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“The past isn’t dead.
It isn’t even past.”
Faulkner
Naturally Briscoe wondered – because you would too if your responsibility as a school board trustee included the health and safety of Ocean View schoolkids – he wondered HOW IT COULD BE that, during the same period of years (2014-16) that the Southern California Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) cited the Rainbow Dump EIGHTEEN times for noxious public nuisance violations, the County of Orange Health Care Agency (OHCA) and Huntington Beach Code Enforcement could find NOTHING WRONG with the place, allowing it to continue its stench and pollution mere feet from Oak View School year after year after year.
So Briscoe further wondered, because he’s that kind of logical problem-solving guy, was there something wrong with the qualifications and training of the County and City inspectors? Why else would they fail to detect the problems that state inspectors saw so clearly? Accordingly, he filed a Public Records Act (CPRA) request asking for the job applications of County and city inspectors, with personal information redacted. This should, he figured, be publicly available information, but both County and city denied his request on privacy grounds. So Briscoe sued both County and city, “on his own dime and time” (i.e. not as part of the OVSD board), for access to this information.
And the court ruled in Briscoe’s favor, in both cases – two judges in two courts. Orange County’s general counsel Leon Page capitulated and handed the records over to Briscoe. But NOT SO the city of Huntington Beach, represented by hotshot $300,000-a-year elected City Attorney Michael E. Gates (enabled and followed unanimously by even the HB councilmembers who should know better) which opted instead to appeal the suit, to the 4th District Court of Appeals. Where HB faceplanted most egregiously, as the appeals court dismissed the case, leaving them on the hook for legal fees.
And THEN, rather than stand accused of being quick learners, HB and Gates decided to appeal again, to the California Supreme Court – where the city’s costs for an almost-certain loss could total as much as $1/4 million! Briscoe weighs out the possible outcomes:
“1. Supremes can hear the case, unlikely since there is no lower appeals court deliberation to rule on.
..2. Supremes can dismiss out-of-hand due to wimpy, whiney and weak-kneed brief filed by HBCity Attorney Mike E.
..3. Supremes can remand the case back to the appeals court ordering them to hear Mike E.’s wimpy, whiney weak-kneed appeal they rejected out-of-hand in the first place…
“The third option results in the appeals court being really annoyed with Mike E. and likely writing a really devastaing ruling against HBCity Attorney Mike E. in favor of Trustee Briscoe. The appeals court could go so far as to make the written legal opinon on this matter a ‘published’ opinion forever enshrining Trustee Briscoe v. HBCity as legal case law.
“If Mike E. decides to appeal to the Supremes once again as is likely based on past performance the Supremes will have to decide to uphold two lower court carefully reasoned opinions ~or~ overturn everybody based on the Mike E.’s wimpy, whiney weak-kneed boo-hoo-hoo brief complaining about how HBCity may have to pay attorney fees for future illegal CPRA denials.”
Well, so now you’ve seen a sample of Trustee Briscoe’s writing. He insistently refers to Gates, despite the latter’s constant demand to be treated “with respect,” as “Mike E.” because he knows it drives Gates crazy, putting the world in mind of Mikey from the famed Life Cereal commercials. The title of this piece refers to Briscoe’s constant mantra about the Rainbow litter across from Oak View during those battles of a couple years ago: “Chicken Bones ‘n’ Fish Pickins.” And the eccentric Republican joins the honored ranks of Board President Gina Clayton Tarvin and the activists of Oak View Comunidad as people hated and loathed by the HB establishment and their bilious and deranged scribe/demagogue Chris Epting, but loved by the people.
Briscoe sees two problems: One, Huntington Beach is the only city in Orange County with an elected city attorney – a quirk built into the city’s charter. Mr. Gates is a skillful politician and consummate OC GOP insider with an aw-shucks Tom Cruise grin, who acquired his $300K gig with a $150K 2014 campaign which he will never again have to duplicate since every corporation of note, most of which will have business before the city sooner and later, has chipped in to his re-election effort. And he seems to lead the Council on legal matters like a charismatic Pied Piper, even if sometimes over a cliff.
