Fuentes, Michelena & Overby: plump mosquitoes from the same swamp

     “Frank G. Michelena is the guy you go to see when you want something from Orange County government.”

—LA Times, 1990

     "I challenge Mr. Bein and his lobbyist Tom Fuentes to give even one legitimate reason why their firm gives gifts to individuals who have decision-making power over contracts…. ...Now we all know what it takes to be a successful engineering firm in Orange County."

—Shirley Grindle, 1993

     In my last post, I laid out former SOCCCD PR gal Pam Zanelli's fortuitous appearances, like magical momentary moths, in the tangled fabric of Orange County politics and corruption. As you know, our own Tom Fuentes, late SOCCCD trustee, was all over that fabric; and, in particular, he had connections to a notorious (c. 1970s) campaign finance entity—the duo "Dick and Doc"—or at least to that entity's delighted and deficient beneficiaries. Now, as it happens, it's a seriously small world, 'cause Pam Zanelli was an employee of the notorious Dr. Louis Cella, the "Doc" half of "Dick and Doc." What a coincidence!
     Anyway, our gal Pam worked for Dr. Cella at exactly the time when his curious operation (hospital, political giving, printing, Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud, etc.) was in full operation.
     She assures us, of course, that she had no idea what her boss was really doing, insofar as any of it was something he shouldn't o' been doing. Natch.

From the Times' "Lobbyists: dealers in trust and compromise," 2/20/72, where Michelena is
identified as one of six "top" professional lobbyists in OC. At the time, the Rancho Mission
Viejo was owned by the O'Neill family (headed by Richard O'Neill of "Dick & Doc").

     Among Zanelli's other moth-like flittings in OC's lurid fabric was a cheese-and-wine party she helped organize for Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown (1981). Just who would be invited to that bash was a critical and delicate matter, it seems, 'cause it was OC where there are no Moonbeams. Now, some of the fat cats in attendance were invited by notorious lobbyist Frank Michelena. Michelena, as it turns out, worked with Tom Fuentes on the seriously hinky Team Caspers, back in 1970 and thereafter.
     (Frank Michelena was an aide to OC Supe Bill Phillips [1957-1973] and later to Supe Ralph Clark, a D&D beneficiary who ultimately resigned under a cloud [prostitutes for favors?!] and became a lobbyist.)

From "The case against Dr. Cella," May 9, 1976 (Times)

     Another coincidence! It's, like, everybody's connected to everybody.
     Now when people talk about famous (or infamous) OC lobbyists, Michelena isn't the only name to pop up. Another one, a big one, is Lyle Overby, a fella who's made lots of money helping entities (including himself) secure lucrative government contracts. He's a go-between guy, a kind of pricey lubricant in a world of big wallets straining against nasty moral and legal friction to be emptied or filled like they wanna be. Pfffffwoooooo!
     (In the early 70s, Overby was an executive aide to Supervisor Ralph Diedrich, a fellow who was later indicted [1977] on 16 felony and misdemeanor violations concerning campaign finance. Soon after, the county grand jury charged him with two counts of bribery and one count on conspiracy. In the 80s, he served 20 months in Chino.)
     Overby, you'll recall, shares with Tom Fuentes membership in a very special group: guys who were invited on that fateful 1974 trip on the doomed yacht "Shooting Star" but who bailed, thereby saving their goddam lives. Ten men died on that trip, including Supervisor Caspers and Dick and Doc's political guru, Fred Harber. That spelled disaster for the "Dick and Doc show," 'cause Harber was like the Spiderman of creepy OC politics/business/whatever webulosity, and none of the other bugs had web-shooters.
     In Fuentes' case, though he made sure to stow a special cooler of goodies for his boss (Caspers) on the boat, at the last minute, he refused to board 'cause it wasn't safe. (Selfish bastard. What about his pals?) Overby actually traveled on the first leg of the trip—but bailed before the ship headed north, to its appointment with danged destiny.
     Lucky guys. Or something.
     One more thing before I go on: Tom Fuentes was also a lobbyist, you know. Near as I can tell, he made his living getting firms he worked for in contact with government officials who were in the position of granting big contracts. (He also invested in properties and such, just like his pal Fred H.)
     He had to be mighty careful, as you can imagine. He slipped up sometimes. You can't let the strings show.
     Now, as it happens, you can find points in time and space when all of these dudes spectacularly and accidentally come together to become one slime-event in the universe or something. One good example is June, 1985, in Santa Ana, CA:

$1-Million Contract for Vote-Count Unit Awarded, LA Times, June 26, 1985

     Ignoring staff recommendations, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to award a $1-million contract to a San Francisco firm for a new ballot-counting system.
     After months of intense lobbying by the major manufacturers, Sequoia Pacific Systems of San Francisco was chosen to supply the county with new machinery in time for November's community college, school and special-service district elections.
     Sequoia's price for the new system, which uses computer cards with candidates' names printed on them and a hole-punching machine to mark ballots, is about $500,000 more than the pen-marking system recommended by a board-appointed advisory committee.
. . .
     The decision is controversial because the new system will replace existing vote-tally equipment installed five years ago, also over the strong objections of county staff....
. . .
     As late as Monday afternoon, Sequoia Pacific's lobbyist, Frank Michelena, was visiting board members in their offices. Moreover, county Republican Party Chairman Tom Fuentes wrote letters to supervisors and called Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley to urge selection of Sequoia Pacific. [Gosh, I wonder why the reporter neglected to mention that Frank and Tom were pals from way back?]
. . .
     "We don't feel the county did the right thing," said DFM President Tom Diebolt after Tuesday's decision.
     However, Diebolt said he did not think any improprieties had occurred during the bidding process.
. . .

     Diebolt said he did not employ the services of a lobbyist because "Our firm has never had to deal directly with county board members before . . . In every county where our services have been selected, we dealt only with county staff, who made the selection and then followed up with recommendations to the board. Often, we were simply an item on a consent (no discussion) calendar (agenda)."
     Fuentes said he recommended Sequoia Pacific to Riley and other board members after he met with Michelena and a Sequoia official to discuss the importance of audit trails in close recounts, such as occurred in last year's 256-vote victory by Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove) over Republican challenger Richard Longshore. The term "audit trails" refers to the process of being able to trace and analyze the ballots cast so that none are lost or misplaced. Fuentes said he received no compensation for recommending Sequoia.
. . .
     The existing system was sold to the county by Valtec Co. of Tulsa, Okla.
     There was intense lobbying—including controversial campaign contributions from vendors to county supervisors—during the selection process last time. In the end, the board ignored the recommendations of its own staff and picked a system that had never been tried.
     Valtec hired Lyle Overby, an aide to former supervisor Ralph Diedrich, during the last bidding war. Overby was not involved in the current competition, county officials said….

