Multitasking. Attending your city council meeting than driving an unsuspecting citizen to the monthly Orange County Republican Party Central Committee meeting to listen to former acting sheriff Jack Anderson.
What the citizen didn’t know is that she was set up with my having the tough job of getting her to depart from the Mission Viejo city council meeting after we each spoke under Public Comments for our drive up to Irvine. She had no clue as to what was in store for her at tonight’s crowded central committee meeting. It is important to point out that neither one of us were in Mission Viejo to hear the council set the date for the recall election to remove Lance MacLean, a topic that we both wanted to watch.
Arriving at the central committee meeting we listened to state senator Tom Harman discussing his entry into the race for Attorney General.
Later in the program chairman Scott Baugh turned the microphone over to Sgt. at Arms Jack Anderson who read a resume describing virtually 20 years of Republican activism in Orange County for a lady who was to receive the “volunteer of the month” recognition. As I sat next to Connie Lee and she began to realize that Jack was actually speaking of her achievements, she was truly surprised. Included in his remarks Jack described her efforts organizing the April 15th Tea Party in Mission Viejo, her financial contribution used to coordinate volunteers in getting registered voters to sign the “Right to Vote” initiative and her very successful voter registration efforts including 324 during the recent petition drive to recall Lance MacLean.
Jack concluded his speech by asking the members to join him in recognizing a true Conservative Republican and grassroots activist as the OCGOP’s “volunteer of the month.”
At this point Connie was asked to come on the platform where she was presented with five recognition awards including one from the California Legislature as Volunteer of the Month, Oct 2009, Assemblyman Jeff Miller, 71st AD.
State of CA Senate Certificate of recognition from Senator Mimi Walters 33rd SD,
County of Orange, Certificate of Recognition, Patricia C. Bates, Chairman, Board of Supervisors,
Republican Party of Orange County, Sept 2009 Volunteer of the Month, Scott Baugh, Chairman, Republican Party of Orange County,
and the final award for Special Recognition from Congressman Gary Miller.
Most of the awards were presented to Connie by members of staff or Chairman Baugh.
In her brief acceptance comments Connie said the credit should go to all the volunteers reminding those in attendance that there is no “i” in teamwork.
When we returned to the Mission Viejo city hall the city council was still in session.
They were listening to pollster Adam Probolsky discussing his data on the possible formation of a single Mission Viejo School District. After all the public input concluded the council recognized that there are probably more questions than answers so the cloud continues to hang over our local structure.
email input:
“Thanks for the heads up on Connie. If anyone deserves these awards, I believe she is that one. I couldn’t attend last night’s council meeting, so I thought I‘d watch it on TV…guess what, it was not televised, not one second of it!! Strange don’t you think? Maybe the powers that be didn’t want the public to hear about Lance or know about the date of the special recall election….I find that very interesting.
I turned on the computer and intermittently watched the public comments, not missing yours and Connie’s.
Thank you for always being there to keep up the good fight of keeping the public informed.”
Thanks,
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email from a Mission Viejo resident which I forwarded to Connie:
“Connie,
Just heard from Larry Gilbert and I wanted to say “Congratulations” on receiving the OCGOP volunteer of the month. You are amazing for the energy and creativity that you put toward activities on behalf of OC conservative causes. You make things happen. You deserve this recognition. Thank you for all you do.
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