Ralph M. Brown,
Democrat

The Making of a Landmark Law for Open Government (Voice of OC)

     Sixty years ago Assemblyman Ralph M. Brown of Modesto, acting in part on his own experiences with the secrecy of local government officials, authored California’s landmark open-meeting law to ensure bodies like boards of supervisors and city councils conducted their business in public….

Judge Awards $98,000 Attorney Fees to Irvine Valley Teacher (1998, LA Times)

     Months after ruling that the trustees of South Orange County Community College District acted illegally by making decisions in secret, an Orange County judge awarded $98,000 in attorney fees this week to a professor who filed a lawsuit against the district.
     Roy Bauer, a philosophy professor at Irvine Valley College, has sued the district twice for violating the state's Brown Act, which requires that public meeting be open. The suits stemmed from a series of decisions the trustees made in 1997, including the reorganization of the district's governance structure and the selection of Raghu P. Mathur as president of Irvine Valley College. The campus is one of two that make up the South Orange County Community College District; the other is Saddleback College.

Bugsy's wild hair/hare

Dropped by my folks' place today and got a chance to play with Bugsy, the SuperKitten. He's now well-established as the "baby" of the family; both of my folks dote on him all day long, especially my mom, who babies him pretty good. She holds him and sings at 'im. He doesn't know any better, so he gobbles it all up.

I noticed that the young fellow was carrying a tiny cloth mouse in his mouth. "What's with that dang mouse?", I asked.

Mom told me that the mouse was one of the baubles that was hangin' from the Xmas tree (see action shot above). You know the stuff: all those little Santas, and birds, and snowballs, and guitars, and elves, and whatnot—that people hang on the tree along with bulbs and tinsel and sh*t. Well, as it turns out, out of the fifty or so doodads on my mom's tree, doodad, like, #36 was a mouse.
As you know, one of Bugsy's first toys was a goshdarned mouse. I guess he wanted a new one. So he got it. The boy shows initiative.

The only camera I had was the one on my mom's Mac laptop, which is pretty low-res. Here's a detail of a photo of Bugsy's new cloth mouse. Trust me, it's a mouse all right. It amazes me that the Bugster chose this one thing out of all that junk on that tree. He's smart, he is. One of these days, he'll be doin' my folks' taxes.

Here he is, sneakin' up on the varmint. You know cats. It's all about the obstacles and angles.

Here's my mom, trying to get her boy to give a damn about that duster thingy. Nobody expresses indifference like a cat expresses indifference. It's a feline specialty.

Here's some more "mouse" action. That posy at left is actually just the design of the rug.

Another action shot. That Bugsy moves around like an electron. You think he's over here, but then, a second later, he's way over there. Zip zip zip. Bing!

My mom really isn't up on cats—she and my dad or mostly "dog" people—so I've given her the benefit of my experience, catwise. I told her about how cats can get all revved up and crazy. It's the old "wild hair," I say*. "Once that gets started, they're liable to zip around like lunatics and maybe pull on your pants or bite your ankles. Watch out," I say.
"It's just a cat thing."
Don't get me wrong; Bugsy is about as sweet a cat as I've ever encountered, and that's saying a lot. But he's a boy and he's a kitten. So, well, something's gotta give.

Here's my mom trying to join in the cat fun.
Bugsy and I have become serious play buddies. Nowadays, when I show up, the Bug comes right up to me expecting FUN and MAYHEM (or a bit of butter at the end of a knife). He gets the wild hair every time. My mom doesn't really know what she's getting into here. She's trying to hang that dang mouse on the side of that chair. She figures he'll go nuts about it. Nope. That's all wrong.

Bugsy the indifferent. You gotta toss the dang thing against a wall or crush it in your mouth, stuff like that. Just hanging it up on a chair means nothing. Less than nothing.
Get it right!

