Here is another roundup of some of the most thought-provoking reader comments of the week. Comments are selected by our editors and subject to editing for grammar, spelling, clarity and length.

Click on each topic’s headline to see the article in question.

MediConnect: Test Run for Obamacare

Why would any doctor in his right mind participate in this program when they are capitated at low rates to care for a high-risk patient population with many medical problems that require more time and expertise to treat?

No wonder there’s a shortage of docs willing to take on these patients while many older docs retire to get out of the business before Obamacare takes effect.

Bright young people had better think twice before choosing medicine as a career with the direction this nation is headed. Why go to cut-throat medical school and come out with $300,000 to $500,000 in student debt when you can graduate high school and get a job as a firefighter, make practically as much as a medical doctor and retire at 50 years of age?

— Beelzebub

Privatizing an Ambulance Service

The fire agencies should not have an issue with this paramedic program. It is for interhospital transports only. The fire agencies do not perform this type of transport for patients. The only instance in which paramedics are called for an interfacility transports is for an extreme emergency, such as the “walk-in trauma” or other conditions that the initial hospital cannot care for.

It does make sense to have a private company available for the higher-level calls so the public safety agencies are available to respond to service calls from the community.

— El Guapo

Police Oversight in Anaheim

Its obvious that the DA and/or the Police Department are incapable of being objective in their investigations of such [police shooting] incidents. It is far past time to hand over the investigations of such shootings and other incidents of police misconduct to an outside agency or body that would not have a stake in the outcome either way except in reaching the truth.

The Kelly Thomas murder [in Fullerton] in particular would not have even been charged had there not been such public outcry.

The public outcry by those outraged by the killing of Manuel Diaz [in Anaheim] went unacknowledged in my opinion due to their collective status of being perceived as second class citizens.

The Kelly Thomas supporters were of Caucasian bent and have used their power of vote in the past and present. The Latino community historically stays away from polls en masse.

— Paul Lucas

Tragedies and Political Missteps

A misstep indeed.

It is understandable that Murray and Krom were hurt that the mayors of Anaheim and Irvine were insensitive when responding to these tragedies. These [mass killings] were unspeakable tragedies that go way beyond politics, and it was unfortunate that these mayors did not have the foresight to include their colleagues in what should have been a united front in response to the devastating events that touched us all.

— Ground Control

I cannot speak for other cities, but I can tell you the Anaheim candlelight vigil was not a political event. It was truly a grass-roots coming together of the community in a desperate effort to do something to try and deal with the unimaginable horror and grief we were all reeling from [the Newtown, Conn., school massacre].

I pray that those reading their own motives into the actions of the mayor or his staff will think twice and not go there, as it damages what was an otherwise pure expression of people sharing overwhelming emotions.

The shootings were Friday morning [Dec. 14, 2012], and by Monday night Anaheim was gathered with candles. All who were involved are to be appreciated and thanked, and I hope and pray that no bad feelings will invade and pollute what was a truly heartfelt gathering that had no political undertones.

— Cynthia Ward

Brandman’s Report

It does make one ponder why they are squabbling over $24,000. Why not go after the law firm the county has been paying for a year now to investigate Alisa Drakodaidis? They have paid her full $170,000 salary for this year period while she sits home doing nothing for the Orange County taxpayers.

The CEO’s office keeps telling the press that the report is coming any day now. This has been the answer for at least four months. What a joke it is that they are now concerned with $24,000.

— Cacityguy

It isn’t just about $24,000. It speaks of the lack of ethics and integrity of our government officials. It gives the county working stiffs like me a bad name.

Rank and file in this office are amazing and generally hard-working, caring people that continue to suffer because their elected official is corrupt. This office [of the county clerk-recorder] has had corruption for 30 years and sadly will continue to do so until an honest politician can be found. We want to believe there is one out there.

Oh and by the way, if I were to turn in a report like Mr. Brandman’s or miss a deadline, this same office administration would come down on me — and hard. Rank and file would never be allowed such leniency.

— Workingstiff

No Chance for a Prospective CEO

Whichever Board of Supervisors member leaked Ms. Wallar’s candidacty to the press threw her under the bus at that moment.

It has been known for years that board members who want to curry favor with a reporter or stir up public sentiment leak information to the press. No one on the Hall of Administration’s 5th floor [the location of supervisors’ offices] can be trusted to keep a confidence — unless their personal career is threatened, that is.

