I recently visited the Craig Hunter for Sheriff website and found this picture.
Yeah, a picture of Hunter with Il Duce himself. The guy who became an American hero and terrorism expert by accomplishing – absolutely nothing. That’s right kids. Apparently this noble nation is so starved for real heroes that you can become one by being a mayor in a town where terrorists fly airplanes into your biggest buildings.
But this post isn’t about Rudy Giuliani – not directly, anyway. It’s about authoritarianism masked as conservatism; about using the police power of the government to keep us safe from – ourselves. And that’s the vibe I’ve gotten from this Hunter guy, from his statements about marijuana and the hapless “drug war” and about the rights “that have been given to us” – presumably he believes by the government. It doesn’t help that most of his pictures seem to reveal a guy with a really bad case of constipation.
More fiber, dude.
I really can’t wait for the day that wannabe politicians quit sharing their photos ops with Bush-era police staters.
When this campaign started I really was planning on just boycotting the whole thing. But the more I see of Hunter the less I like him.
This time it’s a story by the LA Times featuring former OCTA boss Art Leahy and others questioning the dedicated tracks, the impacts, and of course some of the basic operating assumptions of the California HSR.
Meantime we’re not holding our collective breath for the release of Curt Pringle’s “business plan” that seems to be at least 5 years late.
As Bill Hunt’s candidacy for sheriff is building momentum, the previously unreleased Attorney General report on the Greg Haidl incident has begun to surface. FFFF has obtained the report now we pass it along, although it has been slightly redacted to protect the identity of a minor (view the report).
The Attorney General Report
The report was allegedly leaked to the press by Carona’s pal Michael Schroeder back in 2005 but was never completely released to the public. Why not?
Perhaps because the 21 page document is primarily an indictment against a department culture created under Carona himself, along with Jaramillo and Haidl back before Carona became a convicted felon and was forced to resign. The report also reprimands several subordinates, including Lieutenants Downing and Hunt for showing “poor judgment”. Somehow even blogger Jon Fleischman managed to receive a slap for his complete lack of accountability as PIO for the department.
Well that's bittersweet.
So how will the report affect candidate Bill Hunt?
It’s not quite the indictment on Hunt that his detractors claim it to be. Hunt’s involvement in the controversy centers around whether Hunt ordered his deputy to remove opinions and facts from an incident report on the night that Greg Haidl, son of Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, was stopped with some friends who were found in possession of marijuana back in 2003.
The report does accuse Hunt of ordering the police report to be edited in a “questionable fashion,” but what does that mean? Were facts removed, or just opinions?
In our interview last month, Hunt indicated that he asked his deputy to remove only an opinion that contradicted both the evidence and a confession.
Additionally, a sworn statement made after the report that was issued by Hunt’s sargent asserted that the involved deputy’s report was “too opinionated” and so Hunt asked Deputy Roche to remove the opinions. Hunt reportedly said “you need to put the facts – the elements of the crime” into the report.
Statement by Sgt. Gaffner
Five years later, Hunt is still standing behind his actions. In our interview, he told us that he violated no law, no policy and he still maintains that he did the right thing.
I am told that forthcoming federal court testimony will be revealing. But will it conflict with what Bill Hunt told us?
It’s also important to note that the AG report was not part of an independent investigation – for some reason Carona specifically requested that an investigation not be performed (see page 2). Rather, the Attorney General based the report primarily on Carona’s own internal investigation as conducted by Assistant Sheriff Jo Ann Galisky.
Today we learned that our old friend has made a request at the County to see our public document requests! It seems Cunningham has requested aCounty-wide search for any document requests made by our own fearless Travis Kiger. Well, turn about is fair play, of course, and we always play fair.
Of course one has to wonder why The Jerb is so interested in finding out what we are looking for, and the curious wouldn’t have to waste a lot of time guessing. He’s obviously working for Tom Daly’s campaign, no doubt through the direction of his boss and political soul mate John Lewis. Still, a County-wide search?
Cunningham will do whatever I tell him. We're very tight.
Those guys seem to be terrified that more crooked skeletons will soon be a tumblin’ out of Tom Daly’s closet, and it looks like maybe it’s Cunningham’s job to run interference and perhaps preemptively wordsmith them away.
And it may also be that Cunningham just wants to see what we’re up to so he can find out if he has any other buddies under our scrutiny. Or maybe he just wants to learn what real, disinterested citizen bloggers do.
In any case we’re flattered to have somebody check out and even publicize what we’re doing. See, unlike Cunningham, we aren’t front men for crooks, influence peddlers, and perjurers. We’re just funny that way.