And then there is the still-neglected and politically unpowerful Oak View barrio, who as Briscoe wrote in The Voice of OC,
…have suffered three important areas of environmental attack. First, the children and their families have lived in an atmospheric cesspool of stench, dust, and noise. Second, the Oak View community neighborhood is devoid of any green tree canopy, a result of Huntington Beach City vegetation removal. Third, the housing infrastructure is grossly out of compliance with minimum City codes.
Oak View residents are the victims of systematic and institutional failures by City and County leaders. For decades the children of the Oak View Schools endured the stench of total governmental failure at the city, county, and state level. These young residents must learn, play, and live next to an open-air trash dump that spews filth, stench, vermin and vectors…
And despite the School Board’s 2016 victory in getting the Rainbow Dump to begin enclosing, the stench and nuisance remains, and the Code Enforcement has only been there to inspect ONCE in these past seven years. Hey … I wonder what that person’s training and qualifications look like?
I wonder what Gates would do if those cute little … kids of his went to school next door to the transfer station.
Wow, you can’t even insult boring white folks anymore…
LOL. They were all “the children! the children! Vern’s blog is insulting the children!” So … I thought you and Traci’s point was fine, but without any adjectives.
Who is “they” and why are they so touchy? Politicians love to trot out their offspring.
HB Facebook scolds. I came to agree with them that we shouldn’t call Gates’ kids “wonder bread kids.”
Epting was of a mind that I BEGAN and INVITED the unforgivableness by featuring a pic of him with his family, but I thought that picture was a good depiction of the man’s permanent campaign.
Facebook scolds. Classic.
It’s amazing how sensitive people get when they think ginned-up self-righteousness might be useful.
Anyhow, the “adjective” is a reflection on the parent who seems to be interested in sheltering his genetic material from exposure to some of life’s unpleasant aspects; like a dump next to a school, perhaps.
So the “Facebook scolds” — anyone I know? — concede that attending a school next to an open dump is a humiliation and a sort of punishment-in-fact that should be spared to the offspring of good solid citizens?
I’ll go along with that. In fact, it should not be happening to ANY kids, or ANYONE’S kids. That’s pretty much the PONT of the Oak View resistance. Do they not get that?
“Scolds” Well, Epting and a few of his mostly female HB admirers, you wouldn’t know them, not Dems or bloggers.
This is sort of the joke behind somebody using the pseudonym Neil Diamond: Chris likes to do things like promise his readers free Neil Diamond tickets and thus wins the enthusiastic allegiance of a goodly number of middle-aged women.
And during the election Mike E. was all about the city as a whole and making sure things are done the legal/ right way. Pffft. Mike E. needs to send his [kids] over here and let them deal with the crap we over here deal with.
*The whole thing….stinks……right?
Wow… I may be late on my Judge Carter piece, but THIS one was written right on time – the Supremes have just dismissed this case and Briscoe wins again!
It’s a shame that HB taxpayers will be on the hook for a quarter million or so, but as John says, “Oak View Community safety and health wins.
Open and transparent government wins.
Whiney, wimpy, weak-kneed briefs (not boxers) to the Supremes are rejected out-of-hand immediately on-the-face-of-it even before Trustee Briscoe has a chance to file his respondent brief to the Supremes.”
http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/disposition.cfm?dist=0&doc_id=2243282&doc_no=S246876&request_token=OCIwLSIkXkw9WyBdSCNdSENIUEQ0UDxTJyM%2BJz1SXDtICg%3D%3D
Is Gates up for reelection this year? I can think of a campaign theme to run against him. Whatever happened to that woman he replaced?
Ahhh, he’s in office as long as he wants. What he did here wasn’t unpopular at all, the majority who WANTS to believe anything he says believe that he is selflessly protecting the privacy of poor HB employees from crazy-ass Briscoe. (If he’d done the opposite they’d sing his praises as a champion of open government!)