There is, of course, also a possibility the leak came from county Human Resources, since the director is a candidate for the job.

In any event, watch now for a move to appoint a political crony to the job at [former CEO Tom] Mauk’s old salary or below.

— News Hound

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You are obviously connected to your community and value good journalism. As an independent and local nonprofit, our news is accessible to all, regardless of what they can afford. Our newsroom centers on Orange County’s civic and cultural life, not ad-driven clickbait. Our reporters hold powerful interests accountable to protect your quality of life. But it’s not free to produce. It depends on donors like you.

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Here is another roundup of some of the most thought-provoking reader comments of the week. Comments are selected by our editors and subject to editing for grammar, spelling, clarity and length.

Click on each topic’s headline to see the article in question.

County Wants Brandman to Put Up or Pony Up

A refund sounds reasonable. But I would use it as a precedent and audit back the countless contracts just like this and demand refunds. I suggest you start no later than when Janet Nguyen got into office and begin auditing her activities that resulted in contracts like this being awarded to cronies as no-bid contracts.

— Paul Lucas

I second that proposal, Paul. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Look at all the public funds that have been wasted and handed out to cronies over the last five years. That makes $24,000 look like chump change.

I don’t mind them going after [Anaheim City Councilman Jordan] Brandman as long as the same rules apply to everyone else so he’s not singled out. Otherwise it stinks of targeting political adversaries while allowing the favored white-shoe boys who belong to the big club to skate. That flies in the face of what America was designed to stand for.

— Beelzebub

Refund? Nuts to that. The guy can’t turn in his plagerized paper late and expect full credit. He failed his homework assignment and deserves an appropriate grade.

— Ryan Cantor

Egads. You know, I don’t want to engage in self-promotion here, but I would have been willing to submit a report copied from Wikipedia for only $19,999.99. A big savings.

— Greg Diamond

I would be interested to know who directed the county counsel to make this demand. I don’t recall that the Board of Supervisors gave such a directive. Why is that information not provided?

— Junior

Maybe Jordan could Google “apology and excuses” and copy and paste the results into an email response to The Voice.

— Oceans13

For what it’s worth, here is a 35-page report done by the EPA that cost about a $500,000 in staff time to develop. (It’s noted on the transmittal page of the report.)

Not saying it’s right, but it does put $24,000 into perspective.

— El Hombre

A New County CEO: ‘You’re Hired,’ ‘No, I’m Not’

The supervisors advertised the job as “salary open.” Then they impose a salary cap after recruitment has occurred and applications are in. Then they impose a “no double dippers” litmus test, meaning that no one who is retired from a public sector job will be considered. So they recruited people who should not have wasted their time or the county’s processing an application.

What a waste of time and money. Ladies and gentlemen, meet your elected county government leaders and their efficiency. A real embarrassment, but all too typical.

— News Hound

Really smart, Board of Supervisors. Ask [Santa Barbara County CEO Chandra] Wallar to take a de facto pay cut to come work for this dysfunctional board. Good luck with that.

Face facts: If the county wants a good CEO, the board will have to pay the going rate. And this county needs a quality CEO. This board should shine on Nick Berardino, [general manager of the Orange County Employees Association,] show it is able to make a decision and pay a quality CEO what he/she is worth.

— Sleepy Jean

Chandra Wallar must realize she has burned her bridges in Santa Barbara. She will need to settle for whatever OC will give her.

— Sblocal

The Clerk-Recorder Building Audit

Wait, did you just say real property records are being stored in that building? Are you kidding me?

The Clerk-Recorder is tasked with the responsibility to store records in a safe and secure manner. While that is supposed to require stable temperature and humidity controls meeting at least minimal archival standards, we often are forced to settle for reasonably dry and relatively safe from vermin.

A vacant building pretty almost assures us of rodent activity (they LOVE paper), and if the building is in bad condition, it likely leaks as well. No public records should be handled that way.

For all of the money Daly spent giving cushy jobs to his friends, how many of them had any training or background in document preservation, history, archival storage etc.?

— Cynthia Ward

‘Comfort the Afflicted and Afflict the Comfortable’

You know what comforts the comfortable? Having absentee owners in New York vulture funds decimating a staff to the point that it is bare bones, chasing away veteran reporters and having endless layoffs.

