When Greg Diamond met Wendy Leece: Two brave Davids taking on OC Goliaths.
Thanks to Greg Diamond for the perfect title! And now I shall tell this tale, for I was there, and I took the pictures. And also, I was there BECAUSE of Greg – my friend Marselle and I had just zipped all over central OC getting signatures for his bold DA race, and we’d earned the right to kick back and schmooze with all the politicos getting in to file for election at THE VERY LAST HOUR. This was three days ago, Friday March 7, 2014.
And this story shall be solely about the race for the coveted, glamorous, $148K-plus-benefits-paying post of Clerk-Recorder – the position that every snotty-nosed, whinging, Orange County child dreams of some day attaining. So it is a short, simple, sweet story – but I shall flesh it out, and I shall milk it. Just watch me.
Hugh
One friendly face I found in that crowd of politicians and consultants was current Clerk-Recorder Hugh (prev. Hieu) Nguyen, sitting next to County Assessor Webster Guillory (left.) 
This blog feels some pride in having helped Hugh get that position, which could have gone to any number of crooked and useless career politicians who were trying hard to get their OLD OLD FRIENDS on the Board of Supes to hand it to them on a silver platter last year – but we really wanted to see it go to an unambitious, unassuming cat who’d been working in that office for years and sincerely just wanted to make it work well. So we lobbied three of the supervisors on Hugh’s behalf, live-blogged the final interviews here, and Hugh got the gig – which we still count as one of this blog’s many 2013 victories.
Since then, my colleague Cynthia Ward, who, as a professional researcher, frequently uses the Clerk-Recorder offices, has several times expressed great consternation over a rumor that Hugh was going to move their archives from downtown Santa Ana to Cal State Fullerton, which would somehow make her work difficult-to-impossible. And as I tried to hook her up with Hugh to discuss this problem, we had a hell of a time getting any sensible response from him. Now we know the reason why: I had TWO Hieu Nguyens on my phone; the other one was a LGBT activist who spearheaded the move for inclusiveness in the latest Tet Parade (another victory!) Gay Hieu was really puzzled by all the messages about Cynthia and the “moving archives,” LOL. Anyway Clerk Hugh wants Cynthia to know that this move is unlikely at this point, and he would love to meet with her and hear her concerns. Mostly he’s proud of:
- the progress he’s already made automating and digitizing all their images to make them more readily available to the public;
- opening up the main office for ONE SATURDAY A MONTH, which he says has been spectacularly successful and popular;
- keeping the satellite offices open till 4:30; and
- the huge improvement in morale over the days of his predecessor Tom Daly. He urges me “just come in any day and talk to the staff.” Maybe I will. One of these days.
Still, Hugh seemed in a foul mood, as he sat brooding and muttering by his urbane comrade Webster, who seemed to be consoling and commiserating with him. The reason is that he was watching not the expected ONE challenger (Democrat Gary Pritchard) file to run for his office, but a second, unexpected Republican challenger – the notoriously slimy Troy Edgar who had just popped up at the last minute like a Jack-in-the-Box, and was at this very moment, with his equally skeevy consultant pal Brett Barbre – as the 5:00 deadline fast approached – attempting to get enough signatures to put himself on the ballot, in that same room!
The Democrat
I thought I should first go talk to Hugh’s Democratic challenger, my old acquaintance Gary Pritchard from south county. Back in 2010 this blog helped him and his “Capistrano Children First” colleagues take over the Capistrano Unified School Board from an extremist, anti-public education “reform” slate that had seized power two years before; and Gary and his friends have been running things real well since then by most accounts. Also Gary’s (now ex) wife Heather used to be a somewhat well-liked liberal blogger in this county.
So I asked Gary, in a pause while the ROV employee went to go get him his paperwork, “What would you do, differently from Hugh?” The wheels in his head seemed to start to move, very slowly. But after a few false starts, it became obvious that he thought my question was How would he CAMPAIGN differently from how Hugh is campaigning. (However that is.)
No, I mean … you want to be Clerk-Recorder, don’t you? How would you run that office different from how Hugh is doing it? What would you change? How is Hugh fucking the place up, betraying the public trust if you will?
“Ah!” And he had to think for a minute. “Well, for one thing, I would see if there was some way I could expand services – ” and the employee returned with his paperwork, which Gary dove back into with a look of relief at having escaped my questions. That was kinda disappointing – it seemed the Democratic challenger doesn’t really know WHY he’s running.
Troy and Brett
But the real characters are Troy Edgar and his consultant Brett Barbre.
They were plotting at the counter with their heads down, so I yelled “TROY! BRETT!” And up they looked!