     In May, the Times had reported:

     The existing system was purchased—over the objections of a county advisory group—from the Valtec Co. of Tulsa, Okla., after an intensive lobbying campaign in which Valtec hired lobbyist Lyle Overby, who earlier had served on the staffs of former Supervisors Ralph Diedrich and Robert Battin.

     Battin and Diedrich, of course, were beneficiaries of Dick and Doc's largesse.

* * *

     “When we wrote TIN CUP (the county law limiting campaign donations), one of the main reasons was to stop what [Frank Michelena] was doing,'' said campaign watchdog Shirley Grindle, who agreed he was one of the most influential people in the county in the 1970s. “Once there was TIN CUP, he played by the rules. In fact, we became friends. He had a very generous heart. He was basically a kind person."

—Shirley Grindle, OC Reg, 8/2/2005

     One lobbyist, Frank Michelena, has established himself as the Santa
Claus of county consultants. He has given more than $ 7,800 in
sporting-event tickets, meals and other gifts to supervisors and their
aides in the past five years, according to gift reports filed by the
officials.
     In second place is lobbyist Lyle Overby, who has given $ 2,834 in gifts
to supervisors and aides during the same period, the reports show.

—OC Register, 11/20/88 

BATTIN: the "COALITION" HARBER'S "BRAINCHILD

OC Reg Feb 18 1976

 

Former SOCCCD director of public affairs Pam Zanelli once worked for Dr. Louis Cella

Welcome to the OC

     I thought I smelled a rat, and I was right. (See Remember Zanelli?)
     I did a little more looking into Pam Zanelli’s background and discovered something very interesting.
     First, a little review. Denizens of the SOCCCD will remember Pam Zanelli as the notorious political consultant, hired by the corrupt Old Guard (the secretive leadership of the SOCCCD’s faculty union) back in 1996, in a desperate effort to get its slate of “fiscal conservatives” elected onto the board. (Once elected, the new board would reward the union with a contract giving leadership an array of goodies.)
     Zanelli, a Democrat, had advised the group that benefits for same-sex partners was a “hot-button issue” among local Neanderthals—er, Republicans. And so union leadership, exhibiting a startling lack of principle, sent Republican households the infamous red “same-sex” flier, which relied on distortions, misrepresentations, and (of course) homophobia to persuade voters to vote against the opposing slate (called PIE), led by Dave Lang.
     The flier worked (only Lang prevailed over a union candidate, viz., Davis). By December of 1996, the union had its majority on the board. The era of the notorious "board majority" (at first John Williams, Steve Frogue, Dorothy Fortune, and Teddi Lorch; after the election of '98, Williams, Frogue, Fortune, Nancy Padberg, and Don Wagner) commenced. Everything went to hell, and fast.
     In 1997, despite the obvious conflict of interest, the board hired Zanelli as their chief PR flak. They kept her for two or three years, but she somehow inspired the enmity of Padberg or Fortune (not sure), and so she got canned.
     Recently, I noted that she had previously worked for Paul Carpenter, a corrupt local (and state) politician associated with “Dick and Doc”—Dick O’Neill and Dr. Louis Cella—the infamous campaign finance partnership that essentially “bought” the OC Board of Supervisors in the 1970s—Orange County’s most dramatic era of corruption.
     Paul Carpenter had also been involved (in 1969 or 1970) in Ronald Caspers’ ruthless campaign to discredit Republican Supervisor Alton Allen. Like Carpenter, Ron Caspers was among D&D’s stable of politicians. (It seems likely that the effort to target Allen was directed by Fred Harber on behalf of D&D.)
     And, of course, throughout this period, Tom Fuentes was Ron Caspers’ right-hand man.

* * *

Caspers' left-hand man

     ZANELLI AND CELLA. Today, I did more digging and discovered that Zanelli was much closer (in some sense) to the Dick and Doc operation than I had thought. She actually worked for Louis Cella in one of his hospitals!
     Lemme explain. In January of 1979, Republican Harriett Wieder had just been elected as Orange County’s first female Supervisor. She had replaced Laurence Schmit, a Republican who had been among O’Neill and Cella’s stable of hinky pols. (He somehow managed to avoid the attention of OC DA—and Republican—Cecil Hicks, who vigorously pursued anti-corruption prosecution at the time.)
     On Jan 18, 1979, the Times (“New Supervisor Has 5 Women on Staff of 7”) listed and described Wieder’s new staff:

     —Mrs. Zanelli, 32, of Santa Ana, who handled press relations in Mrs. Wieder’s campaign and is one of three Democrats on the Republican supervisor’s staff.
     Mrs. Zanelli … has worked in the campaigns or offices of Rep. Jerry Patterson (D-Santa Ana), state Sen Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress) and Assemblyman Chet Wray (D-Westminster).
     She also did political publicity work for former Democratic financier Dr. Louis J. Cella Jr., receiving $5,400 from one of Cella’s hospitals in 1974. Cella is serving a federal prison term for income tax evasion and embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from two Orange County hospitals.
     “I was one of the people who didn’t know what Cella was doing,” Mrs. Zanelli said. Mrs. Wieder said she was “totally unaware” of Mrs. Zanelli’s work for Cella. “I brought Pam on because she is great on research,” the supervisor said.
     She will handle publicity and appointments to commissions for Mrs. Wieder.
     —John P. Erskine, 27, of Huntington Beach, the only holdover aide from Mrs. Wieder’s predecessor, Laurence Schmit….

     I’ve talked to reporters who were there in 1974. One described how Cella’s hospitals would have large wings devoted to political activity—nothing medical went on there. 
     “There was all this printing equipment there," said one reporter. "It was strange.”
     Evidently not so strange to Pam Zanelli!
     By September of the same year (1979), Zanelli left Wieder “to do political consulting work…” (LA Times, Sep. 16, 1979). (I should note that Zanelli seemed to be back working with Supervisor Wieder again in the late 80s.)
     A bit after her 1979 exodus from Wieder’s crew, Zanelli pops up in connection with Governor Jerry Brown (who was known to be friendly with campaign contributor Cella). In 1981, the LA Times (“Visit linked to possible senate bid," Feb 28, 1981) reported about a recent “little-known” visit by Brown to Orange County. At the time, Democrats grumbled that Brown hadn’t given OC enough attention, and so a group of Democrats, including Pam Zanelli, organized a wine-and-cheese party at the Huntington Beach home of somebody named Francis Malloy. Lots of wealthy Dems and Repubs were invited.
     According to the Times, “Among those who attended were business executives and developers invited by Frank Michelena, a well-known Orange County lobbyist.”
     Frank Michelena?

