Okay, maybe it’s a technical issue, but I just about spit out my coffee this morning when I went to look up the Council Meeting Minutes from this past summer where the city made changes to the One Broadway Plaza Development Agreement. The records are not available.
Californians Aware (CalAware) has advised the state associations representing most local government agencies that their members may be subject to short notice lawsuits for some common violations of the open meeting law. On Monday CalAware sent letters to six local government associations based in the Sacramento area: the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties, the California School Boards Association, the California Special Districts Association, the Association of California Water Agencies and the Association of California Healthcare Districts
This was the only contest for elected mayor in Orange County where the victor received less than 50% of the vote. The lowest majority vote was achieved by Tom Tait in Anaheim at 54.4%. Looking back over Mayor Pulido’s three previous elections Pulido has garnered a decreasing percentage of the vote. In 2004 Pulido was reelected with 80.6%, in 2006 68.8%, and 2008 55%.
Yesterday, the Board considered a proposal from Supervisor Bill Campbell to take Orange County out of the dark ages of back room political deals and insider influence trading into the 21st century world of government transparency. The proposal itself did not go nearly far enough, but it was a first step that required registration of paid lobbyists.
Speaking on Wednesday to the Senate Local Government Committee, OCEA General Manager Nick Berardino denounced county and city officials who line their pockets while attacking the benefits received by public employees.
Senator Lou Correa held a hearing of the Senate’s Local Government Committee in Santa Ana Wednesday on transparency in government. I was unable to attend but the Voice of OC’s Tracy Wood was.
As most of you know, we have been hammering the city council and executive staff of the City of Santa Ana pretty hard on the issue of transparency over the past few months. We have found conflicts of interest that have required the return of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and violations of sunshine and open meetings laws. The result of our investigations has lead me to a simple conclusion. The City of Santa Ana operates with about as much transparency as a brick wall.
Page optimized by WP Minify WordPress Plugin
