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How might things shift on the Board with not one but two Democrats? (Another historic first!)
A few days ago – a couple days after I wrote my piece announcing Loretta Sanchez’ run for third-district Supervisor – Loretta called me. I hadn’t spoken to her in a couple of years, had lost her number, and didn’t even know that she had moved up to “Old Town” Orange several years ago. Apparently some Democrats tried to get her to run against Dana Rohrabacher this year, as well as against Ed Royce (then Young Kim) – but she says, “Vern, I’ve never even voted for a carpetbagger, I’m sure not going to be one.” But if someone’s gonna call her that now, implying that she moved to Orange in 2014 or so with the fond hope that Spitzer would beat Rackauckas in 2018 and she could run for Todd’s seat … then I just can’t help you.
One thing Loretta has been busy with these last two years is teaching “leadership” courses at Harvard to aspiring politicians. Also having followed the Carter hearings closely, Loretta has been working on two projects aimed at alleviating our housing/homelessness crisis:
- She’s taken the lead in raising $5 million for a 30-“micro-units” permanent supportive housing project – probably in Santa Ana – for unaccompanied homeless women, one of the underserved segments of our homeless population.
- And due to come on board probably in an Anaheim industrial area within 5-6 months, an ambitious factory project, employing “second chance” young adults (recently released from jail/prison) as well as secondary-school students wanting engineering experience, to build those celebrated “tiny houses” for people’s back yards.
Loretta has been aghast as many of us have, at the current all-Republican Board of Supervisors (over the last many years) – their blithe neglect of the poor and homeless, and their ideologically driven refusal to either ask for, or spend, state and federal money meant to address social issues. On the Board, not only would Loretta make sure the money gets spent the way it’s intended (not “chipmunked away” in Carter’s popular phrase) but this county gets more of what’s coming to us, from both Sacramento and DC. Apart from housing and addressing the homelessness crisis, Loretta has three other immediate goals she’d like to pursue on the Board:
- Auditing and fixing CalOPTIMA, so that it serves its intended purpose of caring for the indigent and working poor. Loretta will not criticize any politician on the record, but we all know who was most responsible for making CalOPTIMA the administrative and bureaucratic basket case it is now (Vern whispers: “Janet Nguyen! Janet Nguyen! Former supervisor and now-defeated state senator!”) But any fix has to begin with a thorough audit, which Loretta intends to pursue immediately.
- Orange County’s SOCIAL WORKERS are criminally underpaid – many of them making minimum wage. Loretta feels these folks are doing a very important job that needs to be remunerated appropriately, and this County can easily afford to do that.
- FIRE SUPPRESSION is another high priority that she wants to immediately address – particularly for her 3rd district, which has seen most of the County’s recent wildfires.
Do you remember how a Democratic elected official (requesting anonymity) told me that he/she was reluctantly supporting the often undependable Doug Chaffee for the 4th district seat, hoping that a stronger Democrat could be elected into the 3rd district seat, and could act as a positive influence on Doug? I can see Loretta doing that, more convincingly than some of the other Democrats eyeing the seat.
Before Loretta’s entrance into this race, many of us north OC progressives were supporting the fine and wealthy Yorba Linda progressive Andy Thorburn for the seat, and many still are. Irvine’s Agran-aligned Democrat Beth Krom is also in the running. [UPDATE Wed. morning: Beth has dropped out and endorsed Loretta.] There’s no primary in this race, and we Democrats need to unite behind ONE candidate if we hope to beat Kris Murray, Don Wagner, and the other sketchy GOP’ers, and finally effect some transformation in our county’s governance. I think Loretta has the best chance of winning, and I’ll be reminding people (as I have in the past) of the good things she did during her years in Congress.
But you can talk to her yourself. She’ll be attending – if her flight from back east touches down in John Wayne at noon when it’s supposed to! – this Saturday’s Anaheim Democratic Club meeting. The meeting is at West Anaheim’s Haskett Branch Library (2650 W Broadway, near Magnolia and adjacent to Maxwell Park), and begins at 12:15 – if all goes well, Loretta should be there by 1pm to talk about her campaign and answer all your burning questions!
Possible Board majority after 2020, with Tinajero (or Martinez?) replacing termed-out Do.
*We would support Loretta for BOS. Who knows how many Wet T-Shirt Contests we
might be able to attend. Guess we will all have to bring our own buckets! Perferably,
during Summer.
*By the way, Chairman Vern …..who are you supporting for the Chair of the Dems of the OC….now that Fran is stepping over….to do fund raising in D.C.?
From the couple names I’ve seen so far… Ada Briceno!