     THE MICHELENA MAN. Michelena’s name is one that pops up throughout OC’s (shady) history going back more than forty years. He was a notorious “lobbyist,” someone who was hired to get a firm close to people, including public officials, who decided who'd get lucrative contracts. (We've mentioned Mr. Michelena's "generous" ways previously: 1976: Tom Fuentes, lobbyist, deputy.)
     —Kinda like Lyle Overby and, um, Tom Fuentes.
     Now, as it turns out, Michelena worked with Tom Fuentes during the latter’s formative years as a political apparatchik/consultant/gopher.
     According to former OC GOP chairman Tom Rogers, in about 1970,

     Caspers hired a young graduate of Chapman College ... to serve on this staff. As Casper’s assistant, Tom Fuentes … worked diligently to convince Republicans that Caspers was not what many party regulars feared, an unscrupulous opportunist who had no permanent loyalty to any political party. Fuentes was aided in his duties by the ubiquitous Frank Michelena. Michelena, a lobbyist with a checkered career, was notorious in the field of political influence. (Agents' Orange, 2000)

     Rogers obviously has a low regard of Mr. Michelena—and, I think, of Mr. Fuentes.
     At one point, he identifies three (roughly defined) eras of “machine” politics in Orange County.
     The first, which arose in the 60s, was dominated by Democrats and involved O’Neill, Cella (a nominal Republican), and Fred Harber, among others. But that machine slowly transformed into a “hybrid” that embraced both Democrats (like Harber and Robert Battin) and Republicans (like Caspers and Schmit). In this second “machine,” says Rogers, the “emphasis shifted from political philosophy to corporate profits.”
     Rogers identifies Ron Caspers, Tom Fuentes, and Frank Michelena as central to this disturbing political contraption.
     (According to R, there’s a third machine that Rogers associates with the “Cave Men”: a group of religious right Republicans who are focused on defending incumbents who share their right-wing philosophy. Dana Rohrabacher and Curt Pringle [the latter a close associate of Tom Fuentes], he says, are key to this third “machine.”)

* * *

Tom

     So there we have it. First, Pam Zanelli was part of Dr. Louis Cella's operation, at least in the narrow business sense, back in 1974. It is possible, I suppose, that she "didn't know what Cella was doing." But it is highly unlikely, I think.
     Zanelli was not new to politics at the time. In 1975, she was among 15 women chosen to serve on the Orange County Commission on the Status of Women.
     Second, she worked under Paul Carpenter, though I don't know when. Already in 1969, Carpenter was one of Dick and Doc's soldiers, and perhaps that suggests that Zanelli worked for Carpenter during the same era in which she worked for Cella. (Carpenter was based in Cypress, as was Fred Harber, who had been the City Manager.)
     Carpenter was dirty. According to Rogers, he played a part in the stunning shenanigans that caused Alton Allen's loss of his Supervisorial seat. It is reasonable to suppose that he participated in similar activities in subsequent years, the years of the rise of Cella and O'Neill's influence (which peaked at about 1975). 
     At any rate, by the 80s, Carpenter, always a sly character, was caught selling votes in Sacramento. When he died in 2002, the Times described his spectacular fall as a public servant:

     ...[H]is maverick behavior led to trouble in 1986 when, during his successful campaign for the Board of Equalization, he became a target of an FBI sting in which federal agents surreptitiously contributed money to lawmakers in exchange for legislative favors.
     Convicted in 1990 of racketeering, extortion and conspiracy for accepting $20,000 from a fictitious shrimp fishery, Carpenter got off on a technicality when a federal appeals court ruled that the jury had not been properly instructed. But he was forced to leave public office.
     In a separate case three years later, a jury convicted him on 11 counts of obstruction of justice and money laundering....
     "I was arrogant," Carpenter admitted to a Times reporter in 1993 during the trial, in which he was accused of illegally funneling $78,000 to [Sen. Alan] Robbins through a Santa Monica public relations firm.
     Shortly before he was to be sentenced, Carpenter fled to Costa Rica, saying he was seeking "a more adventuristic" treatment for the prostate cancer that doctors had predicted would kill him within two years. He wrote in a note to the judge: "I find my drive for survival stronger than my sense of obligation to your legal system."
     His drive for survival didn't keep him and a friend from entering—and winning—a national bridge tournament in the Central American nation.
     Tracked down less than a year later by U.S. officials, Carpenter spent several months in a Costa Rican jail before being returned to California for sentencing.
With his cancer in remission, Carpenter was sentenced in 1995 to seven years in federal prison. After his release from prison in 1999, Carpenter settled in seclusion in San Antonio ... in 1986.

     It is possible, of course, that Zanelli worked for this guy and had no idea that he was mighty hinky.
    Yeah. She's either clueless or hinky. Take your pick.
    Third—and least compelling, I suppose—she seemed to know and work with Frank Michelena, who was part of the highly Nixonian Team Caspers along with Fuentes and Harber. That's worth mentioning, I guess. Or maybe not.
     Ah, the SOCCCD saga! It just gets better and better, doesn't it?

[Note to self: among those who gave to Alton Allen during the 1970 campaign: Donald Bren, assistant to Allen, John Killefer, Frank Michelena--$500 each. Raub Bein Frost: $350. Beckman, Segerstrom, and Graham gave $250. Among Supe. Baker's contributors were Bren and Michelena.  Zitnik gave to Wilcoxen. Times, 7/8/70. Looks like Michelena soon switched horses to Caspers. Derek McWhinney gaver to Caspers in 1970! Oddly, so did Old Guard's Athalie Clark.]


UPDATE: PAM'S HUBBY, JEFF

     At some point, Pam married one Jeff Zanelli—presumably by 1975, since she was using his name by then. They later divorced, but I don’t know when.
     Jeff Zanelli was/is in the same business—political consulting. His name comes up in Democratic politics starting in the early 60s.
     Jeff, like Pam, was in some sense employed by Dr. Louis Cella. According to a 1975 Times article about Louis Cella’s criminal trial(s) (“Subpoena Quashed in Investigation of Cella,” Dec. 9, 1975),

     The federal grand jury is investigating alleged federal income tax evasion by Cella and two hospitals in which he is a major owner…. ¶ Cella … allegedly obtained money from the two hospitals by causing checks to be issued on the basis of phony invoices for nonexistent supply orders. ¶ He allegedly also caused the hospitals to pay some of the political campaign costs and some persons who worked on campaigns.
     Testifying before the federal grand jury Monday were Jerry Zanelli, staff director of the State Senate Democratic Caucus and administrative aide to Sen. David Roberti (D-Hollywood). Hospital sources said Zanelli has been paid more than $20,000 by the two hospitals.