Sandra Hutchens found it difficult to garner applause at the OC Young Republican’s Sheriff’s candidate forum last night, but she did have one shining moment. Unfortunately it came when she implored gun owners to vote for her opponents if they desire to see less restrictions on concealed weapons permits in Orange County.
A group named OCCCWS has asked a series of probing questions to appointed OC Sheriff Sandra Hutchens in what amounts to an accusation that she is covering up at least one incident of confidential records abuse within the SAFE division of the Sheriff’s department.
The letter asks if members of the OCSD SAFE division are currently under internal investigation for “illegally using law enforcement and/or DMV databases to probe the histories and/or personal information of individuals not under criminal investigation, such as current or former love interests, or romantic rivals.”
I'm watching you
It goes on to question the legality of not reporting the investigation to authorities such as the FBI and DOJ. OCCCWS also wants to know why the incident was kept from public view after promises of transparency within the department.
The accusations specifically target the S.A.F.E. division, which was developed by Hutchens last year to “create policies and procedures to bring the department up to industry standards.” For her critics, that means bringing Los Angeles-style policing to a reluctant Orange County population.
The letter contains no details or evidence to back up the accusations, so we’ll just hope that more information is forthcoming. It’s worth noting that the guys behind OCCCWS are well connected within the OCSD and their disdain for Hutchens is notorious, making it very plausible that news of an internal investigation would get leaked through them.
So was there an incident? An internal investigation? Will the department respond to requests for transparency? We’ll find out.
Four short years ago – 2006 – Bill Hunt challenged Sheriff Mike Carona’s re-election. Carona was well funded and had the backing of the entire OC political establishment – including me. That was my mistake. Our mistake. We already knew there were serious leadership issues in the Sheriff’s Department, serious enough to at least stay neutral. But we didn’t.
Three challengers received 49% of the votes, just a shy of forcing a November run-off. Of those three, Lieutenant Bill Hunt received by far the most votes. Give him credit for standing up and running, for taking an underfunded campaign without endorsements and nearly making it a 2-man run-off in November.
When Carona was forced to resign, I supported another candidate (Santa Ana Police Chief Walters) who had also nearly been elected – in 1998. I give my consideration and respect to those who want a job enough to actually place their name before the voters. Of the three current Sheriff’s candidates, only Hunt has actually received any votes in an election. The three votes our current Sheriff received came from the Supervisors who appointed her. Based on her subsequent performance, it is doubtful those three votes would still be there today.
A sheriff should protect people’s liberties – not restrict them. The current appointed Sheriff has arbitrarily revoked legally issued CCW permits of law-abiding citizens who did nothing to deserve such treatment.
A sheriff must face economic facts and work with the Board of Supervisors to adjust to revenue realities – not play a game of fiscal “chicken” and budget brinksmanship.
A sheriff must instill in staff a respect for elected decision-makers – not use security cameras to spy on them. They should respect citizens’ rights to voice their opinions – not use government-issued blackberries to belittle them in public meetings.
Bill Hunt understands this. He was there for us in 2006. He’s there now, again.
Craig Hunter is trying to pass himself off as a 2nd Amendment warrior, claiming to support gun-rights legislation to open up concealed weapons permits (CCW’s) to all citizens.
But the 2nd amendment hasn’t always been that simple for Hunter. A year and half ago, he approached the Board of Supervisors and expressed “comfort” with the current system that allows the Sheriff to arbitrarily restrict permits (and thus the Constitutional right to bear arms) to any law-abiding citizen.
So what changed Hunter’s position on constitutional gun rights?
The reality is that Hunter probably doesn’t really give a rat’s about anybody’s right to bear arms. Rather, his new fondness for the 2nd amendment was born at the behest of his political puppeteer Michael Schroeder and the Carona beneficiary Greg Block when they decided to run Hunter for sheriff late last year.
Passionate gun-rights supporters, while a minority, are high-value political target. They have money, grassroots energy and they’ve been kicked around by Sandra Hutchens so badly that they suffer from “Anybody But Hutchens Syndrome”. While that sounds nice on a bumper sticker, the danger of an “anybody but…” mindset is that we could end up with… well… anybody. Including another Mike Carona.
One of the fun things about public records searches is that you can also see who is doing searches. Now that’s good, clean fun!
We found out that Matthew J. Cunningham of the formerly Red County blog did a public records search on County Clerk candidate and Republican Hugh Nguyen. He asked for Nguyen’s e-mails since the invention of the computer. Well, over two year’s worth, anyway.
