Orange County has its own measures on the ballot in November. The most politically charged is ‘D’ which would take Prop. 172 (the statewide half-cent sales tax for public safety) dollars currently allocated 
to the Sheriff and DA and send some of the new tax increment increases to the Fire Authority. Its a
generally boring topic of little consequence. Unless there is a raging forest fire in which case we all want the firefighters to have what ever they need or if there is a kidnapping and we want the Sheriff to have the resources necessary to find the kid alive, or if Robert Blake decided to move to OC and not kill his wife again we would want the DA to have the money to hire expert witnesses.
Basically, on a regular day it really doesn’t matter, only I trust the elected Sheriff and the elected District Attorney and dare I say the elected five member board of supervisors over the appointed couple-dozen member Fire Authority board of directors who are hardly accountable to the public, to spend our public safety tax dollars. Lets be clear, I am not condemning any one of the Fire Authority board members, but get a committee of 24 in a room and…well you know how well the state legislature works.
Now getting to the fun politics of it all…it seems that Assemblyman (former county supervisor) Todd Spitzer has made the OC Professional Firefighters angry with his signature to the NO on D ballot statement. Barbs are going back and forth, if you really care you can read the Assemblyman’s commentary on OCBlog.net.
The real fun in all this is though is that the OC Professional Firefighters (read union) are planning to protest Spitzer’s golf tournament fund raiser today.
Local Firefighters Protest Hypocritical Opposition to Measure D
WHO/WHAT: Orange County Firefighters as well as other firefighters from the 71st Assembly District set up an informational picket line outside of Assemblyman Todd Spitzer’s political fundraiser
WHY: Orange County Firefighters are tired of the hypocrisy! The informational picket will serve as a reminder that Assemblyman Spitzer, who signed ballot arguments against Measure D citing “wasteful spending” by the Fire Authority was in fact Chairman of the Authority when he supported the construction of the new Headquarters, which replaced a building built in the 1930s.
WHEN: Firefighters will picket arriving guests beginning at 9:00 a.m. and make remarks at a media availability at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, October 17, 2005 outside of Assemblyman Todd Spitzer’s day-long political fundraiser at a local golf club.
WHERE: Green River Golf Club
5215 Green River Rd.
Corona, CA 92880
Orange County hasn’t seen a good protest/picket since I can’t remember when. Technically Corona is just outside the county limit (but still in Spitzer’s Assembly District). Getting an opponent tearing down
your signs on video this isn’t. But the point is, its a great stunt that will earn the firefighters some media attention–certainly they are getting play on the blogs…
I would consider the protest a badge of honor and I am sure Todd is not losing any sleep over it all (right Todd?). I am sure he won’t confront them or make it a bigger issue than it already is (right Todd?).
Full disclosure: Spitzer, District Attorney Rackauckas, Sheriff Carona, the OC Professional Firefighters (shout out to my union boss friend Joe Kerr and my union thug buddy Tony Bedolla), Jeff Flint (who is running the Yes on D campaign) and virtually a majority of the OC board of supervisors and OC Fire Authority board are or have been clients of my firm.
Can’t we all just get along?