Thursday, September 3, 2020

9-3: Vote early and vote often! PLUS OC Supes suck

Santana: Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 1,000 as OC Supervisors Keep Politicizing Public Health
—Voice of OC

By NORBERTO SANTANA JR.

     More than 1,000 Orange County residents are now dead from the Coronavirus.

     Yet County of Orange officials continue to double down on politicizing the public health department.

     After fumbling the public messaging for the Memorial Day reopening along with lax restaurant enforcement since June, the County of Orange this past month quietly lowered medical standards to install a new County Health Officer [Dr. Clayton Chau] and also tasked him with running the county’s billion dollar Health Care Agency.

     Those are two pretty big jobs to combine.

     Not to mention that leaves Orange County with the least qualified medical doctor protecting residents in any of our neighboring Southern California counties.

     Instead, OC’s new county health officer is celebrated for his ability to deal with regulators, politicians and business interests.

. . .

     County officials never publicly released any information about the other candidates for the position nor about Chau’s compensation or contracts for both jobs.

     When I attempted to ask questions about Chau’s appointment at last week’s press conference, I was cut off by the County’s Public Information Officer.

     Note that for a county of three million people, county supervisors only allow about 20 minutes of questions to officials each week. That’s after reporters are forced to sit through Chairwoman [Michelle] Steel’s latest 15-minute campaign speech for Congress.

     There’s still lots of confusion about how the virus numbers are being reported and a new state tiering system that indicates Orange County is moving to reopen large gatherings – like schools – again.

     Out in front is Chau – echoing supervisors’ sentiments – seemingly moving in an aggressive manner to reopen venues, even having to walk aback a tweet this past weekend about reopening schools as early as Sept. 8.
     Note that public health isn’t the only accountability mechanism county supervisors have short circuited in recent years.

     Years back, supervisors created an innovate position called the performance audit division, which went out and conducted management audits throughout the county. After the office showed multiple instances of fraud, waste and abuse throughout the government, county supervisors forced out the chief auditor and then kept the position vacant for years.

     Similarly, they created the Office of Independent Review after the 2006 jail beating death of John Derek Chamberlain and again after years of dysfunction left it vacant until recently filling the position.

     Former Auditor Controller Eric Woolery fought supervisors on numerous fronts – including their questionable use of official county mail for campaigning, pension benefits and spending. Supervisors eventually took out most of his staff, leaving him with no ability to check them.

     Woolery felt the pressure. He died last August, reportedly of heart issues.

     Orange County supervisors don’t like to be told no.

     Yet that’s a dangerous way to run public health.

 

In Scathing Report, OC Grand Jury Describes Shackles During Birthing, Care Delays in Custody

—Voice of OC

     The Orange County Grand Jury is raising alarms about deaths of unborn children to pregnant inmates in county jail, including medical records allegedly showing a cooperative prisoner was improperly shackled while giving birth to a stillborn baby in a hospital.

     In another case, the grand jury described an inmate giving birth to a dead baby on the way to the hospital after her mother pleaded, with no success, for two weeks for urgent medical attention and then faced over an hour and a half delay in being taken to the hospital by ambulance.

     Grand jurors investigated ten of the infant deaths at OC Women’s Central Jail, including subpoenaing medical records and interviewing officials and inmates, before issuing a scathing report in late June.

     When the document came to the Orange County Board of Supervisors for a response last week, the supervisors said nothing about it, while Sheriff Don Barnes described the report as riddled with errors.
     “Care ranged from adequate prenatal care to handcuffing of an inmate during labor and delivery, to ignoring urgent requests for medical care. The grand jury also learned that some of these pregnancies ended in the death of the fetus,” grand jurors wrote in their report. An inmate giving birth was kept shackled by a sheriff’s deputy at a hospital despite doctors asking that they be removed because she was cooperative and immobilized by an epidural, grand jurors found. State law bans shackles during labor unless necessary for safety, and says the restraints must be removed if doctors determine that’s medically necessary, grand jurors wrote.

. . .

     County supervisors said nothing when the report came to them last week for a response. After hearing from public commenters critical of how pregnant inmates were allegedly treated, the supervisors voted unanimously without discussion to approve their written response disputing many of the grand jury’s findings….

 

Stall tactics. Distractions. Lobbying. How police reform was derailed in California -- By the time the sun set at the Capitol on Monday evening, hours from a legal deadline to pass bills for the year, state Sen. Steven Bradford knew his proposal to strip badges from troubled officers was in trouble. Anita Chabria in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 9/2/20

 

California’s coronavirus stimulus was a bust…what now? -- So much for California saving itself from the economic wreckage of the coronavirus. As state lawmakers ended the year with a profanity-laced, partially remote late-night voting session this week, several pillars of a sweeping $100 billion economic stimulus proposal became political casualties of a chaotic summer at the Capitol. Lauren Hepler CalMatters -- 9/2/20

 

California Poised to Increase Oversight of Former For-Profits

—Inside Higher Ed

     A bill aiming to prevent for-profit colleges from evading oversight by posing as nonprofit colleges was passed by the California State Assembly this week. If approved by Governor Gavin Newsom by Sept. 30, the changes will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2022….

 

✅ Trump tries to clarify comment that voters cast ballots twice

—WashPo

     The president encouraged people to vote twice — once by mail and once in person — to test the protections intended to guard against double voting. Intentionally voting twice is illegal, and in many states, including North Carolina, it is a felony.

 

She was the aggressor’: Former Liberty student alleges sexual encounter with Becki Falwell

Politico

     A former student at the evangelical university opens up about a 2008 incident with the wife of the school’s president.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dangerous times sometimes bring out the worst in our politicians, sheriffs, and other workers. Still, what happened with those pregnant inmates is chilling. May the folks who put them in such positions burn in Dante's Hell.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...