Wherever you see corruption and cronyism in this County, he’ll be there (no, not Tom Joad; Tom Fuentes)

     When I think about Tom Fuentes, I think about Tom Joad. Yes, Tom Joad.
     In particular, I think of Joad’s famous “I’ll be there” speech at the end of John Ford’s “Grapes of Wrath”:

...I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too.

     Joad’s imagined ubiquity was a “we’re all in this together” kind of thing—something good and noble. Tom Fuentes’s I’ll-be-there-itude, however, is something entirely different. He is the inevitable nexus of all manner of OC Republican shittiness.
     Yes, shittiness. Consider:
     Tom’s there when guys are intimidating Latinos from voting by hiring guards to stand outside polling places. Tom’s there when guys make sure that their political cronies get County jobs and contracts. Tom’s there—to provide moral support and exploit celebrity—when the Sheriff used his office for personal gain and gave cronies important department jobs. Tom’s there when an opportunity for cheap demagoguery cancels a good college program. Tom’s there when a guy who obviously breached his duty for self-gain is promoted as a political star as manager of the county’s assets.
     Well, I could go on. And on. And on.
     Tom was also there when, back in 2006, his advisee Tan Nguyen sent letters to Latino voters in an effort to intimidate them from voting (in Nguyen's bid to secure Loretta Sanchez’s Congressional seat).
     Well, today, Nguyen was finally sentenced—not for sending the letters, but for lying to state investigators about his role in the enterprise.
     So, like Tom’s pals Mike Carona and Chriss Street (whom he endlessly promoted and exploited), Tan Nguyen was brought down by the courts.
     And, like Carona, Nguyen will be spending his immediate future in prison. Yep.
     Read all about it:

A typical Fuentean hero: throwing others under the bus

Former candidate Tan Nguyen: 'It's been hell' (OC Register)

     Dean Steward, Nguyen's attorney, argued that the two-time GOP candidate deserved probation, but [Judge] Carter said people who run for public office should be held to the highest ethical standards, and that Nguyen's conduct showed a "true lack of character.". . .
     After a mistrial last August, Nguyen was convicted in December of one felony count of obstructing a probe into a controversial letter that his campaign sent to 14,000 Latino voters. Sanchez is the longtime Democratic congresswoman whose district includes Garden Grove, Santa Ana and parts of Fullerton and Anaheim.. . .
     At the time, Nguyen denied having anything to do with the letters, and blamed them on a campaign volunteer whom he fired. Nguyen also cast blame on another campaign volunteer who was a close college friend.

Tan Nguyen Gets Prison for Anti-Loretta Sanchez Vote Scheme (OC Weekly)

     A native of South Vietnam and a man who has clearly struggled to understand simple ethical concepts in the U.S., Nguyen has long claimed he had no role in devising a pre-election letter that sought to frighten 14,000 Latino citizens from voting. Multiple investigations proved otherwise, yet Nguyen attempted to convert his status as a convicted felon into a martyrdom. That effort pathetically failed, too….

Williams gutted and depleted the value of the Tapout estate, says Lewis’ ex-wife

     Today, I got a kind of thank-you note from Kimberly Edds of the OC Reg. I wasn’t sure what she was thanking me for, but she did leave a link to her article about Williams in today’s Register:

Claim filed against O.C. public guardian in TapouT estate case (OC Watchdog)

     The heirs of TapouT co-founder Charles “Mask” Lewis have filed a claim against the county, accusing Public Administrator/Public Guardian John S. Williams of negligence in the handling of the multi-million dollar estate of Lewis, who died in a 2009 car crash.
     The claim, filed last week by Diane Larson, Lewis’ ex-wife and mother of his two children, accuses Williams of failing to properly manage the multi-million dollar estate, operated TapouT “in a manner to gut and deplete the value of the estate’s interest,” and sold TapouT without authorization.
. . .
     A judge will decide how the fees are distributed. Larson wants the fee matter decided by an out-of-county judge; the public administrator is fighting Larson’s change of venue request for the case….
     Meanwhile, Williams is working with county officials to move in a new executive manager to overhaul the culture of his struggling agency. It is unclear whether Williams, who has repeatedly been criticized for the way he runs his agency, will step down in the wake of the Board of Supervisors’ decision to bring in additional oversight and make immediate personnel changes.
     The Board of Supervisors can remove Williams from the appointed position of public guardian at any time. He is also the county’s elected public administrator, a position which the Board of Supervisors cannot take from him.
. . .
     Williams, who began serving a new four-year term in January, remains in charge of the office for now. Williams still owes himself $125,500 for his campaign, according to campaign finance filings.
     Williams is cooperating with Board Chairman Bill Campbell and the county’s Chief Executive Officer Tom Mauk to ease into the transition, Campbell said. Discussions are ongoing about Williams’ fate in the office, Campbell said.
. . .
     While trying to negotiate his own future, Williams is negotiating with the county to save the jobs of his political appointees if he leaves office before his term is up, county officials confirmed.
     Among Williams’ political appointees is Peggi Buff, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’fiancee, who was promoted by Williams from executive assistant to his second-in-command five years after she began working for the office. Williams has political ties to Rackauckas and longtime Orange County Republican Chairman Tom Fuentes.
. . .