Aaron Kushner [owner of The Orange County Register] in eight months has added over 60 reporters. This as the Los Angeles Times continues layoffs, OC Weekly has lost its owner (who would rather keep its porno ad company, though they still do good work with a bare-bones staff), Voice of OC tries to find a financial footing, and the LA Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram and other media newspapers have evaporated. Meanwhile U-T San Diego is a house organ for the real estate interests of its owner and his buddies.

So let’s wait and see where this plays out. I care less about a public pronouncement than what shows up in the paper and the website in the the next few years. After being beaten down, we are on our feet.

— Gary Warner

This is really starting to feel like a tempest in a teapot. Kushner said he doesn’t think “afflict the comfortable” should be taken literally. Critics agree but like the phrase, and so they’re calling Kushner a total wuss.

Can we move on? I hardly imagine the guy is pouring a bazillion dollars into my former employer so a team of investigative reporters can produce weak-sauce stories, but you know what? We’re going to find out in the next few months.

— Jeff Overley

Funds Cut for Latino Health Access

I think it’s great that the supervisors are diversifying and using more groups to do this kind of outreach. Having all the eggs in one basket and counting on Latino Health Access to be the only possible provider isn’t very long-term thinking. That was kind of the whole purpose in making sure other organizations received training.

I, for one, am not comfortable with Latino Health Access at this point. With their recent issues with the California Endowment and some other questions being raised about their financial status, now is a good time for the supervisors to make sure they have options in place for continuity of these programs should LHA not be performing as expected.

It should also be noted that Latino Health Access has been maneuvering some of its programming into the political spectrum and not solely focusing on health care. The supervisors are smart to move the public funding to organizations where the money will be less likely to be commingled with funds used for political purposes.

— SA Resident

Since you've made it this far,

You are obviously connected to your community and value good journalism. As an independent and local nonprofit, our news is accessible to all, regardless of what they can afford. Our newsroom centers on Orange County’s civic and cultural life, not ad-driven clickbait. Our reporters hold powerful interests accountable to protect your quality of life. But it’s not free to produce. It depends on donors like you.

Make a tax-deductible donation

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Here is another roundup of some of the most thought-provoking reader comments of the week. Comments are selected by our editors and subject to editing for grammar, spelling, clarity and length.

Click on each topic’s headline to see the article in question.

Brandman’s County Contract

If [Anaheim City Councilman Jordan Brandman] was external relations manager [in the county clerk-recorder’s office], wouldn’t most of his job consist of being out of the office meeting with others? Isn’t that what the “external” part would be about?

I have no idea whether any of the rest of it was appropriate, but to imply that it’s somehow inappropriate for an external relations manager to be out of the office a lot seems really weird to me. Sloppy journalism.

— Sincerely yours

OK, Sincerely yours, you’re on. Show me the county of Orange job description for the “external relations manager.” It does not exist. What were the duties of this position? The assignments? Goals? Why would a county manager be out of the office a lot?

Here is the answer: We will never know, because the schedules were all destroyed. I find that strange. Far from “sloppy journalism,” I call it excellent investigative reporting.

I read [Brandman’s] “incomplete final draft.” To call this “effort” incomplete is a compliment. This piece of “work” is nothing but a download of existing “blah blah” that reminds me of what my kids did in junior high to fatten up a school report so that it looked like it had substance. To be paid upon the production of nothing but a hasty effort most likey pulled together within the last 15 days is in my view impossible to explain.

I appreciate Supervisor [Todd] Spitzer’s interest, and I look forward to the explanation of how all of this is “just a misunderstanding.”

And one more thing: The county does not clean the hard drives etc. of staffers after they leave. That work is transferred to the person who will need it for history or to take over the position — unless you have something to hide.

—Insider2

My opinion? If [former Clerk-Recorder Tom] Daly and Brandman were Republicans, this would be a nonstory. How did I reach that conclusion? By watching county politics for the last five or 10 years.

— Beelzebub

I do not see this as partisan. Indeed if Spitzer was looking for cheap points, there are easier, less volatile ways to do it.

Both Daly and Brandman represent far more than the more mainstream Democratic power structure. They are heavily protected and funded by huge corporate interests, who could retaliate against a politician with an eye on other offices. There were no shortage of threats reported during the Anaheim City Council campaign, when very powerful people repeated that sponsorships and other support relying on corporate donations would be yanked should offending entities fail to back off of Jordan [Brandman].

