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Get ready for the ultimate scrub inside the County of Orange.
In the wake of a huge scandal involving alleged embezzlement stemming from nonprofit contracts tied to County Supervisor Andrew Do, there seems to be a real appetite among key elected officials for ethics reform.
Now county supervisors could be asking themselves some hard questions – some of which Anaheim City Council members considered last year in the wake of an FBI probe that saw former Mayor Harry Sidhu plead guilty to lying to investigators about trying to ram through the Angel Stadium sale for $1 million in campaign support.
“It’s not just Andrew Do, or (former Anaheim Mayor) Harry Sidhu,” said Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento in a Wednesday interview.
[Read: Santana: Anaheim Offers Key Lessons on How To Clean Up a City Hall]
Sarmiento acknowledges such scandals are “creatures of systemic problems.”
Some of the systemic problems with the county bureaucracy that oversees a $9.5 billion budget?
A lack of oversight, which led county attorneys to sue a nonprofit Do had contracted with after OC officials cut off the initial contract.
In recent court filings, county attorneys allege the nonprofit leaders – including’ Do’s daughter – embezzled the money and bought houses. While Supervisor Do isn’t named in the lawsuit, his daughter is, and both their houses were raided by the FBI last month.
[Read: Orange County Sues County Supervisor’s Daughter and Nonprofit Over Missing COVID Money]
Neither Do nor his family have been charged with any federal crimes.
Earlier this month, I wrote about the stunning similarities of the current scandal to the OC bankruptcy in 1994, just months ahead of the 30-year anniversary of that collapse.
[Read: Santana: Following The Money Inside The County of Orange]
This year is my 20th anniversary of covering OC government agencies (arriving at OC Register in 2004 from the San Diego Union Tribune) and it’s the first time I can remember when there’s been serious discussions from the supervisors’ dais about potential reforms to the systemic flaws in county government that stem fraud, waste and abuse.
This coming Tuesday, Supervisor Katrina Foley has scheduled a discussion on four key reforms for supervisors to consider to start what she and others acknowledge is an important conversation inside the County of Orange about instilling a culture of transparency and how that kind of ethos can spur efficiency, innovation and excellence.
“We have to get some light on the most immediate corrupt contracts,” Foley told me on Wednesday, describing a two-pronged approach to the current crisis of credibility for county officials.
“Then we have to set up guard rails to protect the board, the community and the staff from this happening in the future.”
For starters, Foley is asking her colleagues to call on the county’s Internal Auditor to look into more than $200 million in county COVID contracts.
Additionally, she’s proposing a review of all supervisors’ discretionary spending – potentially making it a matter of practice by the county procurement office.
Foley also will ask her colleagues to call on interim County CEO Michelle Aguirre to review all current county contracts and subcontracts to determine if there’s any family relationships that would require disclosure under a new state law passed by Assemblymembers Avelino Valencia and Sharon Quirk-Silva and recently signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
That law was a direct response to Do’s contracts with the nonprofit his daughter worked at.
Lastly, Foley is calling on the County CEO to regularly provide county supervisors with a quarterly update of all ongoing contract disputes within the county.
County supervisors have also scheduled discussion about officially censuring Do over the scandal.
And it looks like they may be brave enough to look further than one man for flaws.
“You can remove a Do or Sidhu … they are just replaced,” Sarmiento said. “It’s important we figure out how we can learn from these systemic problems and revisit the whole infrastructure of government.”
In his time as supervisor, Sarmiento said he sees “a very insular agency with a lot of discretion concentrated in board offices.”
That creates huge potential for problems.
Sarmiento told me he’s asking CEO Michelle Aguirre to “to revisit the entire procurement process,” acknowledging a heightened focus on auditing practices.
He also supports a full look at all the COVID contracts.
And more.
Sarmiento said he’s gearing up to introduce a “much more expansive” ethics reform package this Fall.
The election to replace the termed-out Do for a seat as the First District County Supervisor this November is now choc full of reform debate.
