Should any tragic event, natural disaster or resignation cause it necessary to replace anyone or all on the OC Board of Supervisors….according to the Orange County Charter….they have to have a public election!
Why then, when it came to the replacement of the Sheriff – also an elected office was an election not required? This is a huge failure of a system that rewards….in this case…the Board of Supervisors with the selection of a replacement for a Public Elective Office! This is a serious flaw in our system of government. Had Sheriff Carona stepped down and resigned for any reason prior to the completion of his term…..there should have been an election! Whether any of us are pleased with the person selected by the Supervisors…matters not. This is a flawed process that needs fixing because “the people” are ones being left out! Those in power flaunt their muscles by simply saying that we live in a “Representative Government System”! True…with the exception of the fact that we do get to vote for those Representatives……all of them! The OC Sheriff is elected so that a “good old boy network” doesn’t find it so easy to control that office!
In the City of Newport Beach over the last five years…..this same system has been utilized to have members of the standing City Council replace members that either resigned early or left without cause. The result has been a system of perpetual selection. Councilmember Gary Proctor resigned..a few years back and was replaced by a Council Selected candidate named Steve Rosansky! Councilman Gary Adams then resigned and was replaced by Lesie Daigle. Keith Curry replaced a resigning John Heffernan….and so it goes! As anyone might guess…this gave those selected “incumbent status” in the following election cycle. Each and every one was easily re-elected in the next regular election cycle…many serving upwards of three years plus on the resigning members term…then still being elegible for two more full terms: thus slipping by our term limits of two four year stints – serving 11 years in some cases!
The selection of a new OC Sheriff for all intense purposes follows this same flawed concept of promoting “whoever the power structure wants”! The people…are virtually left out of the process. We need to change the Orange County Charter to suggest that any “elected office official” that resigns or leaves because of health or other considerations should require an election at the next available cycle or in some cases “a special election”..as is the case for the Board of Supervisors. If anyone didn’t notice, the June 3rd Election would have been a perfect fit to have “the people” select the next Sheriff rather than leaving the choice of an “incumbent” to the Board of Supervisors.
What about Assessor? What about Treasurer? Which elected offices do you believe should be selected by the Board of Supervisors?
Hey ‘Cosmo Couple’ –
A surprisingly thought-provoking article, except…
‘The selection of a new OC Sheriff for all intense purposes…‘
Don’t you mean ‘intents and purposes?’
Last week it was ‘abject lesson.‘ Nice. You could probably use a grammar lesson or two as well. What’s with all the weird periods? Don’t you believe in commas? And punctuation goes inside quotation marks.
I find it interesting that two older, conservative, supposedly well-educated people, each presumably having spoken English since childhood, have no concept of its written form whatsoever. How did you become writer(s) again (come on Ron, we all know it’s just you)?
If you ever need that first-term Bill Clinton throwback website of yours upgraded, please let me know ahead of time so I can charge you double… and the Cosmos are on you.
SMS
*Form or substance? Tough choices! Obviously, that really tweaks your cookie!
In the meantime, we will gladly just bump along………using our modified “Eubonics!”
Glad you liked the article!
R&A –
That’s my whole point. Again, you’re supposed to be smart, college educated people. Can’t you give us both? It ‘tweaks my cookie’ because you’ve been nothing but critical of everything Art and I have done since I joined the team. Seen our numbers lately? We’re the only reason anyone even knows who you are!
And don’t you mean ‘ebonics?’ Damn honkies.
SMS
*Numbers? Michael Moore has numbers! We love ART
by the way….so don’t think about attaching yourself to our individual opinions of BOTH of you! You are mean spirited, small minded and make stupid choices at times. But that is just our opinion! Making OC Juice the most watched for a few days or weeks does not make a horse race. You can remind us next year – same time: Of how much advertising has come into the site and how well regarded we are as a final destination to issues and answers affecting “The OC” and the world! This should not be a personal “spline venting blogging almost wonky” web site. This should be a great place to get viable information or valuable alternatives to the daily or major press. Again, that is just our opinion!
Sarah and Ron,
C’mon you two – I don’t expect our team to start singing “kumbaya” but lets ease up on each other a bit. We can certainly disagree with each other but let’s do so respectfully. No sense hanging our chonies out in the open for everyone to look at.
