LETTERS
Backing ‘The Bulldozer’
Voters in Orange County’s first supervisorial district have to choose between two Democrat candidates. This is an historic occurrence, as it has been many years since the last Democrat county supervisor.
Although I am a Republican, I wonder if having a Democrat would make a distinguishable difference. After all, the county went bankrupt with five Republican supervisors.
So, who should a diehard Republican choose in this race?
One supervisorial candidate is termed-out Assemblyman Lou Correa from Santa Ana. With term limits at the state level, legislators are starting a trend of landing as county supervisors.
The other candidate is Bruce Broadwater, mayor of Garden Grove. This is one of two cities that had no deposits in the county’s investment pool at the time of the bankruptcy. This is due more to the brilliance of former City Finance Director Tony Andrade, but it also reflects nicely on the mayor.
In the Assembly, Correa has been a fiscal train wreck. Gov. Davis’ now disastrous budgets passed by only one vote: Correa’s. The state’s pension plan contributions went from just $160 million in 1999-2000 to $2.6 billion this year, in a significant manner due to legislation carried by Correa.
Correa’s lawmaking contributed to an immediate unfunded accrued actuarial liability for the county of Orange of nearly $400 million in 2001, which grew to $520 million with the 2003 investment results. In August, it grew to $820 million thanks to GOP supervisors Silva, Wilson and Campbell voting for an irresponsible pension benefit increase for public employees. Expect it to grow to $1.1 billion next spring. And wait until your cities are forced to adopt similar benefits.
With Correa’s aiding and abetting, our fiscally unsophisticated supervisors have thrust an obligation on the county’s taxpayers that is larger than the one created by my predecessor, Robert Citron!
Broadwater is tenacious and gruff. He is not the sappy schmoozer that Correa is. But he understands public finance and publicly opposed the supervisors’ vote to retroactively increase public employee pensions.
Broadwater also has made major redevelopment changes to Garden Grove. This city has pursued an effort to benefit from the tourist activity from the neighboring Disneyland resort.
Although this may be good for the city’s coffers, it is not so good for the businesses and residents that were required to move as a result of eminent domain. Broadwater played fast and loose with the property rights of a small segment of his city’s nearly 170,000 population. Now he wears the moniker of “bulldozer.”
Still, Broadwater has the fortitude and local knowledge to roll up his sleeves and participate in a fiscal workout.
By contrast, Correa has a documented record of fiscal incompetence.
Correa is the presumed favorite, because if you run for the Assembly, you can raise a boatload of money. However, once the district’s Republicans do their analysis and realize the significance of the fiscal damage caused by Correa, then Broadwater has a fighting chance.
John M. W. Moorlach
CPA, CFP Treasurer-Tax Collector
Orange County
1,000 Casualties
Much has been made, particularly by the media, of the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq during the ground war that began in March 2003 and the subsequent military actions in an attempt to establish stability and prepare Iraqis for self-rule.
Through Sept. 7, 2004, 1,000 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in Iraq due to both hostile and non-hostile actions. This is certainly a tragic loss, correctly reported in the media and mourned by the U.S. populace.
There is no argument that one soldier killed is one too many. However, focusing exclusively on these statistics does not provide the much needed perspective.
The toll for U.S. soldiers in Iraq averages 55.6 deaths per month. Based on FBI figures, the murder rates in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City average a comparable 48.7, 51.9 and 49.3 per month, respectively.
Yet the murder numbers don’t give rise to anywhere near the same amount of reporting or hand-wringing, although one could make a case that they are at least as much a cause for alarm.
The soldiers’ deaths in Iraq occurred in a strife-torn country with a leadership vacuum. The murders in American cities occurred in an advanced society during peacetime.
U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq volunteered for a risky job, and were trained and equipped for it. Not so with innocents murdered on our cities’ streets.
As tragic as the loss of U.S. soldiers in Iraq has been, their sacrifices have led to many benefits. Among them:
n Iraqi women now are allowed to go to school.
n Over 50 million Afghans and Iraqis now have a voice in selecting their government.
n Major progress has been made in neutralizing Libya’s weapons of mass destruction.
n The corruption of the U.N.-administered Food for Oil Program was revealed and the illegal flow ($10 billion) halted.
And the deaths in Iraq are part of a broader war on terrorism, with the objective of making the world safer.
A violent death is tragic and a soldier’s death is grieved. Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of going to war in Iraq.
But objectivity requires that these deaths be put in perspective.
Michael Arnold Glueck
Thomas R. Damiani
Newport Beach