     In 1982, Zanelli was still working for Roberti. In a Times article about the dishonest tactics routinely employed by the Newport Beach consulting firm Butcher-Forde, we’re told that Roberti sent his man Zanelli to help with the mailers for two other Democratic candidates, including State Sen. Alex Garcia, who sent mailers that falsely claimed a big endorsement, and Al Serrato, who sent mailers that were arguably racist :

     …[T]here is a continuing dispute involving mailers sent out by the campaign of Al Serrato, an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the new 32nd Senate District seat in Orange County. ¶ The mailers said that one of Serrato’s opponents “marched with Vietnamese in black pajamas,” had a “Vietnamese businessman” as a chief financial supporter, and considered “Indochinese refugees” a major campaign issue. … ¶ After the Orange County Democratic Party’s ethics committee had “condemned” the mailing as “blatantly racist,” Serrato publicly insisted that he did not authorize some of the language it contained. But [Arnold] Forde, of Butcher-Forde, responded that Serrato had “designed the piece himself” and that the firm had only handled its distribution.
     Later, a variety of sources suggested that Jerry Zanelli, an aide ordered by Roberti to assist both the Garcia and Serrato campaigns, was responsible. ¶ …Zanelli said that while he had provided the money for the piece in question and had been in touch with Forde about distribution, he had never so much as looked at the contents. (“Dirty Campaign Tactics Creating Alarm,” LA Times, Jun 14, 1982)

     Of course.

     You’ll recall that “Dick and Doc’s” (i.e., Richard O'Neill and Dr. Louis Cella's) political strategist, Fred Harber, was very close with Butcher-Forde and that Forde worked on Ron Caspers’ first political campaign (in 1970). Tom Fuentes managed that campaign. Later, Fuentes became Caspers’ chief aide and no doubt had many dealings with Harber, Butcher, and Forde.

"Innuendo" about Tom Fuentes? Nope. OUTUENDO

     Good Lord!
     I only just now noticed a terrific Matt Coker piece (in yesterday's NavelGazing) that, well, makes yours truly look pretty damned good!

Frank Mickadeit, OC Register Columnist, Slams College Professor on Behalf of Late Tom Fuentes (NavelGazing)

     Thanks, Matt!
     Er, I mean: thanks for doing your job, being objective and fair and such.

     The upshot of Matt's post is that the Fuenteans, or, rather, one of their toadies—Frank Mickadeit, the OC Register columnist and Tomophile—responded to the board’s choosing James Wright as Tom’s replacement by screaming “disgraceful!” (see Fuentes family stung by college board)—and by going after MOI. According to the Mick, so hateful am I that I dragged out old “innuendo” to defame the sainted Tomster. (My so-called "innuendo" focused on Fuentes' close association with corrupt pols in his early days.) So I responded (says Matt) with research (old Reg and Times articles, not innuendo) that showed that Tom was a truly hinky fellow—and I'm not talking about any carnations he may or may not have worn.

     Well, Yeah.

     Check it out: here.

Remember Pam Zanelli? (It’s a small freakin’ world)

From the "Trustee Tom Fuentes files" [Fuentes got his start working for corrupt OC supervisor Caspers; Caspers' chief crony was the corrupt Fred Harber]:

Irvine Valley President Sues College District, LA Times, Sept. 13, 2000

Pam Zanelli, PR hack

     From the 18th to the 21st of October, 2000, the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), of which our district was (and is) a member, held its annual conference—this time, at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. The theme for ACCT’s “Convention 2000” was “Leadership in a Democracy.”
     A contingent from the SOCCCD presented during that conference. I'm afraid it was pretty embarrassing.
     On Friday, Oct. 20, they offered “Dealing with the Media—Controversy Real or Contrived.” It explained the district’s alleged victimization at the hands of biased media with regard to such issues as: the board’s repeated violations of the Brown Act, trustee Frogue’s forum that invited anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, the district’s placement on the state fiscal watch list, one college’s blatantly whitewashed accreditation report, failure to follow accepted procedures when hiring administrators, and so on. According to this benighted bunch, the media made the district look bad, not because they were doing their job of reporting the facts. No, according to this crew, the media and its people were friendly to, well, critics like me—and these people assisted in our scheme to hurt the district, the trustees, the union, et al., purely out of vengeance and malevolence. (For an overview of the district's "issues" c. 2000, see South O.C. Seats Have 10 Trading Hostilities, LA Times, Oct. 31, 2000; Cirque du Socccd, OC Weekly, Oct. 12, 2000; and Irvine Valley President Sues College District, LA Times, Sept. 13, 2000.)
     Such nutty and incompetent thinking is known as having a "bad conspiracy theory."
     As I’ve explained before, the only reason I got on well with reporters is that I never attempted to manipulate them, never lied or exaggerated. And they responded. It's that simple.
     They did not become my friends. I do not communicate with them now (with the exception of Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly—who doesn't need prodding from me to cover the endless silliness emitted from certain sectors in our district).
     My efforts were not particularly well-organized. If there was a story I thought that reporters would like to know about, I contacted them. That's it. Sometimes they contacted me.
     No conspiracy. No organized effort.
     What these fools fail to understand is that one need not "sell" a story to journalists—if the story is true.
     The district presenters that day included trustee Nancy Padberg, trustee Dorothy Fortune (who later resigned amid accusations that she was no longer an OC resident), SOCCCD Chancellor Cedric Sampson, Accuracy in Media’s Charles Wiley, and SOCCCD director of public affairs, Pam Zanelli.
     (For full transcripts of their remarks see Nancy does Nashville.)

Steve Frogue holding IHR publication

     Wiley’s organization, Accuracy in Media, which was founded by the likes of Reed Irvine, was/is known for its unreasonable insistence that Vince Foster was murdered, its challenge of reports that suggest that global warming is real (and it very likely is), and its criticism of human-rights reporting in El Salvador by the New York Times (in 1983).
     The latter reports were eventually determined to be accurate.
     I.e., Accuracy in Media is a joke.
     And Pam Zanelli? At the conference, Padberg introduced Zanelli as follows:

     OK, and our next speaker is the lady in the trenches; she is the first line of attack with the press; thank goodness we have her, cuz, without her, we would just be deluged all of us individually. So that is Pam Zanelli. She has a BA in journalism; as I explained earlier, she has vast experience before coming to us, and, uh, it’s served her well. Pam Zanelli.

