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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