Some of the ladies who worship him as an HB incarnation of Christ are really trashing me over this piece on Facebook. I figured they’d be over here by now. Oh, ladies?
Mr. Gates publicly referred to certain Huntington Beach schools as, “halfway houses”.
Epting complaining about CPRA requests? Pot meet kettle. He’s up to how many with OVSD right now for no reason but to dig for dirt he never finds? At least Briscoe’s requests had a targeted purpose.
Epting is the king of hypocrisy. If I were a local politician I’d be very wary of attaching myself to him. You can’t unopen that can of worms.
But, just wait, Neil! He’s got something REALLY REALLY BIG coming out soon!
Looks as though you’ve edited out all the racist references in the comment section from some of your followers. I guess that’s good but it doesn’t wipe away the fact that these folks are a bunch of white haters. It was certainly eye-opening to witness.
White haters? Hand to God. Some of my best friends are white.
I’ve read a lot of dumb comments on this blog.
This one might just be the dumbest. Believe me, the competition is fierce, too.
Congratulations.
Hey, you’re my friend and you’re a white dude, right?
Yeah, but apparently we’re all self loathing.
I just reviewed the comments that have recently been sent to our trash. I think that by “racist” you must be talking about frenzied and cockeyed anonymous attacks against me, Vern, Cynthia, Paul, and Victor. Well, I guess that those last ones may qualify as racist, and they certainly do seem to have been written by hateful white people.
Ooooo. I gotta log in and read those!
We should really charge visitors for access to our comment trash folder. Then again, they can just read most of it for free at Liberal OC.
It’s entertaining, that’s for sure.
*Remember the old 70’s Mantra: “This is just the first day of the rest of your life!”….no
no….it was: “Brown get Down, Yellow get Mellow, Black get Back, White is Right!” Now days the list is longer than the hair on the back of your hand? LGBQT’s, PTSD’s, Black Lives Matter, Black Lies Matter, Me”Too;s,Me’Three’s and they are a lot harder to rhyme!
Where is Gloria Steinem when we need her? And oh: “Stop the War – Patty Hearst First!”
*Finally you two come along and make sense of it all. Thank you.
Somehow they didn’t mention “Don’t take the brown acid!”
EPTING’S REVENGE for this lawsuit has materialized! (And why need Epting take revenge on the school district over a reasonable CPRA request for the qualifications of dump inspectors who were not doing their job? Surmise away.)
This is Epting’s Revenge, taken yesterday: One, a CPRA request for his nemesis Gina Clayton Tarvin’s original application to become a teacher TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO in Los Angeles’ ABC School District – a request which will be complied with no problem; and
Two, a CPRA request for the job applications of ALL FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY TEACHERS IN THE OCEAN VIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT. What a raving asshole.
He’s just making it worse for his team. I hope that they reward him appropriately.
My guess is that the teachers’ applications will stand up to scrutiny notably better than will the applications of the dump inspectors.
Has anyone done a CPRA request on all communications between Rainbow Disposal and every single city and other governmental institution, and each elected or staff member thereof, in Southern California since the beginning of time? Probably not, so far — but when it happens Rainbow will know who to thank for the inspiration.
(Actually, Vern — has there been a CPRA request for communications between Rainbow and HB and all of its electeds and staff since the Oak View issue began? That might make for a nice story — or 174. And it’s a hell of a lot more of an issue of public interest than is harassing school teachers.)
I don’t think he’ll waste a minute of his time looking at the teachers’ applications. He just wants to make a school district employee waste a week getting them all together. That’s how mean and petty he is.
Hey, Vern — check out the new trash in our trash. These people are ridiculous!
Trash in the trash? And all because of a Rainbow dump story? Oh boy!!!
Trying to waste money that could otherwise go to kids’ educations — and for no defensible reason? Sounds like he could put that on his résumé! We should press him to post something showing that he at least read and thought about them, rather than just sabotaging public education.