     WHENCE ZANELLI? Back in 1996, Zanelli had been hired by SOCCCD's notoriously corrupt “Old Guard” faculty union to advise on how to get its slate of trustee candidates—staunch “fiscal conservatives” Frogue, Fortune, John Williams, and Don Davis—elected. Relying on polling data, she advised that benefits for gay couples was a local “hot button issue.”
     Of course, at the SOCCCD at the time, it was also a phony issue, an invention.
     In his award-winning 1998 cover story about Steve Frogue, OC Weekly writer Matt Coker explained:

     A number of teachers went to the leaders of the faculty association before the 1996 election and asked that the union not endorse Frogue because he already had a reputation as a nut. The union ignored them and instead hired an outside consultant to help direct the campaign of its slate of candidates: Frogue, Fortune, Williams and Don Davis.
     That consultant was Pam Zanelli.
     Zanelli…told the Weekly she's been in politics since she was 19. The Tustin resident represented former Governor Jerry Brown in OC; was Brown's appointment to the male-dominated Orange County Fair Board…; served on the staffs of former state Senator Paul Carpenter and then-county Supervisor Harriet Wieder, helped the campaigns of a slew of Assembly and judicial candidates....
     She was paid $4,200 to be the faculty association's 1996 campaign consultant. One of the campaign's most dramatic moments came when the slate mailed a hit piece aimed at its opponents: "Taxpayer Alert: Don't Allow Your Tax Dollars to Pay for Same-Sex 'Marriage' Domestic Benefits at Your Saddleback Community College District." Sent to Republican voters in the district shortly before the election, it alleged that the slate's four opponents—including incumbent [SOCCCD Trustee Dave] Lang—supported the use of "education tax dollars" for health benefits for employees' same-sex partners, college classes including "content about gay and lesbian lifestyles" and "seminars and conferences to educate participants about the gay and lesbian lifestyle."
. . .
     Lang later told The Lariat … that no candidate on his slate campaigned with domestic-partner benefits as an issue, although they were asked their feelings about it at a public forum. The claim that Lang's slate planned gay and lesbian seminars and classes "was invented," he added.
     The mailer was paid for by … a political action committee established by … the … Faculty Association. The union spent at least $44,000 on behalf of Frogue's slate in that election, records show.
     The mailer worked....

* * *

Lang: betrayed
his supporters

     DIGRESSION: Back in 1998, Lang was the board majority—and its toady, IVC President Raghu Mathur’s—harshest critic. But then, in 2000, Friend-of-Mathur Tom Fuentes … was appointed to (and later elected to) the board. Fuentes and Lang were pretty consistently on opposite sides of issues.
     But then Fuentes did what Fuentes does: he found a weakness in his colleague: Lang badly wanted to become OC Treasurer, and Fuentes convinced him that he could help with that. (This is speculation based on subsequent events.)
     And so, in 2005, Lang underwent a dramatic transformation from being Raghu Mathur’s harshest critic to being Mathur’s most ardent champion!
     Lang's supporters were thunderstruck. Lang seemed unable to explain himself. He simpered.
     Ultimately (in 2008), Fuentes helped with Lang’s campaign for the OC Treasurer spot. The campaign was a dismal failure. Briefly, the Earth spun with the music of justice.
     For reasons unknown (to me), Lang, who for so many years was virtually the board’s sole voice of reason, has, since 2005, continued to be Fuentes’ Yes-Man. And that has led him to vote in ways that are impossible to defend. [End of Digression]

* * *

     ZANELLI, PART TWO. Amazingly, despite the obvious conflict-of-interest, in 1997, the new union-friendly (i.e., union-paid for) board majority decided to hire Zanelli as its chief PR person. According to Coker,

     After the ’96 election, Zanelli landed another job that placed her close to the Gang of Four. Her consulting group was hired by the board to look into the district's public-information program in the wake of the Jews-killed-Kennedy [Frogue forum] incident. After the consultants' report…was handed to the board, Zanelli was hired as an in-house consultant, serving as the district's media spokesperson and providing political expertise. Frogue's opponents call her "a $5,000-per-month spin doctor," referring to the amount she's reportedly paid and the information she's dispensing.

     WEAPONS CONFISCATED; SO IT'S SAFE. As a district flack, Zanelli committed her share of gaffs. My personal fave was the Great Weaponry Gaff.
     In February of '98, Acting Chancellor Kathie Hodge distributed a memo to administrators, alerting them that "Without my authorization, a District Press Release was sent out...today. The release, titled 'Weapons Confiscated at SOCCCD Board Meeting,' has the potential of being frightening to our students and the community...." Zanelli had authored and sent out the press release.
     A day later, the Times ran a pleasant little piece entitled, "Knife, Pepper Spray are Found at Meeting." According to the article, "Campus police confiscated a 9-inch folding knife and a small canister of pepper spray from a man attending a SOCCCD board meeting last week. The seizure came amid tighter security measures in response to controversy surrounding a seminar Trustee Steven J. Frogue proposed last year on the assassination of President Kennedy... 'We want people to know they are safe at these meetings and they will not be disrupted for any reason,' campus spokeswoman Pam Zanelli said." (Times, 2/20/98)
     Oops.
     And so why, you ask, am I taking this stroll down the Zanelli memorial gutter of Memory Frickin' Lane?
     It's cuz I just wanna say once again that it’s a small freakin’ world. And it is.

Harriett Wieder

     IT'S A SMALL WORLD. Zanelli, you’ll recall, was tight with Jerry Brown. But Brown (back in the seventies) was a pal of—that’s right, Dr. Louis Cella of the famous “Dick and Doc” campaign finance duo, which controlled the OC Board of Supes in the seventies. (See Dan Walters.)
     As you know, that project (the "Dick and Doc Show" and all of its players) ended in a hail of indictments and prison sentences.
     Now I have no idea if anything hinky went on between “Dick and Doc” and Linda Ronstadt's old boyfriend. I only know that Brown invited Cella (and no doubt Cella’s partner, Dick O’Neill) to parties during a period in which D&D made substantial campaign contributions that were to Gov. Brown’s liking.
     Zanelli also worked for Republican Harriett Wieder, who, during her supervisorial tenure, was a known critic of then-OC GOP chairman Tom Fuentes. Wieder was also a vocal critic of the “Old Boys” club that is OC politics; Tom, of course, was the navigator and exploiter par excellence of such networks.
     Zanelli worked for state Senator Paul Carpenter.

Paul Carpenter

     Guess what?
     Back in the 70s, Carpenter was in league with Ron Caspers and “Dick and Doc.” According to journalist Dan Walters, back in the 70s,

     Carpenter was the executive director of the county health planning council—an organization that rubber stamped construction of [among others', D&D's] hospitals—before winning an Assembly seat in 1974, thanks largely to financing from Cella and O’Neill.
. . .
     Carpenter moved his political base to Los Angeles County and got himself promoted from the Assembly to the Senate, where he eventually became a member of the Democratic leadership with major responsibility for enhancing campaign fund collections. That brought him to the attention of federal investigators as they probed vote peddling in the Capitol and resulted in indictment, trial and conviction.

