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Thursday, June 15, 2006

Irvine Republican Council Meeting Tonight

disclaimer: these are my own personal opinions and observations. My views do not necessarily represent the views of the IRC.

I have been waiting for tonight's IRC meeting a long time. We had Supervisor Bill Campbell and OC GOP party chairman Scott Baugh as guest speakers. I have been wanting to ask Supervisor Campbell to explain his vote to increase pension benefits/obligations ever since he and our other GOP Supervisor Silva sold us out to the unions on this issue last year. Scott had just got done telling us why it was such a great thing that we elected John Moorlach last week/kicked some union butt and I thought it was a great segway to ask Mr. Campbell why he voted for this dumb idea to obligate OC taxpayers for union pensions down the road when the actuarial projections never pan out like what always happens to these things(for some reason I always get stuck asking our guests the tough questions that need to be asked, but I digress). Supervisor Campbell said he was still very proud of his vote and proceeded to rattle off the reasons why he thought it was a good deal for taxpayers. He was very unconvincing to me and most others, but at least I finally got to hear him try to rationalize why he voted the way he did. He also mentioned to me that if Mr. Moorlach tries to revisit this issue, he will not support him. He thinks John lied in his recent campaign against Dave Shawver about the county possibly going bankrupt again because of the pension issue and he said "I will tell John to his face that he is wrong on this issue". I just basically wanted to know why my Republican Supervisor is siding with the unions over the taxpayers.

The next question to Scott and Bill was in reference to the recent Sheriff Carona debacle(I know, I know you're saying to yourselves...which debacle?). For the record I didn't ask the question, but I'm glad someone did. The question was about the Sheriff's decision to suspend Lt. Hunt over things that were said in the heat of a political campaign. I am glad to know that on this issue both Supervisor Campbell and Scott Baugh expressed how "uncomfortable" they were the next morning when they heard what the Sheriff had done to Lt. Hunt. It's a safe bet that this issue is not going away and Supervisor Campbell said that he and his staff are gathering all the facts and looking into what can be done to make sure this doesn't happen again.

All and all it was a great meeting. We have to keep holding our representatives accountable and especially our Republican elected officials.

1 Comments:

  • At 3:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Sadly, Bill Campbell has become a sell out. Maybe it was John Lewis's work with the SEIU in San Diego that did it. Maybe Campbell regretted paying slave wages to his Taco Bell employees for all those years. Maybe it is just it's not his money so he doesnt care.

     

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