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This morning I attended the swearing in ceremony of Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. This event was held in the OC Sheriff’s Regional Training Academy in Tustin in the same large room that is used for her swearing in of the newest members of our OCSD.
It was a “who’s who” in local law enforcement including sheriffs from other Orange County cites as well as LA County Sheriff Lee Baca.
Prior to the sheriff taking the oath Former US Ambassador and Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez provided a resume of Sheriff Hutchens that included the sheriffs last assignment in the LA County sheriff’s department where she served four years as Division Chief for the office of Homeland Security addressing the issue of counter terrorism. Gaddi pointed out that the OC sheriff’s department includes 3600 sworn men and women. He stated that Orange County is the 8th largest jail system in the nation. Gaddi’s current position is VP of Public Affairs for SC Edison.
Upon concluding his remarks Gaddi introduced the participants in the swearing in ceremony beginning with Kim G. Dunning, presiding judge Orange County Superior Court who administered the oath of office. Also in the oath ceremony were new OC Board Chairman Bill Campbell and the sheriff’s husband Larry who held the bible used in the ceremony.
In her remarks sheriff Hutchens thanked many in the audience beginning with Ambassador Vasquez, Judge Dunning, Supervisor Campbell BOS Members, OCSD senior chaplain Sandy Otsuji, her husband Larry, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, family members, friends from LA County sheriff’s department, DA Tony Rackauckas, all of the OC police chiefs, AOCDS president Wayne Quint, OCEA G.M. Nick Bernardino and Lee Baca, LA County Sheriff, who she identified as one of her mentors.
She closed the introductions by acknowledging every member of her Command Staff who as she pointed out “does the heavy lifting ” and implementation of her vision and direction for the department.
Sheriff Hutchens pointed out that the “Sheriff, as an elected official is accountable to the people. I pledge to you that I will not waver from that awesome responsibility.”
In a review of department accomplishments one deserves a great deal of credit and thanks was the actions of a two member highway interdiction team. They “captured a car with large scale narcotics traffickers utilizing OC highways including the I-5 corridor to Mexico. Team of two seized over 80,000 amphetamine, 160 pounds of cocaine, 10 firearms, $3 million in cash and made 85 arrests.”
Her closing remark, referenced by former President Reagan is that “there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
While I recognized several of the other attendees let me add that former Assembly Member Todd Spitzer was in attendance with perhaps 1,000 suits and uniforms. I felt well protected this morning.
Something tells me you won’t be reading anything about this from the RC crowd………Still reeling from Carona denial.
I like your title “Elected Sheriff”
At the Bill Hunt events I went to (because of my morbid fascination with Joe Arpaio) Bill and everyone else (including Tim Whitacre) were careful to never mention Sandra Hutchens’ name – and repeatedly refer to her as “the Appointed Sheriff.” It was so disciplined, it was positively FOX-Newsy.
And Bill and Arpaio both made a point of mentioning “One thing we both agree on is that Sheriffs should be elected, not appointed.” WEAK. As though that was ever a question. I’m glad she won, Bill Hunt just played the immigration card way too much.
Looks like Gadd is still faking it. Edison–shame–shame–shame !!
Nice touch leaving the suspense to the end that was on all our minds – was Todd Spitzer there? (Yes, of course, though I would have liked to see his interaction with T-Rack. and the Schroeders.)
That reminds me, when I played piano at Spitzer’s holiday party last month, I kind of expected you to do a similarly breathless bolded society-column type piece about that… but then you didn’t show up! And I was left alone, awkwardly, with Capo Unified Capo Tony Beall, whose quislings Maddox and Winsten I’d been savaging relentlessly. Oh, the horror…. I’ll tell the story later.
Vern. In my haste to beat the Register coverage this morning I did omit a one liner from the sheriff that is worth adding here.
“To the women in the audience you will understand this. This is a special day for me because I am the sheriff . I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to wear.”
And Vern. Last oversight. Not to be overlooked but I spoke to termed out Senator Dick Ackerman immediately after the event. I reminded him of the flyer from the governor of OK that Dick had given to me several years ago. I have referenced that flyer in Juice comments. The flyer entices companies to relocate to that state. Dick responded by discussing Illinois announcing an increase in taxes that the neighboring state of Indiana is jumping on to steal their businesses.
Yup. Increasing taxes can cause a backlash but I’ll leave those decisions to those who run their ships of state.
Great post Larry,
Wish I could have been there, Sheriff Hutchins is a classy lady and excellent Sheriff. I interacted with her several times on the trail in ’10, and every time I found myself wishing there were more electeds like her. The Dept. couldn’t be in better hands, and the fact that so many Reps detest her makes it that much better!
Robert, you got that right. SCE is the golden parachute for many former electeds, it seems. Cushy high paying jobs handed out. Keep this in mind as you ponder their current rate increase before the State PUC and view their self-serving ads on t.v. telling us how they are watching out for us and have been trusted for 100 years. Yeah, right. SCE makes government look efficient in comparison.