Spitzer has to seriously weigh the price of angering those folks, and that should make anyone with ambition think twice. There is a cost to be weighed here, and Spitzer is savvy enough to know that. There are easier ways to make a name for yourself.

I am impressed with Spitzer, someone I am not always — OK, almost never — in agreement with. I have to say he is stepping up and tackling some tough issues that carry potential consequences for him, and that takes stones.

— Cynthia Ward

I’m glad Todd [Spitzer] is coming out against government waste, cronyism, blatant ripoffs and the like. Todd will make a great district attorney someday. He’s brash, but he lays it right out there.

Politicos get into positions like clerk-recorder and immediately bring in their baggage hire buddies for highly paid staff positions, hire other buddies to do consulting work, God knows what else. If I knew, I’d be really depressed. It’s been going on way too long and costs millions of dollars and no one seems alarmed — or mostly no one.

It would be much better for an appointee for that position to lack political baggage. Like that’ll happen. Not likely.

— Steve Waechter

No surprise here. This happens all the time at the county with political friends. The only thing that’s surprising about it is that Spitzer and Moorlach are acting like they’ve never heard of anything like this before.

All the members of the Board of Supervisors get high-paying jobs for their political allies. It’s time for this corruption to stop.

— Stunned

We who work at the clerk-recorder’s office can tell you exactly what Mr. Brandman produced during his short time in employment: He lined up political backing for both Daly’s and his own campaigns.

I can tell you that Brandman is frantically working on his “draft” report for the clerk-recorder right this very minute. It is a stall tactic by Ramirez in order that something can be put together for this fictitious “study.” This is standard operating procedure for this department.

And lastly, why is a report that was due over six months ago still in “draft” form? If it was due, it should be completed and available for the new clerk-recorder to review.

— Working Stiff

Supervisor Nguyen and the FBI

Didn’t the supervisors just give the DA over $1 million to create a “public integrity unit”? Where are they? Isn’t this stuff right up their alley? Or is [Supervisor] Janet [Nguyen] teflonized in OC?

It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out. Once the FBI gets hold of your pant leg, they normally don’t let go. They aren’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill beat cops.

— Beelzebub

Surprise, surprise, surprise. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for this story to see the light of day.

She and her staff have been shaking down county department staff, nonprofit agencies and anyone else with any link to the county for years. Now that someone from outside the county is investigating her, maybe all of those people that got calls from the supervisor and her sister will be bold enough to safely call the FBI without fear of having her retaliate.

— Transparent

Since you've made it this far,

You are obviously connected to your community and value good journalism. As an independent and local nonprofit, our news is accessible to all, regardless of what they can afford. Our newsroom centers on Orange County’s civic and cultural life, not ad-driven clickbait. Our reporters hold powerful interests accountable to protect your quality of life. But it’s not free to produce. It depends on donors like you.

Make a tax-deductible donation

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Here is another roundup of some of the most thought-provoking reader comments of the week. Comments are selected by our editors and subject to editing for grammar, spelling, clarity and length.

Click on each topic’s headline to see the article in question.

No More Money for the Mayor’s Aide

There are so many individual pieces of misinformation flying through the blogosphere about Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait and his budget for his office aide, Mishal Montgomery. It has got to be time for some actual facts to be brought forward.

Last year’s city budget was altered to bring the allotment for each council member’s support staff (including the mayor’s) to a maximum of $60,000.00 per year. All of these conditions have applied to Mishal Montgomery since the budget for the current year was approved. The choice to ignore these policies by both Mayor Tait and Ms. Montgomery created their own emergency need for additional funds for the mayor’s support staff budget.

The argument from the mayor’s office that “no one told us there was a problem” just cannot possibly hold water.

— Anaheimone

Mishal is in a classification based on education and experience that does set her apart from other [council members’] staff and merits compensation. Sorry, not all staff are equal.

Not only did [the mayor] not irresponsibly burn through his budget expecting them to bail him out, he and Mishal had been watching her paychecks, knowing that crowd of vipers would show no mercy if they came up short.

Anyone with knowledge of government pay classifications understands how complicated they can get, so the council’s oversimplification of the situation is disingenuous. There is much, much more to compensation, including some costs that Tait and Montgomery apparently were not provided with.

Methinks they got screwed — not surprising given the Machiavellian atmosphere at City Hall these days. It becomes clear that this is nothing but elected leaders using the power given to them by Anaheim citizens to implement their own private, petty retaliation against a mayor who is getting in the way of their spending our money on their friends.

