Supporting Muslims at UCI

UCI students rally in support of Muslims (OC Register)

     About 150 UCI students staged a protest at noon Thursday condemning a recent protest of a Muslim event at a north Orange County community center.
     Students formed a large semi-circle in front of the campus student center, waving signs that said "Today, I am a Muslim, too" and chanting slogans including "Join us against hate."
     The signs echo a similar protest that took place in Times Square Monday in response to New York Republican Rep. Peter King's hearings Thursday on radical Islam in the Muslim community.
     Rashmi Guttal, a second-year and one of the organizers of the event, said she saw a video of the Yorba Linda Community Center protest, which took place Feb. 13, and felt compelled to respond.
. . .
     Asaad Traina, a public health Science student at UCI and member of the campus Muslim Student Union, said he couldn't believe the anger he saw in the video [of the Yorba Linda event].
     He was particularly disturbed at [Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah] Pauly's suggestion that Marines could help the "these terrorists" into the afterlife.
     "I know some people thought that in private, but I didn't think elected officials could say it in public," Traina said. Pauly has called the video "highly edited and distorted."
     Student Traci Ishigo, an organizer of the event, said that she hopes the protest sends a message to elected officials.
     "A lot of students are registered voters, and we're against Islamophobia, and bigotry," said Ishigo. "We want them to understand that the UC Irvine community stands in solidarity with the Muslim American community against xenophobia."

What John wants

Williams Wants Keep His Job Until Next Year, Then Retire (Voice of OC)

     Embattled Orange County Public Administrator John Williams has proposed to county supervisors that he stay in his post for the rest of this year and then retire on January 23, 2012, according to sources close to the situation.
. . .
     Meanwhile, Peggi Buff – Williams' second-in-command (and fiancé to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas), has already negotiated her exit. Buff is leaving the office on Friday. She has secured a job transfer to the OC Community Resources agency. According to sources, Buff got a demotion with less pay and a lesser job classification.
     Williams' agency has come under intense scrutiny since a private attorney was hired earlier this year to look into how it was handling cases. The attorney's report – which has been kept confidential – was scathing (much like two grand jury probes in 2009) concluding that Williams was incompetent and creating liability for the county on a variety of levels….

"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.