GOP connections, fiascos, and the hefty pricetag

How Much Could the Williams’ Fiasco Cost Taxpayers? (Voice of OC)

     …[T]he big question facing supervisors is whether to agree to hand [OC Public Administrator/Guardian John] Williams the payoff he seeks in exchange for resigning – estimated at a year or more of salary – which he argues he secured when voters re-elected him to office in 2010.
     Yet voices are rising against offering Williams any kind of payoff, complicating the negotiations.
. . .
     Williams assent was a byproduct of his local GOP connections, cruising into office with solid endorsements from GOP heavyweights such as County Supervisor John Moorlach.
     Yet by 2009, he was under fire from the county's grand jury, which issued two scathing reports that criticized Williams' growing bureaucracy and management staff….
     He also was the focus of a county audit that looked at his extensive travel, questioning whether he could legitimately charge taxpayers for work when he was off on educational conferences connected to his work as a school district trustee.
     Moorlach turned against Williams hard, especially after the grand jury reports, removing his endorsement before the 2010 election and becoming a vocal opponent.
. . .
     Both [Bill] Campbell and [Janet] Nguyen have now called for Williams' resignation.
     And while Williams won re-election to countywide office last June, in what could have been seen as a harbinger of Williams' collapsing support base, he lost re-election to the OC Republican Central Committee that same month.
     Those kinds of political insiders, so key to Williams' quiet rise, are now the very ones telling supervisors to play hardball as Williams tries to negotiate his way out.