Dysfunction @ County Reaches Rock Bottom
Although FFFF hasn’t been reporting much on County activities it’s pretty hard to overlook the latest management crisis in the County Hall of Administration, in which top managers appear to have hushed up a multitude of sex crimes and workplace harassment perpetrated by a creep named Carlos Bustamante. Bustamante is a Santa Ana city councilman, and until last fall, a high level bureaucrat in the OC Public Works Department. Mr. Peabody touched upon the mess, here.
Bustamante was arrested last week by the DA, fifteen months after an anonymous letter was received by the County. Apparently that complaint was actually given to an underling of Bustamante to investigate! It remains unclear who made that call, but his boss, the Director of Public Works is taking the hit for the team – so far.
Meanwhile a second complaint in August 2011, spurred the CEO, Tom Mauk to hire an outside lawyer to investigate Bustamante’s  activities. The consequent detailed report, completed in September 2011, supposedly detailed some pretty greasy stuff. For some reason the Supervisors were not shown the report – except for Chairman Bill Campbell, who now amazingly claims he refused to read it, supervising apparently not being one of the requirements of a Supervisor. The report remained under lock and key as Bustamante was permitted to quit and given 3 month’s salary to (get this) – prevent him from suing the County! Blackmail? Who knows?
Finally, the report came to the surface after the County’s Internal Auditor, pursuing his own investigation (and after months of stonewalling by Mauk and his HR Director, Carl Crown) was permitted the IA to see it. At that point the jig was up and the Board was notified of the damning report. They immediately referred the matter to the DA for an investigation which culminated in a dozen felonies and four misdemeanors.
Remarkably, in the intervening months between March 2012 and now, Mauk has been permitted to keep his job despite the inescapable facts of incompetence, cronyism, withholding information from the Board, and of course, paying Bustamante $45,000 to go away without a ruckus. Sure sounds like a cover up, doesn’t it?
Evidently the Board, or a majority of it at least, likes this kind of thing and thinks it’s just fine. Bill Campbell has publicly said so, claiming the Mauk was just trying to protect the County by covering up Bustamante’s behavior. Of course that begs another question: why did anybody put the County at risk by employing this scum-sack in the first place? For that you may direct your question right back to Bill Campbell, who has been Carlos Bustamante’s political patron over the years, and who, no doubt, presided, along with Mauk, over Bustamante’s weird and inexplicable assent to the top of County government.
A “closed session” was held by the Board on Friday to discuss what to do. Apparently doing nothing remains the Board’s path of least resistance as they have postponed taking about the matter ’til July 24th. They had better hurry up. The DA has said that he’s not done investigating and will now focus his attention on personnel with the Hall of Administration itself.
Mauk is connected at the hip to Nguyen and Campbell. They will never let him go as Campbell is now demonstrating. At this point Nelson and Moorlach have had enough. So it’s up to Bates to pull the trigger, and she not known around here as a trigger puller. She is afraid of her own shadow.
Mauk should have been fired after last year’s HR humiliation in which he was busted handing out huge unmerited raises to his incompetent cronies.
If it smells like BS, sounds like BS, looks like BS, it’s BS… there’s no need to taste it to confirm that it’s BS.
Eloquently stated my friend! 🙂
Moorlach was instrumental, according to Moxley, in keeping Mauk at the County after he was offer the same in Los Angeles County. He got him more money and hasn’t asked any hard questions since — proving once again that Big John’s got a bad picker. He’s got Sandra Hutchens and Chriss Street on his resume as well as incompetent bureaucrats he’s supported in the past. Thankfully, he’s in his last term.
Moorlach The Boy Scout is an appalling judge of character.
FFFF not your concern, out of your league. Stick to what you know best, name calling of small town elected officials.
Where there is smoke, there is also fire.
I guess you could consider us as fire fighters who work for freedom.
The best part is we work for free.
Why don’t you stick to what you do best, i.e. giving people with algae scrapers something to do.
Yup I see a JERK has entered the FFFF website. Maybe he been a barbeque-in his brain one too many times snffin and a quaffin some herbal remedy or maybe he is just a JERK!