— Cynthia Ward

If you think that the mayor should be able to pay his aide more then the rest of the council’s aides, then last year’s budget meeting was lousy for you. But the budget was changed last summer. Tom knew he had less money to spend on his aide eight months ago, and he went ahead and ran through his budget anyway. Irresponsible.

— OCTaxpayer

Per the article, “The compensation cut, which brought Tait’s aide budget to the same level as the other council members, was the only adjustment council members had made when approving the city’s nearly $1.2-billion total budget.”

Sounds more like a personal attack on the mayor than fiscal austerity. That is the real story.

— Anaheim Neighbor

No LGBT Discrimination for Santa Ana?

I suppose the city can dictate such terms over a private event if the event is held on city property (i.e., the streets). But the city can’t pick and choose which groups to discriminate against.

So if the Ku Klux Klan wants to march in the Martin Luther King parade, they’d have to allow it in order to be philosophically consistent. Or if an anti-abortion group wants to march in a feminist rights parade, that would have to be allowed too, I suppose.

— VoiceofOCEA

Why do you analogize the presence of LGBT Vietnamese celebrating Tet with their brothers and sisters to the presence of a hate group?

— CarlyByrnes

Help for Homelessness in Stanton

There are families and homeless people on the streets who are there through no fault of their own and certainly not by choice. These are the people who need that safety net, and we should be providing it for them.

Then there are those people who choose drug addiction, no employment and life on the streets over rehabilitation. There is nothing we can do for these people except to keep them from committing crime and interfering with the lives of others.

Before we as a society can fix a problem, people must acknowledge that the problem exists and want change to come.

— Ltpar1

This is a pretty amazing story. Here you have the city of Stanton that by all reports teeters on the brink of banktrupcy and can still find the wherewithal to provide resources for its homeless population.

And then you have the richest cities in Orange County that pass draconian ordinances that won’t even allow a person to sleep in his own car parked on a city street.

And then you have the Board of Supervisors purchase a 29,000-square-foot furniture warehouse in Fullerton for over $3 million so that they can dump all their Civic Center homeless off on the residents of Fullerton. As long as they clean out Civic Center and don’t have to deal with the daily eyesore, it’s all good to them.

Every city should be mandated to care for its own homeless population. The problem is that Stanton has a program, so it draws homeless people from all over the county. And Stanton must bear the costs. Totally unfair. They do the right thing and, as a result, are indirectly punished for it. 

Instead of dumping the homeless problem on select cities, make all OC cities open up smaller homeless centers to deal with their own problems. Transferring the problem from one city to the next is a really stupid way to manage it.

— Beelzebub

Fair Board Investigation Sent Back to the DA

Well, good luck with the Orange County DA. Rackauckas is very reluctant to go after other OC elected officials and other political allies. He has refused to investigate and enforce violations of the county’s campaign reform ordinance. Additionally, since he has already issued his opinion that “nothing was done inappropriately in the Fair Board matter,” he is not likely to admit he was wrong.

This matter should be sent to the FBI or the attorney general’s office. Otherwise it will die on the vine in the DA’s office.

— Shirley Grindle

It’s not the attorney general’s job. Gov. Brown is a pragmatic old Titan. He doesn’t view Orange County with much respect and rightfully so.

At the core of this is what he views as “self–governance.” If Orange County is satisfied having a DA that sits on his hands and ignores any and all political corruption in the county, then that is what Orange County deserves. Who is he to try and solve this county’s problems? He’s got a state to run.

— Gericault

The attorney general is conflicted legally because the AG was the attorney of record at the time the infractions in question took place — or at least those that are most questionable, which are the payments by the Fair Board to [former state Sen. Dick] Ackerman and [Orange County Republican Chairman Scott] Baugh to set up the sale to the OC Fair Foundation, which was the Fair Board minus one.

If Nick Bernadino was serious about an investigation, he would have asked the governor to establish an independent prosecutor. Why he called for the investigation and then moved to bury it is a curious question.

I agree with Shirley that the DA won’t admit he made a mistake in his initial investigation, when much more was on the line.

— George

Whatever happened to that million dollars plus that the supervisors gave to [District Attorney] Tony Rackaukas to form his “Public Integrity Unit” to go after political scoundrels?

Those funds are reserved to go after political enemies only. That’s because friends don’t prosecute friends, do they?