Update: Beth Krom has dropped out of Supe race to make way for Loretta. The bad news is she’s running for Fran’s DPOC chair seat now. Agran does not need any more power there.
Egads.
Oh did you hear – the Liberal OC BROKE the above news, half a day after I mentioned it in a comment. And Matt graciously credited the news-breaking Dan!
I guess we don’t feel every little development is worth writing a whole story about.
Chumley will be all over this story through January.
So will you and I. Krom’s not as bad as Agran, or Fran, but not nearly as good as Ada. It will be an insider vs. outsider race.
Vern, you needn’t worry about changing the course of County governance by electing Democrats. The County is about 95% process driven – meaning that the business of government rolls along by the sheer weight of its own inertia.
What the County really needs is accountability and Chaffee is fundamentally incapable of demanding that. Look at the mess he watched happen in Fullerton while doing absolutely nothing.
Lo has never been in a position that had any executive function. I don’t see her starting to exert anything except maybe some added impetus behind the existing rolling boulder – so long as she gets the proper sycophancy from the upper bureaucracy. And there is never a short supply of that at the County.
Chaffee is a homeless murdering geek.
Hell has a place for these people eternity awaits…
*Chaffee is from Fullerton? Hmmm. Then, how come Whitaker didn’t get the nod
over Tim Shaw?
I’m surprised that nobody has said “Woo-woo-woo!” to this until now.
Zenger showed surprising self-control.
Who can forget? The best part is watching Lo running away from the reporter while pretending to be chasing a non-existent person through some doors. Now that was a classic, too. “Hey, hey, hey!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33HxB5RoR60
That was not senatorial.
But was it supervisorial?
Well, I dunno. That bar has always been set low.
Did the Democrats not learn anything from this election??? Surface a candidate for BOS that represents the “blue wave”.
I learned something from Ashleigh’s heartbreaking loss to Hairball: A million dollars plus no name recognition doesn’t quite beat the organized determined kleptos.
But some people were spending money and time putting up meaningless signs against certain candidates.
Or throwing votes away on candidates that had no chance just because.
Could be the difference in 100 votes or more if they put up some extra signs or spent that time working for Ashleigh…
In the next cycle we have to remain focused to win, our forces are underfunded.
It’s true that my noble attempts to defeat Brandman failed. But the attacks on Caldwell worked. Who could’ve known?
*Chairman Vern, Katie Porter proved you wrong! She came out of the shadows and now will be doing just fine!
I wasn’t talking about national, R-vs-D races. I was talking about local specifically greed-driven contests.
Loretta vs.Andy is that going split the vote (Ashleigh vs Lorri) again?…letting Kris Murray in??
Nah. It would more likely split the vote letting Don Wagner in.
Don Wagner is about as useful as a rowboat on the Moon!!…okay I see he would fit right in on the OC Board of Supervisors.
P.S. I’d like to know more about Lo teaching at Harvard. Suddenly I’m reminded of Ling-Ling Chang, pride of The Crimson.
Looks real dude.
https://advancedleadership.harvard.edu/people/loretta-sanchez
https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/immigration-through-lens-latina-leaders
I joked to her about Ling-Ling the first time she told me about Harvard.
At a meeting of a number of Indivisible activists from around the county on the 25th, a decision was made to form an exploratory task force for the possibility of an Indivisible endorsement in the race. Although anyone can take part in the planning, only voters from the Third District would vote on the actual endorsement. It would be a super majority endorsement. This idea resulted from a discussion where many agreed that the big danger is too many progressives (probably Democrats), running and splitting the vote. If there are any Indivisible members who would like to be part of that Task Force, it’s going to be a fast track deal, so let me know at teamindivisibleoc@gmail.com.
We can start now, without knowing the final list, since we need to come up with questions for candidates, an interview protocol, and what kind of percentage (60 percent or even higher) to require for an endorsement. The great thing about Indivisible is that it allows anyone progressive to take part, so party membership is not a requirement.
Sounds like an excellent project, Sharon. Good luck with it.
100s of signs on a subject people cared about is important to determine –
Caldwell
PAC MAN
supports billion dollar hotel subsidies
And 0 taxes for Disney
4000 full color handouts on cars in the target area
But I only passed out around 2000
My signs weren’t so different and were just as accurate.
What it really was was Jose and Jordan both kicked ass – despite how different their politics are – because 1) they were Democratic-endorsed Democrats running in heavily Democratic areas during a blue wave, and 2) they both campaigned really hard.
The Hills elected Trevor (by definition) and Harry (with the help of Lorri.)