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Stanislav Fiala is asking: Should Carlos Bustamante be impeached?
Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2012 18:46:12 -0700
From: Standa standa@merlin4x.com
To: Walters Paul, PWalters@santa-ana.org, Pulido Miguel, MPulido@santa-ana.org, Alvarez Claudia, calvarez@santa-ana.org, Sarmiento Vincent, vsarmiento@santa-ana.org, Benavides David, DBenavides@santa-ana.org, Martinez Michele, mimartinez@santa-ana.org, Bustamante Carlos, cbustamante@santa-ana.org, Tinajero Sal, stinajero@santa-ana.org, Harrelson Anthony, THARRELSON@santa-ana.org, McGeachy Douglas, DMcGeachy@santa-ana.org
Dear Miguel,
In oppose to Sean Mill’s e-mail, in which he is praising your performance on the city council, I must strongly disagree with your puppet and an apologist Mill.
The Carlos Bustamante’s incident is direct result of your incompetence and cover up for Carlos’ libido of which I have indirectly warn you and the council on July 16, 2007 meting in which I have satirically presented you with herein attached CERTIFICATE OF RECOGNITION outlining an embarrassment which comes with such behavior.
Notwithstanding Carlos innocents, it was he who put himself in a bad spotlight and by doing so he embarrassed the City of Santa Ana which you Miguel are condoning by your refusal to impeach Carlos.
The same goes for the Police Chief and City Manager Paul Walters!
Based on the prior incident in which SAPD13 murdered a mother Susie Young Kim in front of her crying 18 month old daughter, you and Paul put yourselves in morally bad spotlight too, by not publicly condemning such brutal Syrian style crime against the humanity, which clearly indicates that both of you have serious moral problems which may be psychopathically laced.
Whether or not you and Paul will join Councilmembers Tinajero, Sarmiento and Martinez in calling for Bustamante’s resignation will further solidify your incompetency or competency respectively, to lead this city into a prosperity.
During my election campaign against you Miguel, I have introduced the Red Light District in Santa Ana to avoid these kind of scandals. Carlos was the first laughing moralist to reject such idea because it would, allegedly, made Santa Ana look bad.
So here you have it!
I am sure that he is not laughing now!
The Fullerton style recall may happen in Santa Ana too.
Published
-Stan
All the OC scandals at the county level are starting to make perfect sense now. When slimeballs are in charge expect the worst. The response is always the same. Circle the wagons and hope it all goes away. And if it doesn’t go away – then change the facts to fit your story. And these people call themselves ‘leaders’. They don’t ‘lead’. They obfuscate, waste our money and protect their fellow slimeballs from ‘eating their peas’. They tried to protect Bustamonte for as long as they could. But the sewage seeped out of the septic tank and they couldn’t put it back again.
“But the sewage seeped out of the septic tank and they couldn’t put it back again”…….. Hmmmmm
So, are you voting for Obama?
I never understand your logic or where you are trying to go. What are you trying to say? What am I missing????
“What am I missing????”……… Hmmmmm
IQ.
Stanley, based on my post and quote – what would give you an inclination that I would vote for Obama?
I agree with ‘name withheld’. Your comment made no sense. Looks like a dissassociative thought process to me. And no, I don’t think there’s anything special about your IQ either. I had a buddy once who talked in gibberish and he tallied it up to a high IQ. But everyone with a higher IQ than his used to laugh at him.
“I had a buddy once who talked in gibberish and he tallied it up to a high IQ. But everyone with a higher IQ than his used to laugh at him.”…….. Hmmmmm
Classical case of a paradox.
I had a professor in the old Czechoslovakian Air Force Academy who said: “If you do not know something, inform yourself! If you are stupid, ask!”
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/07/fullerton_police_kelly_thomas.php
Great! More of our tax money wasted on bullshit committees. You know Rusty Kennedy is going to want a piece of this action.
Yep. Fresh meat for Rusty. But he must be careful not to step on the toes of his BoS buddies. Maybe he can be in charge of the re-education program that informs people that executive managers shouldn’t sexually prey on female subordinates. Should be good for a budget increase! 😀
Yeah, we sure are the laughing stock of Orange County. We are letting mobs control this city.