My mom always provides lots of balloons for the kids during the holidays. I recall visiting last week and finding all these "dead" balloons everywhere. Evidently, the Bugster had popped 'em all. I was impressed. If I were a little kid—like the Bugster—and I saw some new kind of object suddenly disappear with a bang, I'd think twice about getting near its kind again.
Not the Bugster, it seems.
What a guy!

Mom really loves her little boy. My dad tells me that she'll freak out when Bug sleeps in that deep way that cats do. "He's not dead, is he?" she'll ask, virtually trembling. Many reassurances are issued by dad. "No, the goddam cat is just sleeping!" Then he'll pound his foot on the ground or something and Bugsy'll shoot straight up in the air and tear off in some direction, just like some Warner Bros critter.
My folks are pretty clueless about cats.

Like Kathie, mom doesn't know how to say "no" to a cat. Arguably, it's important for a cat to know that word. When mom (or Kathie) say "no," they're about as stern as Shirley Goddam Temple. Truth is, all of mom's "nos" are virtual "yeses." So I told mom about how to say no and mean it; to be very quick and efficient about it: no lingering or yapping. Works wonders. And you don't have to yell or nothing.
Today, my mom tried out her first stern "no." The Bugster got one of those wild hairs and, when he hopped up on mom's lap, he started biting her (the way kittens do). He got a little carried away, getting those rear legs going. Ouch! That's when my mom tried out her new "no."
Suddenly, she belted out a thundering "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"—a No that could kill a guy.
I suggested that the utterance need not be ear-splitting or gut-wrenching. "Oh," she said.
(I don't think my mom has a "medium" switch. It's strictly off or HELLFIRE with her.)

Bugsy in the kitchen with Mr. Balloon, Mr. Mouse, and his beloved mom.

     *Some say the expression is "wild hare," not "wild hair." Yeah, whatever.

Old Irvine

Evidently, this picture was taken near the current Old Towne Irvine, namely, the south side of the junction of the 5 and Sand Canyon (SEE)

Another Year of High Impact Journalism (Voice of OC)

     Voice of OC was established in 2009 as a community nonprofit newsroom that would ensure robust coverage of the complex challenges facing our local governments, with an aim toward spurring investigation, analysis and conversation.
     Throughout 2012, Voice of OC journalists showed why such an asset matters to residents interested in keeping a close eye on those who control the institutions of democracy…. Check it out!

No-bidsville: same old same old

Tom Fuentes with boss, Ron Caspers, c. 1973

     Just read Frank Mickadeit’s column in the Reg. He reports that the public relations firm Forde & Mollrich will be losing their lucrative contract with the Great Park:

     Over the weekend, Councilman Jeff Lalloway gave me a copy of the memo he will send to the [Irvine] city manager this morning calling to immediately terminate the contract that guarantees F&M at least $600,000 a year and allows it to make up to $900,000.
     Lalloway's memo will place the termination vote on the Jan. 8 City Council agenda. Lalloway also will be asking his fellow council members to terminate a $201,000-a-year contract with Great Park lobbyist Townsend Public Affairs.

     This, of course, was the inevitable result of the election outcome in November, when Larry Agran lost to Steven Choi for Mayor and also lost his “majority” on the Irvine City Council. It was a stunning defeat.
     F&M enjoyed a no-bid contract, and that’s what irked Mickadeit:

     I've railed about this contract for years. It's not the product I groused about – everything I saw looked very professional. Rather it was that nobody else ever got a chance to bid on it. My files show that I was questioning F&M's contract back in 2005 when it was a mere $564,000. At the peak of the absurdity, the contract was up to $1.5 million a year.

