The ability of Orange County Supervisors to take a month-long vacation from public meetings until August should raise serious questions about how much work these politicians really do and how much they’re getting paid.
This is after-all, the group that just hiked their pay by 25% and boosted executive salaries while denying workers raises in the new fiscal year budget that took effect at the start of this month.
[Read: Orange County Supervisors Now Make More Than California’s Governor]
This latest pay boost also triggered all kinds of alarm bells with Orange County’s grand jurors, prompting public questions about where the idea of boosting politician pay came from in the so-called public budget process.
Questions that grand jurors never got any real answers to.
[Read: Santana: Why Did County Blow Off Grand Jury Questions on Supervisors’ Pay Hike?]
Now, keep in mind that Orange County Supervisors cut back on their public meetings in 2016 – going from the traditional, weekly public meeting to a bi-weekly basis.
Ironically, proponents at the time argued the move would increase transparency by making public agendas available two weeks before public meetings.
“Right now the board is really squeezed,” said then-County Supervisors’ Chairwoman Lisa Bartlett, “trying to get things done in five days.”
Yet trying to make government meetings more efficient can often trigger chaos.
That’s how I’d describe the ensuing chaotic, giant and unsearchable supplemental agendas that come out from the County of Orange every Friday afternoon since the meeting schedule was changed.
While it sounds great in concept that county supervisors put their public agendas out two weeks before a meeting, what actually happens is that the public agenda becomes just a placeholder.
A cruel joke on the public – offering them the illusion of being informed, empowered.
The county supervisors’ real agenda – often times thousands of pages of last-minute items – now often gets posted on the Friday before their regularly-scheduled Tuesday meetings.
That kind of subterfuge worked like a charm for former Supervisor Andrew Do, whose schemes were able in part to take advantage of supplemental agendas to squeeze through questionable contracts – which we now know according to federal charges were tied to bribes coming back to him.
Keeping public agendas so secret contributes to a dangerous culture of silence among county bureaucrats.
I predicted as much in a column when Bartlett – who now serves as a trustee for the South Orange County Community College District – pushed through the change.
“That highlights another important change, which is department heads will now be under the total control of the chairperson. They won’t have the ability to show up with supplemental agenda requests like other supervisors,” I wrote in a 2016 column.
At the time, I predicted the shift to bi-weekly meetings would create more stale and structured public meetings and inevitably put the county’s bureaucratic deep state under the thumb of the board chair – something Do proved me right about.
The changes ultimately would enable supervisors to do more ribbon cuttings, fundraising, closed door politics and privately cut deals.
“That could mean a really politicized environment,” I wrote.
Flash forward a decade later to the most recent grand jury report calling out a bloated, politicized county bureaucracy.
[Read: Santana: Politician Spending Accounts Fuel Banana Republic Politics Across OC]
It’s also a bureaucracy that’s increasingly unpopular with the public, seen as serving big interests rather than residents.
[Read: Santana: Is It Time to Overhaul Orange County’s Government?]
Now back in 2016, then-Supervisor Bartlett argued for the changes, noting, “I have already passed this by the CEO and department heads … and they’re in favor of this. It’s a much more structured process,” said Bartlett.
“It’s very consistent with city councils. They have the two week rule. At the Board of Supervisors, I think it’s entirely reasonable.”
In one of my favorite quotes of all time, then-County Supervisor and current Superior Court Judge Shawn Nelson explained the difference between full-time and part-time politicians.
“I want to remind you, we’re full-time here. City councils are part-time, like coaching a softball league,” Nelson said. “I signed up for a full-time job and you all did. I think this is a mistake.”