     Early in 1995, Carpenter was given seven years and three months in federal prison for his part in the Sacramento vote-selling scandal. (See Dan Walters, Jan 23, 1995)

     PAUL CARPENTER WAS A DICK AND DOCKER. Now get this. Former OC GOP chairman Tom Rogers writes that Carpenter was involved in Ron Caspers’ notorious smear campaign against Republican supervisor Alton Allen in 1969-70. (You’ll recall that Tom Fuentes was Caspers’ campaign manager in 1970; he then became Caspers' chief executive aide until Caspers' mysterious death in '74):

     The incumbent in the 5th district was [Republican] Alton Allen, a retired banker…. Allen was widely respected for his representation of the 5th District, which included … thousands of acres devoted to agricultural production.
     It came as a rude shock when, in 1969, a tabloid-type mailer was received by residents of the 5th District alleging wrongdoing on the part of Allen and his staff. Allen’s reputation for honesty and integrity had been undoubted, never a whisper against his character had ever been heard.…
     Allen contacted Republican leadership for help against this scurrilous attack. At a meeting at the Balboa Bay Club, GOP leaders met with Allen and those in attendance were at a loss for any explanation of the anti-Allen campaign. The retired banker was obviously distraught at having unfounded insinuations directed at himself and his staff.…
     The mysterious anti-Allen forces opened a headquarters in Laguna Hills from which to launch a formal recall campaign. The mailers kept arriving with insinuations of Allen’s “wrongdoing.” …
. . .

Robert Battin

     It would be revealed later that Tarantino [the man whose name was on the recall] had ties to Lou Cella, [Cella and Caspers' political consultant] Fred Harber, and others identified by Robert Battin as “the Coalition.” Battin, in an attempt to depict his own conviction as discriminatory, revealed the existence of the group, which also included [OC land baron] R.J. O’Neill. 
. . .
     Robert Battin was to use his position on the Board of Supervisors to make Allen look inept in dealing with certain issues. Paul Carpenter also admitted to being part of the recall effort much later, but denied knowledge of the other Coalition members being involved. Carpenter claimed that the clandestine effort was confined to himself and a Republican who aspired to be a supervisor [presumably, Caspers]…. (From Agents' Orange, Tom Rogers, 2000)

     Gosh, it all makes my head spin.
     I don't have much info on Zanelli, but she seems to be 66 years old, which would make her 30 in 1976 or thereabouts. So, she could easily have been working for Carpenter during the bad old days of Battin and Caspers and Dick & Doc.

THIS STORY CONTINUES: see Zanelli once worked for Cella, June 30.

Page 2 of the 4-page "same-sex" flier, paid for by the SOCCCD faculty union to get Frogue, Williams, and Fortune elected. It worked. (Consultant: Pam Zanelli)

Limber Lou running home at poetry softball game

     These days, Rebel Girl is up north, helping run the famous Writers' Workshops at Squaw Valley. Today, she sent me this pic.

Monks v. canyon dwellers

This one's close to home:

The Norbertine Code: Monks and canyon dwellers go mano a mano in Silverado Canyon (OC Weekly)

…In 1999, Las Vegas developer Marnell Corrao, which developed the Wynn and Bellagio resorts, bought 320 acres at a reported $5 million, with designs to build 12 mansions on about 70 acres. Court battles ensued when Trabuco Canyon resident Ray Chandos, who, at 62 years old, has lived in the canyons for nearly 30 years, led his Rural Canyon Conservation Fund in filing a successful civil complaint, saying the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) did not properly address impacts on water quality and coastal sage scrub mitigation. A supplemental EIR was drafted, but soon afterward, anti-development residents cited a letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that said there was evidence of the federally endangered Southwestern Arroyo Toad, a three-inch, brown-and-cream-colored critter that breeds in water and was thought to be extinct in the region…. (continued…)

"St. Thomas" Fuentes was an appointee, too—twice

     “Frogue’s actions…smack of back-room politics. Resigning from an elected board post just before a term expires is an old trick used to give a board majority the opportunity to hand-pick an ally for the seat. The handpicked successor then has the distinct advantage of running as the incumbent when the seat comes up for election” 

–Irvine World News editorial, 6/29/00

     As some readers have noted, Tom Fuentes got on the SOCCCD BOT via an appointment.
     You’ll recall that, in 1997, trustee Steven Frogue sparked considerable controversy when he proposed a “forum” on the Warren Commission (i.e., the assassination of JFK). His invitees included some unsavory characters, including writers affiliated with Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby. All of them offered daft conspiracy theories of a kind never encountered in academia. That controversy led to another: various unrelated former students accused Frogue, a high school teacher, of denying the Holocaust in the classroom.
     By 2000, Frogue had survived two attempted recalls, which failed, but which came close to succeeding and even managed to unite the Democratic and Republican parties, if only briefly. Frogue was seriously damaged goods.
     No doubt someone got to Frogue and got him to resign at just the right moment—permitting the miraculous appearance of Tom Fuentes, a man who had long desired elected office but who dragged with him some serious baggage that he did not want inspected.
     I seem to recall reporting that then-IVC President Raghu Mathur had met with Tom Fuentes (then OC GOP chairman) some time in May of 2000. By 2000, Fuentes had already fended off challenges to his chairmanship coming from Big Money moderates. Maybe he decided it was time to hedge his bets.
     Then, in late June, Frogue announced his resignation. Fuentes then said he was interested in replacing the Froguester, but he was not alone.
     On the warm July night of the board's interview of applicants, ubiquitous GOP operative Adam Probolsky ran—er, lumbered—around the room dotting I’s and crossing T’s in preparation of the Great Man’s interview and coronation. Everything was choreographed. I recall wondering what it all meant.
     On hand to speak in support of Tom’s application was the union Old Guard, which still maintained control (?) of the Faculty Association. Back in '96 and '98 they had paid for the campaigns of Frogue, Dot Fortune, John Williams, Don Wagner, and Nancy Padberg. Ah, those were the days!

The Old Guard's
Sharon Macmillan

     As I recall, Saddleback College's Sharon MacMillan and IVC's Ray Chandos were among the faculty who spoke in support of Fuentes’ application.
     It was a ridiculous spectacle. The likes of Wagner and Williams could barely disguise their glee. Mr. OC Republican was about to join our board! Think of the connections! Think of how he could help advance my career! 
     John Williams was so pleased-as-punch that he sizzled in his chair like an enormous baked ham, with all the trimmings.
     That the old corrupt union was sponsoring Fuentes’ application shines an interesting light on Frank Mickadeit’s recent column in which he “explained” that, when Fuentes arrived at the district, his desire to de-emphasize high faculty salaries soon caused a “war” on the board that has never fully died down. (Supposedly, I was on the "higher faculty salaries" side of that war.)
     In truth, those, like me, who opposed Fuentes’ coronation that night had for years been fighting MacMillan and Chandos' Old Guard, a group of faculty (Mathur had been among its key members) who helped elect the aforementioned anti-union and anti-faculty elements on the board, especially Wagner.
     Why would they do that? The Old Guard had worked out a “quid pro quo”: Frogue and the others would get campaign support, and the faculty (especially senior faculty) would get high salaries—plus various scores settled and careers advanced. Thus it was that Ken Woodward and Mike Runyan became administrators. (See OC Reg, Oct. 31, 1998, "Board’s Unlikely Secret Allies." See also OC Weekly, Nov. 15, 1996, "The real purpose behind gay-baiting at Saddleback".)

