Carona wants more of our money

OC Sheriff Mike Carona used Orange County money just a few years ago, in 2004, to figure out what OC residents thought of him and his department. Now he wants to do it again, as reported in the OC Register’s Total Buzz blog. Is this really necessary, after we just found out in the June primary that 49.1% of the voters apparently are none too pleased with Carona, as they did not vote for him?

Carona is asking the OC Board of Supervisors for $396,000, which is to come from Prop. 172 funds, to pay for his self-aggrandizing poll. On the face of it, this appears to be an inappropriate use of Prop. 172 funds. Doesn’t Carona have a public relations department that can do this? Doesn’t he pay Jon “Flash” Fleischman way too much money to be his PR flack? Why can’t “Flash” do this – is he too busy running his Flash Report blog during the day? Moreover, as the real reason for this poll is political, shouldn’t Carona pay for it from his campaign funds?

If the Supervisors acquiesce to Carona’s request, they might also open up a can of worms. Why shouldn’t other county departments ask for such funds, ostensibly in the name of public safety, to conduct their own polls? I am sure that the Orange County Fire Authority would love to know what we think about their firefighters.

By the way, the original 2004 poll is available online – and it is quite revealing. The questions asked are unbelievably inane, including these stellar examples:

  • When you are walking in your neighborhood do you feel safe?
  • When you are walking in business areas do you feel safe?
  • When you are inside your home do you feel safe?
  • Thinking about crime in your immediate neighborhood would you say that the amount of crime has decreased, remained about the same or has increased in the past three years?
  • Thinking of the OC Sheriff would you say your impression is favorable or unfavorable?

You get the idea. These questions are sophomoric at best. Let’s be honest about this poll – we are not talking about useful, empirical data. The 2004 poll was a collection of emotional responses – if you really want to know about the sheriff’s performance you need to look at objective data, such as comparing the OC Sheriff’s 911 response time to the response time in Southern California other counties, such as Los Angeles or San Bernardino.

What this appears to be is yet another one of Carona’s attempts to misuse OC taxpayer resources. Consider the mess he has made of the OC Sheriff’s PSR program, by giving badges and guns to untrained, often felonious, campaign backers instead of allocating them to those who go through rigorous training in order to help the community. This is just Carona’s latest money-grab, for base self-promotion. Remember when Carona wanted to put his name on all OC Sheriff squad cars? It just amazes me that the OC GOP machine keeps letting Carona off the hook, despite the ongoing stupidity that emanates from him and his cronies.

I would also like to know if the consultants that Carona is trying to hire to conduct his latest poll have contributed any funds to him, or have coordinated independent expenditures on his behalf? It is common for OC GOP machine members to pay back their consultants by finding ways to spend taxpayer money on them after elections.

We have an opportunity this Tuesday to stop Carona from stealing almost $400,o00 from OC taxpayers. The Board of Supervisors will be meeting on Tuesday, July 18, at 9:30 a.m., and this matter will be discussed. I urge our readers to try to take the time to be there and to speak out. Or at least send each Supervisor an email or fax, by looking up their information on their website. We already know that close to half of OC voters don’t approve of Carona. If he wants to find out why, let him do it on his own dime!


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"Admin" is just editors Vern Nelson, Greg Diamond, or Ryan Cantor sharing something that they mostly didn't write themselves, but think you should see. Before December 2010, "Admin" may have been former blog owner Art Pedroza.