It’s That Time of the Year for the Children and Families Commission
Yup. The time of the year when this little-known, virtually opaque level of government that was created by Rob Reiner’s tobacco tax hands out its PR and lobbying contracts to well-connected “small government” types like blabbermouth Matthew J. Cunningham and Anaheim’s Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.
I have previously documented the big government gravy being slurped up by Pringle and Cunningham here, and here. Were talking really big bucks here, Friends, and you get the feeling that not only is this Commission in existence to dole out the government largess to local repuglicans, but that its proprietors are a lot more interested in smiley face public relations and protecting their flow of tax revenue from Sacramento than they are in helping any kids. See, it takes a village to raise those children but unfortunately the bureaucracy and its spokesholes don’t come cheap.
Anyway, May and June are the months these contracts seem to come due and also seem to keep getting rolled over with almost no public scrutiny, or really any sort of performance audit for that matter. You can bet the family farm we’ll be reporting on the attempts to renew these contracts in the future.
Oh brother. Do as we say, not as we do!
Reading Cunningham’s posts is becoming increasingly nauseating as the hypocrisy deepens. But it’s all about money, and for that Hanlon dude money is the ONLY thing.
Remember May 5 is the next meeting of the commission. At the county building in Santa Ana.
Grumblings inside have Campbell trying to change the time/location, probably to protect Matt’s business interests.
WHY IS GROVER AND FRIENDS THE ONLY ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS? Where is Chip Hanlon, Martin Wiskol, Dan Chemmi and company on this????
Ken, who is grumbling? That sounds like a post.
I’m wondering if Michael Ruane, the guy who “oversees” this little fiefdom, will even let the agenda for May 5th be posted on their website.
I wonder who’s in charge of the website. Oh that’s right, Cunningham is. Hmm.
Hopefully we can get some folks to show up at the next meeting and make life miserable for the Familia de Jerbal.
Damn. With these lucrative contracts this freak gets you would think he would invest some money on his teeth. And who in the right mind would hire this straight out of the Ozarks looking hillbilly to do PR. I thought PR was about improving images?
Bill Campbell and Hugh Hewitt? Who elected/appointed/chose these people for this commission? Who do the commissioners answer to?
“In 2008-2009, the Commission allocated more than $57 million to programs that served more than 205,000 children. The programs we support are grouped according to how they advance our four goals of healthy children, strong families, readiness to learn and quality services.” http://www.occhildrenandfamilies.org/FactSheet.aspx
It’s like the Fullerton Collaborative but with a lot more money!
Commissioners:
Bill Campbell: Commission Chair
Sandra Barry: Commission Vice Chair
Kimberly Chavalas Cripe
Ingrid Harita
Hugh Hewitt
Crystal Kochendorfer
Maria E. Minon, M.D.: Commission Chair Pro-tem
David L. Riley
Sally Snyder, R.N.
Staff:
Michael Ruane, Executive Director
Jennifer Berthon, Financial Analyst
Anna Brendle, Program Officer
Rhonda Diaz, Staff Specialist
Michael Garcell, Financial Manager
Kim Goll, Program Operations Director
Roberto Gonzalez Jr., Program Assistant
Susie Kim, Contracts Manager
Steve Kozak, Chief Operations Officer
Manita Manhnavong, Projects Administrator
Brenda Manriquez, Director of Finance
Jennifer Martinez, Projects Administrator
Tillie Martinez, Contracts Administrator
Alyce Mastrianni, Program Development and Evaluation Director
Armida Nuno, Executive Assistant/Office Manager
Barbara Phillips, Contracts Director
Kelly Pijl, Assistant Executive Director
Nicole Preciado, Contracts Administrator
Janiece Teegarden, Contracts Manager
Perlee Trout, Evaluations Manager
Programs:
Bridges for Newborns
Child Health and Safety/Community Education
Children’s Dental
Community Clinics
Fitness/Nutrition
Health Access
Healthy Children Collaborative Projects
Healthy Children Collaborative Projects
Pediatric Health Services
Project Connections
Project Connections/Home Visitation
School Readiness Nursing
Healthy Children Program Grants
Miscellaneous
Early Literacy
Local School Readiness
Ready to Learn Program Grants
School Readiness Expansion Program
Special Needs Program
State/Local Partnership School Readiness
Boys and Girls Club Project
Homeless Prevention
Strong Families Program Grants
Capacity Building Grants (Supports a joint venture between various partners linking with a broad spectrum of volunteer service efforts statewide to coordinate the various organizations using their services and assuring necessary matching funds, providing technical support and administrative support, and fiscal coordination)
AmeriCorps/ VISTA
AmeriCorps/VISTA
State First 5 Service Corps
Technical Assistance
New Program Research and Development
what does anyone wish to wager that eli home is getting first five $$from the commission??
transparency is the key here….jerbal is very close to the pinoy princess…..the polish peashooter will try to deflect the inquiries
It’s bad that this commission is a HUGE waste of money, but what makes it worse is Bill Campbell, the Republican elected supervisor, is doling out the money to his buddies like Matt and Hugh.
I suggest the FFFF and all of us dig deeper into Campbell’s alliances, perhaps check out who makes Matts house payments, We know Laura took in a shit pot of $$ from Prop 8 but GAVE NONE.
How much money have the Cunninghams givem to REPUBLICAN canidates? ZERO.
Campbell is being termed out and is likely looking for a job with Matt’s boss, Lewis.
look at the scope of work in the contracts….translation into spanish and working with spanish speaking families….since when did jerbal speak spanish?…last we alllooked laurita did the spanish speaking outreach on prop 8….make work for laurita?
First 5 is not part of the state budget…this is directly funded by the taxes paid on the purchase of tobacco products…there is no general funds as part of the first 5 commission…that all goes for the individual 58 first 5 commissions (each county has one-OC families and childrens commission is the first 5 commission for OC)