Oops! That was going to be pretty expensive since the County would have to hire a contractor to collect the data and then it would have to be reviewed prior to release. The upshot was the County declined to satisfy the request. They did provide Nguyen’s 700 forms (statement of economic interest).
On the other hand a record search of available records turned up a brief and harmless discussion about Daly protegee Renee Ramirez’ very brief County Clerk campaign sent to Nguyen. Wow. Go to work and turn that into an issue, Matthew!
Now first, let’s dispense with the “why” part for the uninitiated. Cunningham claims to be a conservative Republican – he’s been chattering away just like one for years now. And yet his mentor and string puller from way back is John Lewis, a campaign consultant and lobbyist who has been working for Democrat County Clerk Tom Daly behind the scenes since 2002. Daly recently quit the 4th District Supervisors race after a series of embarrassing revelations of waste and mismanagement in his office and has scuttled back to the County Clerk’s race so he can keep wasting money left and right as he protects our vital records.
Snooping on a fellow Republican, and one backed by a good share of the County Republican establishment in order to help a Democrat with an awful fiscal record? Bad boy. Bad, bad, boy!
When I'm done with my sports hall of fame project we'll get right to work on fixing 433 Civic Center West
Cunningham has already made it a point to parrot “untrustworthy” drivel about Nguyen he picked up at the local liberal blog and comically expanded upon; and hasn’t said a peep about any of Daly’s fiscal squanderings. How’s that for conservatism and accountability?
Matt and I are of like mind...
Now for the “how” of the great e-mail hunt. Presumably Cunningham could actually pony up the dough to do opp research on a Republican. Would he?That’s a lot of cash. If he does, it will look extremely suspicious and a reasonable person would have to question the source of the cash.
To wrap up, it’s pretty obvious that the Daly/Lewis/Cunningham team are worried about Nguyen. Daly has challenged Nguyen’s ballot title and a surrogate has actually challenged Nguyen’s use of his first name. Still it’s a County-wide race and Daly has plenty of name ID over the relatively unknown Nguyen.
But maybe they’re right to be worried. Are there more Daly skeletons that are about to tumble out of the closet?
Down in Anaheim Cynthia Ward (aka Colony Rabble) has been trying to raise the profile of the California High Speed Rail (CHSR) project that will inevitably cut a swath out of neighborhoods as it makes its way to Curt Pringle’s Platinum Triangle Ghost Town.
In Fullerton (except for us) I’ve heard nary a word.
It’s pretty evident that this massive boondoggle was promoted to bamboozle the State’s electorate into floating another 10 billion dollars of indebtedness and to divert it into the pockets of huge engineering and public works contractors. Conservatives used to call this income redistribution. Now some of them call it jobs, jobs, jobs.
My good friend popular Mayor Curt Pringle has taught me this much...
It is telling that Repuglicans Curt Pringle and Harry Sidhu both back this massive waste, plus the unconscionable OCTA uber-subsidy for their ARTIC choo-choo stop, as does Anaheim’s own Precious Princess Lorri Galloway, a union puppet who can be expected to do anything necessary to promote expanded union membership.
But I digress, yet again. Damn. Sorry.
How come there has been almost no discussion about this monster project and its potential right-of-way through Fullerton? Buena Park has recently learned to its dismay that the HSR will either take out part of their station or dozens of newly built houses built as part of a TOD scheme. Does our City Council know something they’re not telling us?
No. We don't anticipate any big environemental issues.
So what is happening in Fullerton? There is only one available route from BP to Anaheim, of course, and it will have to follow the BNSF/old UP rights-of-way. What will this mean to property owners and businesses in the way? What sort of traffic disruptions will this cause over the major north-south streets over the years? Aren’t we entitled to know?
At the January NUFF forum Shawn Nelson came out against the HSR; but what of the other councilmembers? Isn’t it time for a public hearing on this topic if, indeed anybody in City Hall is serious about transparency?
Shawn? Sharon? Pam? Dick? Don? Is there something you’d like to share with us? Why not agendize this issue. Now. Let’s have at it out in the open.
And maybe this should be a campaign issue for the fall. And maybe we need somebody on the OCTA like Nelson who is not going to just go along with Pringle.
P.S. For some fun watch this CNN video that is really little more than an infomercial for HSR: what a sweet deal for the tiny percentage of California’s 40 million people who just have to get between LA and SF in a hurry (they won’t, of course).
Try not to giggle at Pringle’s performance, if you can.