Ray Chandos

     Frogue's replacement with Fuentes occurred in July and, of course, the election (including Fuentes’) would occur less than four months later! Thus it was that Mr. Fuentes snuck onto an elected board without having to campaign vigorously and expose himself to prying journalists and philosophers.
     One might ask: at the time, did Fuentes say, "Let's leave replacing Frogue to the voters in November!"?
     He did not.

* * *

“We’ve gotten rid of a crude Neanderthal but replaced him with a slick one,” said Irvine Valley College Professor Roy Bauer.... 

—"A career politician is appointed to the rancorous
south Orange County panel, filling out the term of
a controversial trustee," OC Register, July 13, 2000

     BACK IN 1974, after the death of his boss, Ronald W. Caspers, Fuentes was briefly an appointee. It appears that, at some point, then-governor Ronald Reagan had announced that Fuentes, who had been Caspers' chief executive assistant (among other things), would get the nod. But then that nasty one-year residency requirement cropped up and the whole thing went to hell, giving us Supervisor Tom Riley, a guy who would never meet a developer's project he didn't like. (The appearance of Riley helped doom OC to endless over-development. General "Mugs" Riley stayed on the board for twenty years.)
     Back in May of 1974, Fuentes had announced his intention of quitting his "aide" gig and becoming a priest; he said he would resign as Caspers’ aid (and, I suppose, as consultant to Caspers’ S&L) in September. But when Caspers died and a replacement was needed and Fuentes was on the short list, that all changed. Plainly, Fuentes badly wanted the Supervisor gig. Evidently, when the residency requirement nixed the deal, Fuentes was very disappointed. He returned to plan A: after giving himself a big fund-raiser, he went up to St. Patrick’s (next door to where Caspers had gone to private college, oddly enough).

Probolsky: elfin GOP operative

     But the priest thing did not take. He was back in the worldly action of OC backrooms by 1975, investing in singles bars, hangin' with GOP bigwigs. He bragged that he had received many offers for fancy jobs. (He chose to become a lobbyist for Bein and Frost.) Soon, he was back on the Central Committee and snagged the Vice Chairmanship of the OC GOP.
     In those days, he was sometimes referred to as one of OC's most eligible bachelors!
     I think that, by then, he had already established his reputation as a guy who could put on a great (i.e., excessive, gala) party. He continued doing that, making quite a name for himself with his curious audacity. He had a real flair for doing little things—providing honored guests (or prospective clients for his firm) with a dozen red roses, that sort of thing—that were memorable and appreciated. (Later, his "gifts" to officials at the Santa Margarita Water District got his firm into hot water.)
     In 1983, unable to synthesize a military record (flat feet?), he got married; then he became the chairman of the Party. And the rest, as they say, is l'histoire.

Old Guard Prez
Sherry Miller-White

SEE ALSO

• Fuentes’ suspicious appointment • The board’s unlikely secret allies • The Dissenter's Dictionary

Conservative petition drive?

     Dan Chmielewski of the Liberal OC just posted about the BOT’s action, last night, to replace Tom Fuentes with Jim Wright:

Representing evil: Dave Lang

OC Conserverati Upset Over Fuentes Replacement on Community College Board

Chris notes that

     The conservative OC Political blog is calling for a petition drive to invalidate the appointment citing the appointment was made over the family’s objections. The family can object all they want, but the board is accountable to the voters and there is an election in just five months. This is misguided and if there’s such a hue and cry from the voters, they can have their voices heard in November at the ballot box.

     It does appear that Jolene Fuentes will be running against Wright in November. She'll have a lot to overcome; she'll need big money. She does have (as she said) "connections." But maybe she'll come to her senses and step away.
     To read about the petition drive, see: SOCCCD Appoints Fuentes Successor Over Family’s Objections; Will Petition Drive Launch to Invalidate Appointment?
     How serious a threat is this?
     Dunno. My guess? It ain't goin' nowhere.

Tom Fuentes and the events of "40 years ago"

A veritable web of public service/corruption

From the "Trustee Tom Fuentes files" [Fuentes got his start working for corrupt OC supervisor Caspers; Caspers' chief crony was the corrupt Fred Harber]:

     “There’s always some professor writing a report. I don’t pay too much attention to them.”

—Ronald W. Caspers, 1963

     THIS MORNING, Dan Chmielewski of the The Liberal OC commented as follows:

Hi Roy — I'm curious but Mickadeit says you published old rumors about Fuentes without documenting a single fact. This seems to be counter to your regular work of going overboard to document stuff you write about. Can you address this in a post please?

     In fact, last night, in a comment to Mickadeit’s piece, I responded to the “documentation” point as follows:

     You write: “The hate is so palpable that one of the faculty activists, Roy Bauer, two weeks ago rehashed for his blog a bunch of 40-year-old innuendo about Fuentes to smear his memory – and never documented a single original fact.”
     Hate has never motivated me. I am trained as an ethicist (a specialty in philosophy). My criticisms of Mr. Fuentes (and others) are fundamentally about their lack of moral decency.
     Whether or not I have “documented a single original fact” about Mr. Fuentes’ record (I certainly have) is irrelevant. I’m perfectly happy to assemble the already available facts and let them guide us to the most reasonable view about Mr. Fuentes’ nature and his activities “40” years ago. Those facts overwhelmingly suggest that Ronald Caspers and his confederates were unethical and corrupt. And Tom Fuentes was Caspers’ right-hand man for the four years in which Mr. Caspers and Co. pursued their corrupt operation.

     Please note that Mickadeit did not write that I have "not documented my claims"; he wrote that, in my post (actually, there are numerous posts, not one) two weeks ago, I “never documented a single original fact.”
     On the other hand, he describes my post as a rehash of "40-year-old innuendo about Fuentes….” So Mickadeit seems to be saying both that (1) I provide only innuendo and (2) I present nothing original.
     Let’s stick with the events of 40 years ago—namely, Fuentes’ four years with supervisor Ronald W. Caspers (which started with Fuentes' management of Caspers' 1970 supervisorial campaign and ended with Fuentes' role as executive assistant to Caspers upon the latter's death in June of 1974). My point above is that there is no need to document anything new, since the already documented facts are sufficient to portray Caspers and Co. as corrupt. 
     That Caspers' operation was corrupt is a crucial premise in my case against Fuentes. Recently, I colorfully described that case as follows:

Upshot: (1) Caspers and Co. [Harber, et al.] were seriously dirty; (2) Fuentes was Caspers' right-hand man during those dirty years. (3) Do the math. [See here.]