— Beelzebub

Ready for Obamacare?

It’s interesting that when there are an insufficient number of doctors willing to take the offered pay, then the problem is with the pay. But when there is an insufficient number of engineers willing to take the offered pay, industry goes running to Congress saying we need to issue more green cards because there is a shortage of engineers.

There are plenty of doctors working in other countries at U.S. standards. Why isn’t the solution just like what industry does with engineers to keep engineers’ wages depressed?

Of course, according to Time magazine, the medical-industrial complex spends more money on lobbying Congress than even the military-industrial complex.

— Kburgoyne

Anaheim’s Streetcar

Wanted to share this example showing that a streetcar project can be built without spending $100 million per mile.

The city of Cincinnati is gathering bids for a 3.6-mile streetcar project with bids ranging from $71 to $87 million total. That’s roughly only $24 million per mile at the high end.

So why is Anaheim’s streetcar so expensive, Councilwoman Kris Murray?

— SaveAnaheim

The streetcar is a win-win for Anaheim and Disney. But since it is primarily for Disney, they certainly should contribute to its cost as well as provide right of way in the park.

Normally a modern streetcar line costs closer to $30 million to $50 million per mile for a bidirectional line. Tuscon, Tampa, Little Rock, Memphis, Tacoma, Portland and others built their streetcar lines for under $50 million a mile. Why is this line so expensive?

Also why doesn’t this line serve Honda Center, Westwood College and the Arena Corporate Center? Their parking areas along with Angel Stadium’s parking could be used for additional Disney parking.

— Inrweuebans

Left out on your Anaheim agenda items were the three scheduled public hearings.

The first two public hearings are eminent domain actions where the city of Anaheim will authorize the seizing of private property for the benefit of Disneyland. The properties at Katella and State College are wanted in preparation for the $300-million street cars between the unneeded $200-million Disney ARTIC train station and the front gate of Disneyland.

The third public hearing is to allow a large McDonald’s restaurant with drive-in facilities in the often full parking lot of the movie theater located at the northwest corner of one of the most congested intersection in Anaheim: La Palma Aveue and Imperial Highway.

Without the front parking lot, movie patrons would have to park illegally at nearby businesses or at the high-crime parking structure in the far rear of the movie theater (about a 100-yard walk to the entrance).

Even if Voice of OC stopped covering the rest of Orange County and used its entire staff to report only on Anaheim city government corruption and theft of public funds by Disneyland, the Voice of OC would still need to triple its size to keep up with the questionable events in Anaheim.

— Anaheim HOME

Since you've made it this far,

You are obviously connected to your community and value good journalism. As an independent and local nonprofit, our news is accessible to all, regardless of what they can afford. Our newsroom centers on Orange County’s civic and cultural life, not ad-driven clickbait. Our reporters hold powerful interests accountable to protect your quality of life. But it’s not free to produce. It depends on donors like you.

Make a tax-deductible donation

About Voice of OC: Mission | Editorial Policies | Contact Us | Funding | Privacy Policy

Join the conversation: In lieu of comments, we encourage readers to engage with us across a variety of mediums. Join our Facebook discussion. Message us via our website or staff page. Send us a secure tip. Share your thoughts in a community opinion piece.

Here is another roundup of some of the most thought-provoking reader comments of the week. Comments are selected by our editors and subject to editing for grammar, spelling, clarity and length.

Click on each topic’s headline to see the article in question.

The Register: No More ‘Attack Ads’

A newspaper deciding not to run attack ads. If you wanted to run the ad only if you could include the name, it tells me that you weren’t trying to defend an issue, you were trying to take down an individual.

Bravo Register.

— Grannydee

Wow! This is beyond troubling. Subjective standards by a corporate newspaper will dictate “what’s good for the community” and what’s not?

Honestly, I don’t understand how the ad that was submitted could be construed as bad for the community at all. Obviously the thousands of people who signed the petition against the hotel tax giveaway disagreed.

This is very dangerous territory for journalism.

— Stunned

Unfortunately there are no rules requiring political literature to print the truth. Consequently, anyone can say anything they like for or against a candidate. Political campaigns are the only venue that I know of where there is no penalty for lying and in fact, lying is the name of the game.

Since I am not in favor of “independent expenditures” to begin with, I support The Orange County Register’s new policy to not run IE ads where an individual is named. I hope that means all IE ads regardless of whether the ads support or oppose specific candidates.