Gracias.
As usual, just because I interject my personal opinions doesn’t make my factual statements any less true. I’m not mean-spirited; I’m brutally honest. There’s a huge difference, and you are the not the first or last victim of that. I just have very limited patience for BS.
Our increasing numbers are NOT going back down anytime soon from the trends that I’ve seen. Maybe we’ll see another lull in October, but for the summer, it’s pretty much all us. You’re welcome.
Stupid choices? Our average 830 readers a day would probably disagree. Stupid choices require that there be some kind of damage to prove so. Not all of my ideas are well taken, but most are, and none do damage to this site or its authors.
Small mind? Shall we compare websites again? Have you even seen my MySpace profile? I have never, in my life, ever, been called small minded. In fact, my open-mindedness frequently gets me into trouble.
And I didn’t try to combine your feelings about Art and me. Besides, you two are much more wonky than I. I’m just trying to let you know that while I may be a newer Juice member, Art and I work as a team so that we all have an audience (try using the tags once in a while), so here’s the deal: I’ll lay off of you if you stop being a roadblock to everything I try to do here and quit antagonizing me.
You don’t trust me. We get it. The feeling is mutual.
OK, I vented. I’m done.
SMS
Allow me Sarah; you are small minded on the issue of Commie Girl. Your personal attacks against her reek of professional jealously. She writes for LA CityBeat, the District, is a published author and teaches political science at UCI; hardly the failure you make it out to be. This isn’t a personal; just being brutally honest.
Dan –
I’m aware of her accomplishments and I’m trying not to belittle them, but I also know how quickly life moves and how awful of a writer she is, making her, for the moment at least, no longer relevant in the media.
When she does something positive, I’ll give her props for it (as I do for many people I don’t like, such as Gila), but in the meantime ‘Ms. Poli-sci’ can’t even engage me, ‘Ms. GED,’ in a debate, without acting like a 12-year old valley girl in some lame attempt to deflect criticism.
I also challenged her to take our grievances to a new television show to settle this once and for all. She hasn’t responded. Honestly, I’d like to put it behind us, and my stories about her have quickly declined in number in recent weeks, only to be restarted when she published a Citybeat article touting her vagina like it was some kind of weapon as a dig at my sexuality.
I’m not stupid. It was her first article after returning to legitimate print. Since then, she’s claimed that I victimized her on LAist after she posted an article praising Hitler for allowing all Germans a free yearly vacation. I didn’t write the article, so I’m hardly her only critic. She’s been pretty quiet in her paper since then.
Professional jealousy? If you want me to admit that sometimes I attack people because I don’t feel like they deserve the gifts they’ve been given in life, you’re right, I absolutely do. I’m a terrible liar, so I don’t even try, but it just goes back to my BS comment. Why are the least talented people, who happen to have the most connections, always those that get the special handouts? Any notoriety I’ve gained so far came from single-handed uphill fighting and hard work. Sure, I admit I’m a little bitter about it, but I’m sure you’re also aware that Rebecca is not my only target in this battle.
SMS
PS: I think you just want me to make up with everyone I was fighting with. I think at this point I’ve made up with (or at least earned the respect of) everyone but Rebecca and Paul, but to me, they’re still both pretty unforgivable.
As I have said to you before, you are in no position to ascertain how I think.
Back to Rebecca. If you don’t like her writing, don’t read it. Not relevent in the media? I totally disagree (and that said, you’ve found her relevent enough to write about.
I am a fan of work and have been for years, so I disagree with you on the no-talent department. And I also disagree she gets any special handouts. She works hard. She gets out and meets people. She sources well and knows what she’s writing about. If she’s been quiet in her paper, its because she’s been acting editor which is not so much a writing role as a management role.
No response from Rebecca on your requests for a debate; she’s ignoring you. And things in her stories you think allude to you, clearly don’t. And what makes you think a reality TV debate between you and Rebecca would be so entertaining anyway? Let it go.
Dan –
I’ve been toning it down for the most part, but I probably won’t ever let it go completely, so I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree as this is very much a matter of opinion.
She should be defending herself personally anyway. Perhaps she’s ignoring me because she can’t.
SMS