Troy got trounced two years ago in an assembly race by total newcomer Travis Allen (who was also there Friday) despite spending half a million and having racked up all the big Republican (and some DINO) endorsements. He does manage to keep getting re-elected to the Los Alamitos City Council, but he’s done so many crooked things there that he has very vocal Los Al critics warning the rest of us about his corruption and backstabbing nature. In person, he doesn’t look as much like the great British actor Tim Roth as I thought, since he’s about two feet taller than the pint-sized scenery chewer.
It was good to see what Brett Barbre looks like, I had heard so many stories about him. We’ve been butting heads from a distance over the wasteful and destructive Poseidon scam, which he tirelessly shills for from his perch on the Metropolitan Water District.
But the most outrageous – AND relevant – Barbre story is also one of the most underreported stories of the last few years, broken by Bushala’s dearly-missed blog in 2010. Everyone knows about former Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly steering tens of thousands of public money to Jordan Brandman for a report on satellite office expansion – a report that didn’t happen, and didn’t happen, and then was ripped off from wikipedia, and then was finally turned in late when there was way too much shit hitting the fan over it. We know about that mainly because the Voice of OC was ALL OVER Brandman in 2012.
But nobody seems to know or care that Daly did almost the exact same thing for the sneakier and more obscure Brett Barbre a couple years earlier – paid him $48,000 of YOUR money – just under the amount the Supes woulda had to approve (as in the Brandman case) – for a study of a possible “OC Sports Hall of Fame” – a study which ALSO never happened. See Bushala for the details and documents.
After a moment to collect themselves, Troy and Brett smiled a bit. Well, Troy at least.
When Daly ascended into the Assembly, he tried to move heaven and earth to hand the office over to his pliant, mousy assistant Renee Ramirez, and Barbre was in the forefront of that, squiring her all over the county to introduce her to all the movers and shakers he knows. We managed to get the honest Hugh in instead. And now here comes Brett with a NEW sleazy politician that he wants to install into that same office. It really looks like Brett sees the Clerk-Recorder office as a gravy train that he wants to get running again, and I think it reflects well on Hugh that Hugh apparently just doesn’t “do it” for Brett.
Anyway, as the clock got closer and closer to the 5pm deadline, Troy STILL didn’t have his minimum 20 signatures, and Brett just kept hitting up everyone in the room for a few more. (Geez, how pathetic – me and Diamond and Marselle started that same afternoon and got almost 40.) And Diamond kept telling me, “Take some more pictures, Vern! This is a historic day!” But my phone was running out of battery, and I couldn’t find my charger, which I had just set down RIGHT OVER THERE!
The Real Bad Guy
Then my phone rang – it was Marselle, who had gone out for a smoke or something, and brought my charger with her “so it wouldn’t get stolen” – LOL, did she have a better bead on these politicos than me or what? And as it was NOW AFTER 5, the guards wouldn’t let her back in! “OK, let me see, I’ll let you in this door over here,” I innocently said.
Diamond, seeing what I was about to attempt, hollered across the room, “They’re not going to let you do that, Vern!” And every person in the room – fifty people – politicos, consultants, hangers-on, employees – all turned and stared at me to see what mayhem the disreputable blogger might be attempting. And they just kept staring.
You don’t DO that to someone who’s a performer. I think on balance I behaved well. I snarled something like, “What are YOU all staring at?” But I was sorely tempted to re-enact Tony Montana’s “Bad Guy” restaurant scene:
Then I figured it WAS time for me to leave, my work there was done. The short black female guard said, “Sir, you know, once you leave, you can’t come back in here.” “Never, ever, EVER? Not even next week?” “Of course you can come back next week, sir.” “Never mind, I’m outta here. I know when I’m not wanted. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR KIND INDULGENCE!” And I slammed the door, and didn’t once look back.
And I have never set foot in that place again.
*
When I got home to my laptop, I saw the OCPolitical report that Troy and Brett were busted collecting their last couple signatures after the 5pm cutoff – 
busted by security cameras AND five witnesses – and disqualified from the Clerk Recorder race. ROTFLMAO, couldn’ta happened to a sleazier pair. And this must have been right around the time I was leaving, must have been a lot going on at the same time.
Los Alamitos gadfly-blogger J. M. Ivler, who’s long been one of Edgar’s most tireless critics, spins it that maybe Los Al voters should wake up and realize that this city’s not big enough for Troy, that he just keeps snatching out wildly but unsuccessfully for any higher office he can find.
And again, I think it reflects well on having an honest, simple guy like Hugh in there, that Brett Barbre would feel the need to help install a new kleptocrat – a Trojan Horse if you will – in (probable) hopes of re-starting another gravy train for himself.
Well, that’s it for now. Nelson out. Carry on…
Uh, Vern — I do see Troy sort of pinching out a smile in that second photo in the ROV office, but when you say that “Brett smiled” … well, are you using some non-traditional version of that verb?
