Orange County Supervisors will be meeting behind closed doors in the near future to discuss the latest finalists to become the next CEO of Orange County.
“Hiring the right dynamic, experienced CEO for Orange County is critical to moving forward,” is how Supervisor Janet Nguyen put it when I asked her about the hiring process that screeched to a halt after a bribery scandal involving disgraced former Supervisor Andrew Do surfaced.
That scandal – in which Do pleaded guilty to enriching himself while directing $10 million to a shady nonprofit his daughter worked at – continues raising questions about a culture lacking accountability and Orange County’s history of weak CEOs flanked by aggressive politicians.
[Read: Santana: Orange County’s Bankruptcy of Oversight]
Supervisor Katrina Foley told me she wants to see a creative, innovative CEO that can bring forward bold ideas, especially when it comes to generating revenue, spurring economic development given the uncertainty of budgets in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.
Supervisor Don Wagner envisions a CEO that can “run the organization professionally but at the end of the day, on policy matters, takes direction from the board.”
At the same time, Wagner said offering board members “unvarnished opinions” is just as important.
Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento wants to see a mix of skill sets, someone “who understands the complexities of running a large county, but who has a fresh vision.”
Like Foley, Sariento highlights the “uncertainties” faced by the county and uses words like “practical,” “creative” and “courage” when describing the next CEO.
It’s a big job, overseeing daily operations of a slew of super agencies, leading nearly 20,000 public workers along with a $9.5 billion budget aimed at improving residents quality of life through key nuts and bolts programs like public safety, landfills, health and social services, libraries, transportation not to mention the county’s vast public parks, beaches and harbors.
According to sources, it seems there were about 165 applicants that came forward for this latest round of the CEO search, which closed earlier this month, with just under a handful of finalists being considered.
So far, county supervisors have been focused on finding a CEO with big county experience in California.
They also want a CEO that can walk in with a unanimous board behind them – a plot twist that has reportedly complicated the search.
The goal of keeping board offices happy hasn’t exactly turned out that great historically for the County of Orange, crafting a bureaucracy expert at duck and cover drills.
There has not been a historic focus on independent CEOs at the County of Orange – even though that’s exactly what was urged after the 1994 county bankruptcy.
The last three CEOs at the County of Orange have all been internal emergency retreads, one from the landfill and the last two from the budget office.
It’s been nearly a year since the retirement of former CEO Frank Kim, who held the reins since 2015 and left last year just before the wheels fell off at the county Hall of Administration with the Do bribery scandal.
In the wake of the Do scandal, the majority of county supervisors resisted calls for a deep investigation into the county culture that enabled Do.
It marked another phase in a consistent pattern of destroying accountability protections like independent auditing, hollowing out independent reporting offices and promoting weak executive managers — all resulting in a culture of lax oversight and accountability.
When faced with a similar scandal, Anaheim City Council members ordered a full investigation by independent investigators – a probe that no doubt showed an ugly side to city hall, but also prompted much debate along with a few key reforms like tighter lobbyist registration and hiring an ethics officer.
[Read: Anaheim Begins Implementing Changes From Fall of Reform Debates
In the wake of the Do scandal – and an ensuing wildfire caused by public works crews – county supervisors not only resisted a deep look but later mysteriously took full control of the county’s $17 billion investment portfolio.
Without much public debate, OC Supervisors got rid of the county Treasurer Tax Collector’s stewardship of the funds along with a key public finance oversight panel set up in the wake of the Wall Street bailout of the county budget in the 1990s.
[Read: Santana: Should OC Supervisors Manage A $17 Billion Public Investment Portfolio Alone?]
Ironically, supervisors are slated to again consider calling on federal prosecutors and judges to issue a harsher prison sentence for Do at the 9:30 a.m. OC Board of Supervisors meeting today.
[Read: OC Supervisors Deadlock On How to Call for Harsher Sentencing on Andrew Do]
Meanwhile, they’ve asked zero hard questions in public about the county executives that they oversee, executives that provided feckless oversight on contracts connected to Do.
An executive class that has never been held to account.
The search for a new CEO offers supervisors a rare chance to reboot county government.
Will they take it?
Correction. An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated that county supervisors would hear a closed session update on the CEO search at the Apr. 22 meeting. That update will happen in the near future. We regret the error.