Just read a long winded article congratuling the out going OC Grand Jury. It is really questionable as to who or what organization is directing/tasking and for what purposes.
The OC Grand Jury has not reported any kind of investigation into any of the shenagians going on by local city councils, police deptartments, school boards , etc.
I question ; are they being directed/led away from their primary purpose of investigating crooked government officals and employees?
Perhaps it is time for the Ca. AG to get involved in Orange County.
The Grand Jury just whitewashed the ARTIC fiasco. They are beyond utterly worthless.
Well what do you expect? Afterall, the grand jurors are handpicked by the very ones for whom they do their bidding. If you were part of the establishment and had control over who would investigate County matters – who would you pick? Obedient lapdogs or hard charging citizens who don’t play favorites in investigations?
Think about it.
The OC Grand Jury is seated and used by the DA office. In some years they investigated graft and corruption, but not in recent memory. They are mainly there for the bidding of the DA office. They are supposed to have investigatory powers but it seems unused!
Hopefully he will retain George Bushala’s lawyer and beat the rap.
21,000 signatures and counting! In the time it takes to argue with a sick person about why beating someone to death is never justified you could e-mail this to 5 friends or post it on Facebook.
http://www.change.org/petitions/remove-all-6-fullerton-police-officers-involved-in-the-murder-of-kelly-thomas
Ron Thomas
I just want to remind everyone that tomorrow; July the 10th is the “Official” date of Kelly’s death. We are not planning anything for this because it was literally machines that kept him alive. As many of you know, his heart stopped three times before he got to the hospital. They murdered him on July 5th, 2011. They must pay for this just as if it were you or I that murdered someone. Wolfe must be charged, and the other three MUST be fired. Dan Hughes has told me that they will not be fired, but I will make it happen with your help. I feel a major protest about to happen if he does not fire them. Please attend the next city council meeting and let’s inform the new council and the city manager of what we want.
http://www.facebook.com/Justice4KellyThomas/posts/341087929303379
One of the 6 officers arrived 16 seconds before the parametrics arrived.. He was actually the 7 th officer on scene. Because the mob knows his name he must be fired? If fired he will win his job back plus back pay, but that’s the master plan to bankrupt the city and renegotiate city employee contracts.
It’s about time Hughes started putting his foot down and not let Ron Thomas try to run his Police Department. You cant always get what you want Ron.
Watch out Ron. Hughes likes beating people up and arresting them. He’ll then have his “G-Boys” take you in and rough you up in the jail.
I wonder if he’ll fire them willingly or if he wants to wait until he’s been removed from office and let someone else do it. Either way, it’s all good.
Well ya know, I have never liked the idea of promoting to ACTING Chief Mr. Hughes. He talks nice but he was in charge of the group who killed Kelly Thomas. Not a word was uttered by him publicly UNTIL he was named acting Chief by the Three stumps through their stooooge Mr. Felz! So why would anyone want to promote to Real Chief, the King of the Coverups?
Tuco knows!!!
We need new blood to clean up the Fullerton Pd. Mr. Hughes is not our man. He talkes out of both sides of his mouth. He has to many connections to the three stumps that our city just recalled. The whole nation is watching our city lets keep up our house cleaning!
“But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” Keep working to get corrupt Fullerton officials fired Ron and the rest of the gang. 6 down, ???? to go.
Clever, I saw what you did…
_
Good story.
I read the OC REGISTER’S horrific, poorly written, incomprehensible report on this. It read like a high school article. The LA TIMES has largely ignored this story, who knows why.
While the other outlets in the county bitch about it, I secretly hoped you would sink your teeth in to it.
If not for Nelson, this guy would be getting blowjobs, while bringing in $75.00 an hour from the next 20 year old clerk assigned to his office.
This is generally OK, because Bill Campbell’s kids DON’T NEED TO WORK for the county. They are of another class.
Fuck this thing up FFFF. If you don’t, nobody will.
Thanks Nomad. Love that song.