     The move to wrestle control of the agency away from Williams is a result of two county grand jury reports and the county’s own investigation which exposed “serious concerns” about the department’s operations, according to the county’s chief executive office.
. . .
     Williams’ private attorney, Phil Greer, called the Watchdog back Monday afternoon to provide a “no comment.” Greer is a county GOP insider who has represented all five current county supervisors except Supervisor John Moorlach….
     The yet-to-be hired manager will be charged with establishing a risk-averse culture, instituting new standards for obtaining goods and services, and making personnel adjustments after a human resources audit of the Public Administrator/Public Guardian is finished.
     The county wants to fill the position with an experienced lawyer, banker or receiver, Campbell said. The executive manager will report directly to Mauk, who has the final say on who is hired. Williams, a former Orange County marshal, holds a masters’ degree in public administration, but is not a lawyer.
. . .
     Renewed calls for reform were made last fall after then-Assistant District Attorney Todd Spitzer was fired by Rackauckas after he made a call to the Public Guardian’s office regarding a case.
     Rackauckas, in an October press conference, admitted he was uneasy about confronting Spitzer over his call to the public guardian because of his fiancée’s position in the office. He also confirmed he spoke with Buff’s staff before firing Spitzer.
     Rackauckas’ chief of staff, Susan Kang Schroeder, also admitted during the same press conference she discussed Williams’ press release criticizing Spitzer for calling his department. Williams had said in a previous interview that the press release was the work of several people within his own agency and did not involve anyone from an outside agency. Kang Schroeder had also previously denied any involvement.
     Buff, who was a one-time campaign fundraiser for Rackauckas also helped raise campaign money for Supervisor Pat Bates during her 2010 re-election campaign. Buff was first appointed to the pubic administrator/public guardian in 2003 as an executive assistant….

The Loss of Nameless Things: Tad Hall

Some of you knew Tad Hall; more than a few have heard Rebel Girl speak about her friend, the son of her teacher Oakley Hall, the brother of Reb's best friend Brett. Over the weekend, word came that he had died.

Here's some words:
Oakley Hall III, “Tad,” died of a heart attack this past weekend. He was 60 years old.

Oakley Hall III, eldest son of the late novelist Oakley Hall, was a playwright, director, and author. In the mid-70s, when he was a rising star in the New York theatre scene, his play Mike Fink was optioned by Joseph Papp of the Public Theatre. He founded and was the Artistic Director of the legendary Lexington Conservatory Theatre, in upstate New York, where his plays Grinder’s Stand and Beatrice and the Old Man, and his adaptation of Frankenstein enjoyed their premiere productions. Lexington Conservatory Theatre moved to Albany in 1979 and continues today as Albany Rep.



In 1978, Oakley suffered traumatic and massive head injuries in a fall from a bridge. He eventually returned to California to live in Nevada City near his family; his play Grinder’s Stand was produced by the Foothill Theatre Company, directed by Philip Sneed. The story of this production, entwined with Oakley’s fall and the slow process of creating a new life, are movingly told in Bill Rose’s award-winning documentary, The Loss of Nameless Things. (posted below)

Oakley made a life-long study of the surrealist playwright, Alfred Jarry, and over the years translated several of his plays from the original French. In 2008, Hall moved to Albany, New York, to live with Hadiya Wilborn, who helped set in motion a collaboration with acclaimed puppeteer Ed Atkeson. This resulted in a production of one of those translated plays, Ubu Roi, at an Albany theater, Steamer 10, directed by Oakley, with Steven Patterson in the title role.



In the fall of 2010, Moving Finger Press published Oakley’s novel, Jarry and Me, in which Oakley intertwines a memoir of his own life with a sly “autobiography” of Jarry. One of the last sentences of the book is, “Jarry dies with a grin on his face.” We are told that Oakley too had a grin on his face, at the end. As Oakley would say: “Merdre.”



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If you want to read a Valentine's Day poem, visit Rebel Girl's The Mark on the Wall.

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