Month: July 2014

For all the crowing that some people do about how Obamacare is an intrusion into our lives, the reality is that just providing access to health care insurance is not enough if, as a community, we want to address the increase in incidences of preventable chronic disease in our community. Health, is not a political issue, it is a community stability issue. The reduction of preventable chronic disease is a core function of our government’s job related to public health.

Never missing an opportunity to make himself the center of attention, Spitzer announced that he and Bobby McDonald, Chair of the Orange County Veterans Advisory Council, had partnered to host a meeting of mayors in the Third Supervisorial District “to get the word out that we are in search of a land donation of over 100 acres to build a veterans cemetery.” Spitzer’s office said that meeting would include an intense discussion of possible locations.

Irvine Council member Christina Shea has been one of the biggest sticking points in placing a Veteran’s Cemetery and Memorial at the Great Park in […]

OC GOP chairman Scott Baugh will leave his position in January 2015 according to a story in the Orange County Register.  Baugh cites demands on his […]

By the Fourth of July holiday, word was out that the members of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriff’s had approved a tentative agreement with the County of Orange after more than two years at the negotiating table. The two year agreement has deputies ramping up towards paying their share of pension contributions over the next two years.

To say that Irvine City Council member Jeff Lalloway is shameless at times can be a serious understatement.  Lalloway is proposing a new transparency ballot […]

Costa Mesa Mayor Jim Righeimer, with the assistance of his Imperial Court, is again attacking the right of the public to disagree with the policy agenda he has for the city. Righeimer and his allies have decided that the Mayor should be able to censor comments that are (in the Mayor’s opinion) outside the jurisdiction of the city council or attempting to engage the audiance rather than the city council, by making such commentary a crime, a misdemeanor.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision regarding Harris v. Quinn (US 11-681 6/30/14), ruled that partial public employees cannot be compelled to pay their fair share of representation costs if they choose to not join the union representing them. This ruling does not overturn the Court’s precedent set by Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Education (1977). That decision requires public employees to pay their share of representation costs if they do not join the union representing their class of employees at a public agency.