     (I might have added another point about the intimate nature of Fuentes' "right-handedness" to Caspers and Fuentes' reported involvement in various disturbing or questionable events and actions.) 
     In my recent series of posts about Caspers/Fuentes, I have been concerned about the issue of “documentation”—or, as I would prefer to characterize it, of “evidence.” That led me to emphasize the deposition (from 1975) of Richard Jordan, which was associated with his successful lawsuit of the County of Orange in 1978. (In a settlement involving agreements of silence, the County agreed to pay Jordan $700,000.)
     You’ll recall that, in 1978, both the Register and the Times wrote lengthy pieces about Jordan’s allegations (which the Reg uncovered by way of a public records request). In the course of its reporting, the Times came upon an old case from the mid-60s:

—I did some research on Cypress City Councilman Denni and, unsurprisingly, I found nothing about this aborted prosecution, though I did find considerable news coverage of Denni and a bribery trial in which he was acquitted, along with another man. Obviously, that he was acquitted in one case is consistent with the suggestion that prosecutors pursued another case against him. (The fellow who became Caspers' chief political advisor, Fred Harber, was the City Manager of Cypress at the time.)

     I have unearthed various other news articles concerning the bribery trial of Derek McWhinney, the Mayor or Westminster. That case and the Denni case reveal that specific elements of the Caspers/Harber shakedown scheme that Jordan describes in his deposition (namely, the $10K lump amount; the notion of payment of $2K per month) appear in other cases in which Caspers and his crew are present. (See my Puppets and Puppeteers.)

     There's more. I present former OC GOP chair Tom Rogers' account of Caspers' defeat of Supervisor Alton Allen by unscrupulous means and the behind-the-scenes regard of Caspers among establishment Republicans in and around 1970. I discuss Caspers' close relationship with the "Dick and Doc Show"—the campaign funding scheme run by Richard O'Neill and Louis Cella and relying on the political acumen of Fred Harber, who seemed to be involved in the campaigns and operations of many in the "Dick and Doc" stable. (Cella was the big fish in a series of numerous "corruption" prosecutions by OC DA Cecil Hicks' in the mid- to late-1970s.)

     And who was right there in the middle of all this? Tom Fuentes. 

     Let me be very clear about what I’m saying and what I’m not saying. I am not saying that I have proof that Fuentes participated in shakedown schemes and various unethical shenanigans during his Caspers years (c. 1970-74). What I am saying is that, given the strong indications of the nature of Ron Caspers and his associates’ actions (including apparent shakedown schemes, various unethical actions and strategies, etc.), and given Fuentes’ intricate and intimate involvement in Caspers’ public and private affairs during this period (Fuentes was not only Caspers’ chief executive assistant at the County but also a consultant at his Westminster S&L), it is implausible to suggest that Fuentes was unaware of what was going on. Indeed, given the full fabric of evidence, it is likely that he participated in it.

Fuentes' old political machine; now rusted

     We can consider also Fuentes’ pattern of controversial (i.e., ruthless, bullying, and arguably illegal) actions, especially as OC GOP chairman, long after his Caspers years. These include, of course, his involvement in the Bein & Frost/Santa Margarita Water District “gift” scandal of the early 90s and the “poll guards” scandal of the late 80s.
     Fuentes, I submit, learned quite a lot in his early years with the likes of Ron Caspers and Fred Harber. He was brought into their culture of corruption, internalized its ethos, and then regularly exhibited its unsavory impulses and preoccupations as pol/“businessman.” (Starting in 1975, Fuentes made his living helping private firms to secure lucrative contracts with government agencies, and the appearance of impropriety clung always to those dealings, even in recent years.)

     For those who wish to review the fabric of evidence that places Tom Fuentes smack dab in the center of a web of illegality and dirty dealings, I suggest reading the following:

The Fuentes file: Puppets and Puppeteers - Jun 21, 2012
~ It's pretty clear that Dick and Doc's political mastermind, Fred Harber, was the puppeteer to OC Supervisor Bob Battin's puppet. And yet Harber was Battin's "assistant." File this under: things are not always what they seem. We examine Tom Fuentes, Ron Caspers "assistant," and the extraordinary roles he seemed to play during and after Caspers' mysterious disappearance in 1974.

Harber and Caspers attempt to bribe a developer, but then they die instead - June 18, 2012
~ A RIPPING YARN: Based on two 1978 articles (Reg, Times): Richard Jordan's account of how Supe Caspers and consultant Harber tried to shake 'im down. (Tom figures into this story.) Jordan brought in the DA's office, but then Caspers, Harber, and eight others mysteriously disappeared off the coast of Baja: see "Shooting Star" below. Jordan sued; the County settled: $700,000.

Orange County's dark underbelly

The Fuentes file: Fred Harber & the ubiquity of violent death - June 17, 2012
~ It's really quite odd. There are the ten deaths of the Shooting Star sinking. There's the Arlene Hoffman killing (arrow through chest), never solved (she was Harber's secretary). Air plane crashes galore. I know that most of this is just coincidence, but still: weird.

What does Fuentes’ tutelage under, esteem of, and four years with, Ronald "shakedown" Caspers tell us about him? - June 14, 2012
~ An attempt to provide a fairly big picture. Upshot: (1) Caspers and Co. [Harber, et al.] were seriously dirty; (2) Fuentes was Caspers' right-hand man during those dirty years. (3) Do the math.

Tom Fuentes at age 34: "consultant" - Oct 9, 2010
~ Just before he became the OC GOP chairman. About to get married to the "love of his life." Running around, taking care of his "properties"—just like Fred Harber used to do! A 1983 article, catching Tom at his most vibrant and hopeful. Someone needs to write a novel.

Tom Fuentes: ubiquitous paid consultant - Oct. 4, 2010
~ Tom appears to have made his living helping firms "connect" with taxpayer money, by hook or by crook. But wasn't Tom always carping about public employee unions sucking on the public teat? I'm trying to understand how Tom didn't help others, and thus himself, do precisely that. Tom was complex.    

 Tom Fuentes, Caspers' "bagman"? - Sep 17, 2009
~ Young Nathan R wanted to run against the lazy Republican incumbent, but Tom declared, "thou shalt leave GOP incumbents be!" Nathan got pissed, right on TV. Called Tom "Caspers' bagman." The truth is revealed, but Nathan's political career is over.

See also:

What sank "Shooting Star"? 

The Fuentes Files

Always loved this song.