By the way, the “collecting signatures after 5:00” problem was just the easiest charge to prove. As was explained to me when I took out my nomination papers that morning, I could not collect any signatures within the ROV’s office AT ALL. My question for clarification on that point was met by the cheerful and droll front office staff with something along the lines of “we really wouldn’t want to see you arrested, after all.” (Perhaps that was a joke; perhaps that was just a bad question!) How Edgar and Barbre missed that point, I do not know, because when you’re collecting signatures on the last afternoon of filing you really tend to pay attention to that sort of thing!
Anyway, the follow-up story is the important one: WHO SENT TROY AND BRETT TO THE ROV AT THE LAST MINUTE TO RUN AGAINST HUGH NGUYEN? Yes, it could have been Barbre’s own initiative — but why wait until then? (Because they just found out that Nguyen was running? Come on, guys — while he hadn’t yet filed, he did pay his fees on March 5, as readers of the OJB were told: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2014/03/a-day-at-the-races-4-march-2-with-five-days-left-whos-in-whos-on-whos-missing/.
If Barbre was doing someone else’s bidding rather than just forgetting until the last moment that he’d need to have Edgar file and would need signatures — who was it?
By the way — I was out collecting signatures in front of the ROV, clearly visible to both of them, from 3:55 to 4:30. They were just hunkering around. Why didn’t they ask anyone for signatures? Some of my people would have signed; I wouldn’t have tried to intervene.
In fact, when Edgar first showed up for Troy and Brett’s Excellent Misadventure, I thought that he might be running for AD-72 again — part of some deal? — because Travis Allen hadn’t yet shown up to complete his filing. (This information was also discussed on that same OJB post, where I wondered if his failure to sign meant that he might switch into the SD-34 race.) And then — do I remember this correctly? — Barbre barked out to us the words “City Clerk,” which got us walking around wondering what was going on.
This doesn’t just seem like a Barbre screw-up to me; it seems like someone else called him and told him to put on his best Hawaiian shirt and jet over to McFadden and Grand and figure out the “how to get signatures” problem himself. (Maybe they were supposed to send over a busload of Young Republicans, but didn’t — as in a really nasty practical joke.)
OK, readers, what are your hunches — who made Brett Barbre look this bad? And I’m not really referring to those photos.
*Chairman Vern,…..sure you don’t mean THE FALL of TROY…..?
The kids use “fail” as a noun now, Ron. Me and Vern are just hepcats.
Because #hashtag.
Yes, hepcats since AT LEAST four years ago, when the ACORN pranksters got busted going too far, and I wrote the tale “SCUMBAG FAIL!”
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/01/scumbag-fail/
You two don’t remember that?? Back in the Crowley days?
“Los Alamitos gadfly-blogger J. M. Ivler, who’s long been one of Edgar’s most tireless critics, spins it that maybe Los Al voters should wake up and realize that this city’s not big enough for Troy, that he just keeps snatching out wildly but unsuccessfully for any higher office he can find.”
Hmmm I think as a person who once ran for CA-46 (lost to Farber in the Dem Primary – who proved that when you spend more than the other six candidates combined, you can eek out a victory) I would qualify for something more than “gadfly-blogger”. Maybe you can use Robert Novak’s term for me on CNN when I was pushing Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic party… “A California political wanna-be nothing.” [who actually did help push Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic Party].
Good reporting, as always, Vern. I tend to look at things on a local level here in Little Los Al, the second smallest city in OC. Los Al is NOT a stepping stone for higher office. It’s just too darn small and inconsequential. We regularly get beaten upon by Seal Beach and Cypress and I won’t even get into how the County wants to force Los Al and Rossmoor into a marriage of convenience not understanding that there is no tax base to support the resulting union without redrawing Seal Beach’s city line at the 405… As in “it’s never going to happen.”
So, it is fun to watch someone from Los Al keep in trying to reach up for a brass ring, only to continually fail to grab one because you can’t reach that from here.
On the positive side, for the most part, today the Los Alamitos City Council majority is run by people that have no interest in higher office and actually want to do what is in our small cities best interests. Which, from a gadfly-blogger perspective makes following the antics of City Council rather boring. Fortunately we have a couple of things that are left over from the prior dysfunctional City Council that still have to be fully exposed, so there is still something for me to do. 🙂
The DOUCHEBAG OF LIBERTY dubbed you a “California political wanna-be nothing” for helping cleanse our party of THIS abomination?
That’s a badge of honor, sir!
