"It's very, very frustrating"

Supes: Public administrator shouldn’t be elected (OC Reg, Total Buzz)

     The county’s voters should decide whether the public administrator should be appointed rather than elected, according to a proposal by two county supervisors.
     The move comes in the wake of calls for current Public Administrator John S. Williams to resign, a move by the board to strip him of his public guardian duties and reorganize his struggling department, and a claim filed against the county accusing Williams of negligence in the handling of the multimillion-dollar estate of TapouT co-founder Charles “Mask” Lewis.
     The motion is scheduled to be heard at next week’s board of supervisors meeting.Chairman Bill Campbell and Vice Chairman John Moorlach are asking for the ballot measure to be part of the next statewide election.
     That could come as early as June if Gov. Jerry Brown manages to get enough support in the state Legislature for a ballot measure asking voters to extend tax increases that expire this year.
     The board will vote next week to formally strip Williams of his role of public guardian, an appointed position.
     Williams has offered to step down from office in return for certain considerations that so far have not been made public; he remains in place for now.
     “I keep getting told any day now, any day now,” Campbell said. “It’s very, very frustrating.”
     Williams’ private attorney Phil Greer declined to comment on the issue.
     Williams, a former Orange County marshal with close political ties to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and former GOP Chairman Tom Fuentes, has served as the county’s elected public administrator and appointed public guardian since 2003.
     “Based upon the history of the Public Administrator position in Orange County, the low salary that specifically to that position and recent issues with that office that have been the subject of grand jury investigations and an internal County investigation … it would be wise at this time to allow the voters of Orange County an opportunity to change the position of Public Administrator for the County of Orange to be an appointive rather than elected position,” according to the staff report.
     If approved by the voters, the public administrator would be appointed by and serve at the will of the board of supervisors.
     If Brown can’t get the needed votes to hold a special election in June, the vote on the public administrator would have to wait until the June 2012 election.
     Orange County has 12 elected officials, including the five county supervisors. The change, if approved, would only affect the status of future public administrators, Campbell said.

L.A. Community College District trustees fire head of construction program (LA Times)

     The Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to terminate the contract of Larry Eisenberg, the head of its troubled bond-financed construction program, effective Saturday. ¶ The unanimous, closed-door vote of the seven-member board came days after a series of Times articles exposed widespread waste in the $5.7-billion campus rebuilding program. Eisenberg, 59, the district’s executive director of facilities planning and development, has led the construction program since 2003.