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You gotta hand it to Councilwoman Lucille Kring on one front – she sure is good at giving Anaheim the finger.
Having won re-election, but nearly failing to get the endorsement of her Party and now confined to an impotent council minority, having had all her board and commission seats stripped from her in highly deserved retribution, she now sits squirming miserably on the dais, blithely ridiculed by colleagues and public alike for her hilarious malapropisms, foggy logic, and eyebrow-raising lies.
But her revenge is at hand, with the opportunity to hire a new aide – and who better than Steven Albert Chavez Lodge, twice-rejected residence-faking Council candidate and brutal perjuring ex-cop. (Thankfully the Weekly has already used the obvious but apt cliché “a match made in hell,” so I no longer feel compelled to use it myself.)
Steve doesn’t seem like council aide material though, so the question in my title suggests itself – what special skills does he possess that could prove useful to Lucille as she trudges through her sullen fourth Council term? Let us ponder…
Extreme and unexpected violence – that’s the first thing we associate with Steve, between his record on the Santa Ana police force and his sucker-punching (documented on this blog) of a romantic rival. Could it be that Lucille sees this as a positive virtue? We fondly remember her joking about the police shooting of a suspect that “it saved us the cost of a trial.” Perhaps she imagines having an unpredictably violent aide will cut down on the non-cooperation and ridicule she gets from Council and public alike. Likewise, the hiring of this rogue cop will help re-assure Anaheim’s police union how unseriously Lucille takes police reform.
A willingness to lie rivaling Lucille herself. Both politicians’ ease with prevarication is fabled. Ask the anti-STR crowd about Lucille’s honesty, or the OC GOP itself, to whom Lucille excused her many broken campaign promises with, “Well, it wasn’t written in my literature!” Lodge notoriously perjured himself over his police brutality cases, and regularly changes his story over where he lives, as required by his political masters. I’m not saying Lucille needs Steve’s help in coming up with more lies, but it must seem preferable NOT to have an aide who will tell you, “Ma’am, you can’t say that … it’s not true and everybody knows it.”
A certain low-rent reality-show glamor that Lucille likely finds appealing. It’s likely that the vain Councilwoman, who routinely uses a photograph of herself that must be thirty years old (left), finds the lifestyle of Lodge, with his Real Housewives of OC consort and Facebook wall covered with Mexican cruises and other conspicuous consumption, to be irresistibly glamorous (even if most of us see it as ridiculously vulgar) and hopes some of it will rub off on her.
An allegiance to the kleptocracy that keeps both their bread buttered. Both Kring and Lodge ran for council last year backed with millions of Disney, SOAR and Pringle money. 
Since his falling out with Mayor Tait in the run-up to the 2012 election, Lodge has been a loyal advocate for everything that insatiable crowd wants, winning a nice percentage as a Hill International “consultant” to lobby for such taxpayer-soaking projects as the Disney Streetcar and the 405 Toll Lanes. Lucille’s fealty to this crowd dates nearly as far, to when they helped her retire HER 2012 campaign debts, and required her breaking nearly all her campaign promises.
A shared loathing of the homeless, “illegals,” and Mayor Tait. Just look at Lucille’s record of public statements, and examine, as the Weekly did, Steve Chavez Lodge’s Facebook wall.
I’m sorry, that’s all I can come up with. But it looks like we’re going to be seeing this guy around a lot more, as his commutes to Anaheim increase. God help us.
You can’t make this stuff up.
he can judo chop his boss’ enemies with ease thats a talent
Very mean piece, Vern. Well done.
I don’t agree with the central premise, though. I don’t think that Lodge has to have any particular “talent” that will be useful to Lucille, any more than the piece of paper upon which a bogus contract is written, or a poker chip that can be exchanged for cash, has to have “talent” to be useful.
Kring doesn’t come up with her own ideas. An agent for some entity with power, money, and influence probably approached her and said “we think that it would be a good idea for you to appoint Steve Lodge as your policy aide” — because his being placed where he can read internal City Council documents is to their advantage. She, probably based on a pre-existing relationship with said entity that leads her to believe that staying in its good graces is a wise and reliable form of retirement planning, said “sure!”
Arguably, this isn’t even illegal “quid pro quo” corruption! (I think that Jordan Brandman actually made an argument along these lines from the dais sometime in 2012 or 2013.) The quid sought from a public official can be as specific as one might like, so long as the “quo” offered to the public official in return is sufficiently vague. My sense is that Lucille has received a vaporously vague “promise” along the lines of “we take care of our own.”
That, or the contract one signs for a Pringle bailout (as she received after the 2012 election) must be signed in one’s own arterial blood, and ones arm burns off if one flouts it by refusing a demand. I’m not sure how the law would treat that, though.
Yes, my question – my premise – was a bit facetious. And in fact just an excuse to write a “mean” piece.
I’m just riffing on it, man.
Sucker punch in a hotel lobby? That might come in handy in some Kring fantasy.
About Steve and Lucille:
No reps from district 4 City Council at the district 4 community meeting last Thursday.
It seems Lodge is really trying to make people hate the homeless. Here’s what he recently placed to his public fb page: https://www.facebook.com/SteveChavezLodgeforAnaheim/posts/1650057508621842
It’s not wise for City Council members to encourage hatred
He’s had at least one restraining order. Imagine, a restraining order against a retired cop? That’s nearly impossible to accomplish, which means he’s guilty far beyond a reasonable doubt… not to mention his other dirty deeds for which $600,000. was awarded to the victim (also nearly never happens):
http://radaronline.com/celebrity-news/vicki-gunvalson-boyfriend-steve-lodge-assault-restraining-order/
Lodge showed up at the Anaheim Republican Assembly’s homeless meeting on Wednesday, only to leave right after the first speaker. Was he there to help, or does he just want to hurt the homeless?
Knowing that Lucille is fully aware of Steve’s violent and abusive past, in which a judge called him a “bald faced liar” (again, never happens) what was she thinking? Did she do this to spite the community? How could either of these two be fit to represent district 4?