Today I attended the weekly meeting of the Orange County Board of Supervisors in Santa Ana. The main topic was a motion by Board member Shawn Nelson to reduce the annual funding to the OC Human Relations Commission from its current $302,000 a year to $202,000.
Predictably, OCHRC CEO Rusty Kennedy dragged in 7 community members, mostly affiliated with OCHRC to urge the board not to cut the funding. Most spoke in vague, general terms of all the great work OCHRC is doing within the community. One Sikh gentleman provided some specificity when he said that 75% of Sikh schoolchildren in Orange County had experienced schoolyard bullying because they had been mistaken for Muslims. (I don't know where he got those figures.) One woman played a one-minute video showing a young handicapped man pleading with the board not to reduce the funding. To do so, he said, would be "an injustice." Another woman, who I will call, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, spoke of world peace, and love all around all because of the OCHRC. It was pathetic.
In my turn at the microphone, I stated that Orange County was doing a good job in people from different communities getting along-not thanks to the OCHRC, but thanks to the communities themselves. I said the OCHRC was a waste of money. I also told them of my personal experience in 2008 when I wrote a letter to the commission complaining of anti-Semitic hate speech at UC Irvine, only to get a nasty reply (from Kennedy) lambasting me for criticizing the university for their lack of a response. I finished by saying that the OCHRC was very selective in what they chose to look at-or not look at.
One other man spoke in favor of cutting their budget due to their political correctness.
Of the five supervisors, aside from Nelson (who spoke for 5 minutes and questioned why government agencies had to always be the ones to get involved), John Moorlach favors a reduction in the funding to $202,000. Bill Campbell (who is outgoing) and Janet Nguyen support the current level of funding. Pat Bates suggested a postponement of the vote to June 26 because she wants to do a "forensic review" of the monies spent by OCHRC especially as it pertains to payments and contracts going to Orange County retirees. She is concerned about double-dipping. The vote was, in fact, postponed to June 26.
So it appears Pat Bates is the critical vote. If any of our readers are in Orange County and would like to weigh in, her e-mail is:
PatBates@ocgov.org
I imagine she would especially like to hear from anyone who knows about any double-dipping going on in monies spent by the OCHRC.
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3 comments:
did anyone ask why rusty kennedy seemed oblivious to his hometown's police force, Fullerton PD, systematically abused the civil rights of Fullerton's community? and what exactly is the relationship between retired fullerton police chief pat mckinley who now serves on fullerton's city council since retiring as police chief in 2009?
after all, pat mckinley served on rusty;s commission's board as a representative of law enforcement.
The other man made reference to the Kelly Thomas incident very strongly. This fellow apparently is a regular at these meetings. His name was gerald. Dumpy-looking guy. Earlier he spoke against the county assisting local soldiers financially because of what he termed illegal wars.
I wrote them in essence that this was a time to cut government expenditures and funds spent for this worthless enterprise indicates the supervisors are unaware of this problem.
I hope others will write in as well.
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