State Senator Janet Nguyen recently told me she wants complete auditing of every contract at the County of Orange and seemed very supportive of expanding auditing infrastructure.
Cypress Councilwoman Frances Marquez also recently spoke publicly at the county supervisors’ weekly meeting about calling for an official agency at the county that would oversee nonprofit contracting.
Sarmiento’s ethics reform proposals could easily catch fire over the next year in terms of enhancing the county ethics committee itself – set up by supervisors years back but kept on a very short leash.
[Read: OC Supervisors Have Chosen an Ethics Director]
Based on recent interviews, here’s a few reform ideas that county officials may consider, some of them implemented by Anaheim officials in the wake of an FBI corruption probe and an independent investigation into city hall.
Tracking Who Meets With County Supervisors
Publicizing official calendars is something county supervisors have historically resisted.
It offers taxpayers realtime accountability by publishing who officials are meeting with about county business.
That’s something Anaheim adopted – along with enhanced lobbyist monitoring – in the wake of their FBI scandal.
[Read: Anaheim Officials to Publicly Post Online Who They Meet With]
Encouraging Whistleblowing
Enhancing whistleblower protections like simple hotlines also are likely to get a look.
[Read: Will Anaheim & San Diego Protect City Hall Whistleblowers?]
Years back, county supervisors revamped that process to ensure their own county attorney’s office handled criticism about how they do business.
It would be interesting to hear a discussion about what kind of follow up hotline complaints have gotten since.
Bolstering a Culture of Auditing
Bolstering the offices of Internal Audit and the Performance Auditor is a likely starting point for any reform effort in reversing the very public attack on auditors at the county in recent years.
[Read: OC Supervisors Move to Take Away Independent Oversight]
Here’s what former Auditor Controller Eric Woolery, who died from heart issues as he battled supervisors, had to say when supervisors downsized his operations in a hostile takeover back in 2018.
“The impact’s really bad for the county,” Woolery prophetically announced to reporters.
“Twenty years ago or so, the auditor-controller was criticized for not being assertive enough [in preventing the 1994 bankruptcy]. I come in, I’m assertive to try to hold checks and balances, be that transparency within the county government structure. And now all of a sudden when I do my job, they want to take it away…I think it leads to another financial crisis within the county.”
Enhancing Citizen Oversight
Enhancing citizen oversight panels along with appointments of public members to regional bodies is another area that might see a renewed look.
Simple things like just offering video coverage of current citizen oversight panel deliberations could ensure that the vast array of county programs and agencies are regularly being engaged in public in a critical manner about programs they are administering and contracts they are awarding.
Residents should also have more real time access to public records, like contracts.
Foley said she is in favor of more real time document reporting — like office dashboards where taxpayers could easily see what kinds of contracts the County of Orange and individual county supervisors are authorizing.
A Strong CEO
Establishing a strong, professional CEO – checked by an elected board – is now likely to get a full review.
Look for the long term replacement for Interim CEO Aguirre to get kicked back to the Spring.
Who knows, maybe supervisors even potentially add a public interview component to the recruitment process – something that could also spur important dialogue about the mission of the county bureaucracy in the wake of the alleged embezzlement scandal.
Holding Executives Publicly Accountable
Public executive accountability and transparency standards might change, say by having agency leaders in the midst of controversies talk publicly about what’s going on as opposed to digging in their heels on a public conversation when things go wrong.
An interesting indicator of such openness going forward is whether the OC Public Works Department executives publicly address how the department accidentally sparked the Airport Fire when a work crew was moving boulders to keep people from off roading in the canyons.
Foley told me she was proud of CEO Aguirre for already setting up a webpage where people who might have potential claims against the County of Orange can file and get information.
Foley said while some officials argued to her that the county government should try to avoid advertising potential payouts, this kind of transparency underscored for her a key mantra that could go on to define the future of reform at the County of Orange.
It’s critical for the county bureaucracy to publicly step up for residents.
Especially when it messes up.
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