There are other means for individuals to exercise their free speech rights, and it is the right of the Register to establish this policy.

— Shirley Grindle

I must have missed the part where The Orange County Register stopped being a privately owned business entity that could run its newspaper at it sees fit.

Jason Young has the right to say what he wants, when he wants. But he does not have the right to say it in the Register. When he plunks down millions of dollars to own that paper he can do with it what he will.

There is nothing shameful or wrong in knowing your audience and catering to them.

And lest anyone forget, the Register has taken some pretty nasty swings at these two councilwoman in the past six months. Perhaps they just didn’t want Mr. Young cutting in on their action?

Their business, their rules. Simple as that.

— Responsible Orange

That is not the story here, Responsible Orange. This is about [Anaheim Councilwomen] Kris Murray and Gail Eastman stopping dissent by manipulating The Orange County Register into censoring my ads.

The Register seems to have no problem posting ads for “adult services” that include “massages” and “phone sex.” But they object to factual ads about what is going on in the city of Anaheim?

And Shirley, I don’t have $10,000 to send out a mailer. Care to share other ways I can get the message out for the cost of a Register ad?

— SaveAnaheim

I publish a regular blog covering issues in Brea, “Brea Matters.” I speak often with locals, politicians and, yes, Orange County Register staff writers. The latter, since the [ownership] changeover, are even more handcuffed than were their predecessors.

I’m hardly a fan of dirty politics and malicious mud slinging, but when the facts are irrefutable, the truth deserves to be heard.

— Brea Matters

It would be a problem for our region, in terms of lack of diversity of opinion and practice, if both the Los Angeles Times and the Register were owned by the same company. And of course, the reaction to Jason Young’s ads is not discomforting.

Taking all of that into consideration, if I had 10 chances to choose between [Register owner Aaron] Kushner and [Rupert] Murdoch’s News Corp. as a new owner, I’d choose Kushner 10 times out of 10. That’s how bad News Corp. is.

Don’t do it, LA Times. Don’t do it.

— Greg Diamond

Concealed Weapons for Off-Duty Special Officers?

The title of this article should be “Special Officers Want Their Right to Carry Restored.” Since 1993 the state of California has allowed these sworn officers the right to carry [concealed weapons] off duty, and now because of some arbitrary decision by some uninformed commission — the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission — the sheriff had a knee jerk reaction and took that right away from these officers.

An Orange County sheriff’s special officer is a highly trained peace officer. The state recognizes this, and that is why they are allowed to carry on their duties just like any other peace officer in this state.

I can’t see how a local sheriff can supersede a state ruling and dictate what an officer can do off duty with his or her weapon. I can’t remember the last time, if any, that a special officer was in the news because of misconduct with his weapon off duty.

In this day and age of random violence, why wouldn’t the average intelligent citizen not want a highly trained police officer to be able to carry [a weapon] off duty and possibly prevent that citizen from being harmed by some crazed gunman.

If you were being carjacked at gunpoint, would you like to think that there might be an off-duty special officer, deputy or police officer in the car next to you to intervene and possibly save your life? I would.

The sheriff needs to recant her order and give back the special officer’s ability to carry [weapons] for the safety of their families and for the safety of the citizens of Orange County.

— OCloylemployee

This is one of the few good calls that [Sheriff Sandra] Hutchens has made, in my opinion.

[OCloylemployee wrote,] “If you were being carjacked at gunpoint, would you like to think that there might be an off-duty special officer, deputy or police officer in the car next to you to intervene and possibly save your life?”

Oh, stop with the fear tactics. We’re over that stuff. It would be better for that citizen in danger to have his own concealed weapon than to rely on some Barney Fife cop to save his life.

Face it. This is all about a power trip. It inflates the egos of these cops to carry a hog off duty. It makes them feel 6 inches taller and built like the Incredible Hulk.

So come down off your clouds. You aren’t nearly as “special” as your job title indicates. You are one rung above a Pinkerton. That’s it.

— Beelzebub

If we’re going to trust that law enforcement has been properly trained to be carrying around guns on duty, then we must consider they continue to have that training while off duty.

I understand that many people will point to incidents of illegal or questionable police shootings, and I don’t dismiss those incidents. However, while those incidents are important to be dealt with, can they really be said to represent the overwhelming majority of law enforcement? I think claiming they do is completely unfair.

— Kburgoyne

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