     You’ll recall that the “Forde” of F&M is the dirty trickster and Super Crony so intimately involved in the rise of Ron Caspers to political office (Board of Supervisors) in 1970. A young Tom Fuentes ran Caspers’ ugly campaign and soon became Caspers’ chief assistant at the county and even an employee at his S&L. In 1974, Caspers perished in a mysterious boating accident off the coast of Baja. Fuentes was slated for Caspers’ replacement until a residency requirement nixed the deal.
     Fuentes was supposed to be on that ill-fated boat trip but ultimately declined the invitation, though he did provide a cooler full of goodies for his boss.
     Another person invited to join the trip was another Supervisor's aide, Lyle Overby, who jumped ship after its first leg (at Cabo).
     He must feel like a lucky guy.
     Overby, too, has flourished. He’s a top lobbyist.

     Three days ago, the Reg’s Watchdog reported that

     Two political action committees with links to CR&R Waste and Recycling Services have spent thousands to re-elect public officials who supported lucrative contracts with the company, public records show.
     …[They] spent more than $33,000 to support—and on one occasion oppose—candidates running for the Costa Mesa Sanitary District and city council seats in Rancho Santa Margarita and Tustin.
     Most of the money went to support incumbent candidates who voted on CR&R contracts during their most recent terms in office, according to public records. The candidates voted to maintain or extend the trash hauler’s contracts without opening the process to bidding [my emphasis]. These two contracts have so-called evergreen clauses that automatically renew for terms of five or six years, without additional votes or competitive bids.
. . .
     “It’s not illegal, but in my mind it just shows the influence of campaign money on the governmental process,” said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies.

     Who do you suppose CR&R’s lobbyist is?

     Lyle Overby, a registered lobbyist for CR&R who had links to both PACs, also said campaign contributions were unlikely to influence public officials’ votes.
     “These tiny amounts of dollars don’t buy anybody,” Overby said.

     But there’s more:

     Along with his work as a lobbyist for clients including CR&R, Overby served for more than a decade as treasurer for the Committee for Improved Public Policy, a PAC funded in part by contributions from CR&R.
     The trash company contributed $25,000 to the Committee for Improved Public Policy between April 1 and June 30, campaign finance records show. Overby gave the committee $8,000 in independent contributions.
. . .
     The committee also contributed $7,500 to another PAC, Concerned Californians for Effective Government, campaign finance forms showed. Overby gave Concerned Californians for Effective Government $5,000 in June.
     Contributions from Overby and the Committee for Improved Public Policy accounted for more than half of the$17,946 Concerned Californians for Effective Government brought in between Jan. 1 and Oct. 20, records showed.

     Et cetera. Ad nauseum.

SEE ALSO

• Fuentes, Michelena & Overby: plump mosquitoes from the same swamp
• The corruption files: early seventies (Fuentes, Michelena, et al.)
• Tommy Tales: lobbying plus piety. Genius!

Look, Kitten

     Got this from GB. Don't know where he got it.

     Years ago, I'd call myself a feminist, 'cuz I believed in equal pay for equal work, the ERA, etc., but I kept running into women who objected mightily to any man (or just me?) self-labelling himself thus. I think the idea was that you have to pass some special test (involving humiliation and self-flaggelation) to have permission to call yourself that (but only when accompanied by the appropriate female handler).      

     "OK," I thought. "But you gals sure are prickly."

     I still consider myself a feminist, but I keep it to myself.

     OK, Kitten?

     But, in all seriousness, I can see a point in distinguishing between two divisions in an army such as feminists. There are, first, the malficiaries© (you know, opposite of beneficiaries) of sexism and the like. They do have a special moral authority by virtue of being women—i.e., the damaged party. The corresponding point about moral authority was made, long ago, by black abolitionists. But the latter crowd was generally friendly to and even grateful for non-black supporters. 

     It's certainly true that non-malficiary supporters are vulnerable to unconscious condescension, and it makes sense for the army to maintain mechanisms to identify and correct such attitudes among supporters. 

     But generosity, too, is a virtue; and meanness is a vice.

     Re black abolitionists: Quoting Frederick Douglass:

From Abraham I. Melden's Rights and Persons. Melden was among my mentors.