Author’s Note: For the record, the opinions and statements expressed in this post, and others I have written in the past, reflect my personal opinions and not those of any organizations or individuals with whom I may be presently or formerly affiliated.
You’ve got to really love the fact that, as far as I can find, in his entire career as Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckus has NEVER FOUND ANYTHING WRONG with alleged improper actions of elected officials. In keeping with his long standing practice, he has again allowed reality, truth, and ultimately justice to be swept under the rug.
In a memo transmitted on Monday to CEO Tom Mauk, and mysteriously not publicly disclosed until OC Register reporter Ron Campbell revealed it Wednesday, Orange County Senior Assistant District Attorney William J. Feccia (yes the guy’s name is eerily similar to feces) has concluded “that a finding that Mr. Street violated any law is not established by the evidence.”
My favorite is his finding regarding allegation #1 that Street signed a memo that contained false information. Actually the memo in question did not just contain false information. It contained false information specifically intended to demonstrate that a series of events had occurred which had not. The reason for Feccia’s conclusion; “since the Request for Proposal process described in the memo as having occurred was not actually required by law, the fact that the memo asserted false information related to that process was not unlawful.” Huh?
Oh it gets worse.
Since Street claims to have not known what he was signing and the Purchasing Manager for his agency, who by the way reports to him, corroborates his side of the story, and the “actual author of the fraudulent memo never implicated Mr. Street as having actual knowledge that the dates in the memo were false,” well then clearly nothing was improper. Hmmm, I wonder if he asked. I bet he didn’t or he would have said so.
Then there is allegation #2 allegedly investigated by Feccia that Street unlawfully subdivided projects related to the remodeling of his office in order to evade public contract code.
The Register’s Ron Campbell reported on September 28, 2007:
The county facilities department split remodeling contracts totaling $318,082.89 into 42 purchase orders – most for $5,000 or less.
If any of those orders had been a dollar more, the facilities department would have had to seek competitive bids. If the department had treated the remodeling as one project, it would have had to seek approval from the Board of Supervisors.
State law bars splitting a single project in order to avoid competitive bidding. A county ordinance in force when the project began required bids from at least four contractors for work costing more than $5,000. That threshold was raised to $15,000 in late March.
The top contractor, DH General Contractors of Huntington Beach, got 14 jobs for $109,000. ZE Construction of Reseda got seven jobs for $84,000. A&M Electric of Wildomar got seven jobs for $43,000. Seven other contractors split the remaining $82,000.
Here is the kicker, according to Feccia State law (Government Code §§ 22030-22045) provides that Public Projects over 125,000 must be competitively bid. Since the maximum grouping of individual contracts resulted in a maximum group contract award of $109,000, state law wasn’t violated. Apparently, violating a County Ordinance only amounts to pile of money, but not a hill of beans.
Can someone please find me a needle big enough to thread this elephant through?
Finally we have the allegation regarding Chriss Street misusing County resources for, among other things, getting paid while appearing at a series of depositions regarding personal matters.
This was an easy conclusion for “feces for brains” to reach. Since Street is a manager, and at some point during the days Street spent in depositions, he allgedely did some kind of work related function those dates, he was entitled to be paid.
Yes, this is the same rationale that allows Carlos Bustamante to get paid for attending meetings of the Santa Ana Business Bank, any number of personal meetings, or commenting on Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters lack of implants or a water bra, while being paid by the taxpayers.
You’ve got to love it. When the bullsh&t flows from Republicans, it flows deep and fast. I would suggest that Rackackus be investigated for fraudulent misuse of government funds for falsifying an investigation of wrongdoing by Street. But the crap is just too deep and stinky for that pig to fly out of the pen.