Yep. The site was timetogojoe.com. Here was the announcement of the handoff to the Lamont campaign of all the data I collected: http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/diary/480/ and a report of the efforts was picked up by ConnecticutLocalPolitics at the time “How is Lamont “Well Funded”. As far as anyone can tell he hasn’t raised any money yet. timetogojoe.com has a mere $68,215.00 in pledges for an alternate candidate.” And at the time that was ANY alternate candidate. As for the “outing Valerie Plame” Novak… He’s dead, and I’m still blogging (and I have a copy of Joe Wilson’s book signed with a nice personal note to me, so I did get something from the whole event other than drumming Joe from the Democratic Party).. 🙂
One last thing Vern, when you have a chance you might want to fix the “Let’s Fix Los Alamitos” on the right side blogroll to “Los Alamitos News” (losalnews.com). Thanks.
I sent money to Lamont back then too. And then gradually got more fixated on local politics. Sounds like a parallel track.
Shortly after Lamont won the Primary you will find a number of activists were telling him to continue to attack Leiberman (I was among them, and the history is on myleftnutmeg.com) because we knew he was sore loserman and that he wasn’t about to fade quitly into the night. Lamont, instead, took the advise of some “professionals” that Hillary had lent him and took a two week vacation. The result was that rather than dirty his name and make him unelectable, Lieberman was able to get the CT Sec of State to approve him as a third party candidate to the ballot (which should have been fought, but since Lamont was on vaca, it wasn’t). The end result was that with Rove and the Bush Bundlers Lieberman was back on the ballot, and this time he had all the GOP support (in fact, he had more national GOP support than the GOP candidate, which just went to prove how much of a DINO he was).
Enough history.
Here is an interesting question. Every time he goes to Cypress (or supports Cypress over Los Al and Rossmoor) Travis claims that he has Cypress residents in his district. I have yet to see where that is accurate. And if he has “six or seven” residents of Cypress as he claims, then one has to wonder, did picking Cypress and the ProLogis Truck Terminal (which Baily was pushing) over the residents of Los Alamitos damage his ability to garner cross party votes (or even GOP votes) from Los Alamitos, Rossmoor and even Seal Beach? With Joel Block from Rossmoor taking the mantle of his (D) opponent, was writing this corner of his district off a mistake (and was Troy foolish to not file for the AD?)?
Interesting points in the second paragraph, but one last thing on Lieberman….
Back in ’08 during the fight over Prop 8 and Gay Marriage, my anti-gay alter-ego PHOBIUS penned a cautionary tale which you might enjoy…
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2008/09/defend-the-octopus-of-marriage-yes-on-prop-8/
Making the point that allowing same-sex marriage will ruin and soil the marriage of all straight people, Phobius spins a fable of Connecticut legalizing marriage equality (which actually happened a little later) and the harrowing effects it has on Joe and Hadassah Lieberman’s marriage, as they gradually become … gay-ish.
It’s extra fun because it’s so gratutitous, as gay rights were never one of the issues Holy Joe was bad on!
Why Joe Lieberman? I blame Fafblog. Remember Fafblog?
“……..for a study of a possible “OC Sports Hall of Fame” – a study which ALSO never happened….” perhaps I have them confused, but is THAT, or Does anyone know the name of, the “Exhibit Hall that’s part of (Anaheim’s) Angel Stadium, for which we are paying $400K debt service until 2021 (according to a Save Anaheim entry) I can’t find mention of it anywhere,- or was it removed or converted in one of the renovations?
*”The Curse of the Cowboy” Strikes again? Gene Autry had a horse named Champion……….get it? They will pay any price…..try any method……do anything not to invoke the name of Gene’s horse…..EVER again! Gene did have a cattle ranch….which he called: “Melody Ranch”. Sounds like that might be a good name for the Exhibit Hall. Don’t know what the name of his guitar was……think it came from Sears……back in the day. The great news is however: Our main man Don Baylor is back as the Angels hitting coach. Too bad that Jim Fregosi is gone….but we still have the great Bobby Grich…….still around. Maybe Arte Moreno could hire Bobby as a third base coach…..to bring some of the thrill back to old Melody Ranch.
*”The Curse of the Singing Cowboy” came from the following:
Gene Autry – Cowboy Code
1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. He must always tell the truth.
4. He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
5. He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. He must help people in distress.
7. He must be a good worker.
8. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
9. He must respect women, parents, and his nation’s laws.
10. The Cowboy is a patriot.
*Heck, who did Gene think could live up to those ideals? John Wooden maybe?
losalnews.com has the continuing saga as Troy attempts to get on the ballot by Writ.
wow… just found your blog. Is this romper room? If you want to be taken seriously… GROW UP! I wish everyone was as tired of “gotcha politics” as I am! ” They were plotting at the counter with their heads down, “so I yelled “TROY! BRETT!” And up they looked!”…. seriously??? Maybe you guys should quit politics and join TMZ….
LOLZ LULZ ROTFLMAO
Uhhh, TMZ is hiring? I’m asking for a friend.