Friday, October 3, 2014

[Orange] County supervisors’ mixed feelings on ethics report lead to confusion


Two board members voted for response rejecting recommendations, despite saying they had reservations about the response.

September 28, 2014
Orange County Register
By Martin Wisckol

There was some fancy dancing at the Board of Supervisors meeting Sept. 16 when it came to consideration of the grand jury’s call for better ethics oversight in county government.



Supervisors approved a response to the grand jury that basically said, “Thanks, but we don’t think that’s necessary.” The twist is that while supervisors voted unanimously to submit the response, two said they disagreed with key components of that response. 


The grand jury report was a followup to a grand jury report last year detailing a history of county government ethics breaches that was both long and recent. This year’s report contained four recommendations, the first of which was to ask voters whether to establish a county ethics watchdog commission. 


The supervisors’ response was to reject the recommendation, although Supervisors Janet Nguyen and Todd Spitzer said they didn’t agree with that part of the response. 


Supervisors have attempted to address some ethics concerns by putting a measure on the November ballot asking voters to have the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission enforce campaign finance laws. One caveat with that proposal is that supervisors have been unsuccessful so far in getting the Legislature to change state law to allow such oversight. 


The grand jury said that even if the FPPC takes over campaign finance enforcement from the county district attorney, the county needs to establish its own office of ethics to oversee non-campaign finance issues. The supervisors’ response was to reject this recommendation – although Nguyen again said she disagreed. 


The remaining two recommendations were to “carefully weigh drawbacks to FPPC enforcement” before pursuing that possibility and to budget money for ethics enforcement. Supervisors agreed to carefully weigh drawbacks and to oppose spending money on enforcement, with no disagreement from Nguyen or Spitzer. 


Dave Gilliard, who is consulting for Nguyen in her high-profile race for state Senate, offered an explanation for his client’s vote for the response despite her opposition to key elements of it: 


“By law, the Board of Supervisors is required to issue a response to the grand jury, so Nguyen voted on the item,” he said. “However, in light of the state’s decision not to allow the FPPC to contract with the county of Orange, she opposed certain components of the response. She made it very clear during the discussion that the county needs to re-evaluate its options as it relates to additional oversight.” 


But some supporters of the grand jury recommendations complained that if Nguyen and Spitzer truly wanted to consider an ethics commission, they would have voted against the entirety of the supervisors’ response rejecting the recommendations – or at least would have proposed alternative language. 

By voting in support of the response but making exceptions for key components of it, Nguyen and Spitzer were protecting themselves from possible campaign attacks claiming that they opposed an ethics commission, said Nick Berardino, general manager of the Orange County Employees Association. 


“It’s politically motivated,” he said. 


Spitzer said at the meeting that he didn’t want to reject the recommendation to ask voters to consider an ethics commission because he thought it merited further consideration. 


“We should continue that discussion,” he said. He then acknowledged skepticism over whether he honestly wanted to consider an ethics commission. 


“Our sincerity is not being accepted as sincere,” he said. 



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