than supervisor may be removed from office in the manner provided by law; also any such officer may be removed by a four-fifths (4/5) vote of all members of the Board of Supervisors, for cause, after first serving upon such officer a written statement of alleged grounds for such removal, and giving him a reasonable opportunity to be heard in the way of explanation or defense." The proposal details four specific causes for removal: "(1) flagrant or repeated neglect of duties; (2) misappropriation of public property; (3) violation of any law related to the performance of an official's duties; (4) willful falsification of an official statement or document."

The proposal was prompted by the current situation of our Orange County Sheriff insisting on remaining in office while being federally prosecuted under a criminal indictment. Here's the memo to the board chairman that accompanied Moorlach's proposal.

Video: Chris Norby's Campaign Finance Reform Proposal

As I mentioned in a previous post, I drove over to the Santa Ana this afternoon to interview OC Board of Supervisors Chairman Chris Norby. I'd asked Chris on Friday if I could come by and interview him regarding his proposal to scrap much of the (in my opinion) antiquated TIN CUP county campaign finance ordinance.

My first question was the obvious one: what's contained in your proposal?:

I then followed up by asking if his proposal would keep the ban on transfers between campaign committees:, and about what his sense of support from his fellow supervisors is:

Video: Norby On Carona Resignation

Here's Supervisor Chirs Norby's response to my question, "Should Mike Carona resign?", presented in nifty 16:9 format:

I'll have the rest of the interview posted as this evening.

Chris Norby: If Carona Asked Me, I'd Say Resign

I hauled the Red County UnSteadiCam up on the 5th Floor this afternoon to interview OC Board of Supervisors Chairman Chris on a few items. At the end of the interview, I asked Chris if he thought OC Sheriff Mike Carona ought to resign.

After doing a little bit of what he called "dancing around the 'R' word," Supervisor Norby said:

What I tell him he ought to do is going to have no effect anyway, I mean if he called me and said, "Norby, should I resign? If you tell me to, I will." I'd tell him, sure you should.

After I shut off the camera, Chris asked, "So, did I just call on the Sheriff to resign?"

"In so many words, yes you did," I replied.

I'm uploading this particular video segment to YouTube as I type, and will havew the rest of the interview up as soon as YouTube can process.