(Tough to afford decent meals at $21 a week, ain’t it? – promoted by atdleft)

Today I began the Food Stamp Challenge, living off the national average food stamp budget–$21 a week. That breaks down to $3 a day, or $1 per meal.

It’s very hard to imagine how so many eat on so little money. This is exactly why I decided to take on the challenge. Two million people in California are on food stamps, two-thirds of which are children who need nutritious foods to fuel their growing bodies. It’s my hope that this effort makes just a few people think about the difficult choices that so many in our country and our state deal with every day when trying to stretch their food stamp dollar to feed their families.

When I went to the grocery store and bought food for the upcoming week, I have to admit, I got a little nervous about how little I saw in my basket. But I’m eager to raise awareness about hunger in California and gain a better understanding of what so many in the State experience everyday.

Today is a busy day as I’m running back and forth between the Budget Conference Committee where I’m working with my colleagues on the State Budget, and the Assembly Floor where I’m working to win Assembly approval of my own bills by the deadline at the end of the week.

I’m off and running today with the challenge and started my day with a bowl of cereal.

Check back with me a little later and I’ll update you on my progress.

New desk for reception foyer of Supervisor John Moorlach's office: $8,990, New conference table for Supervisor Pat Bates' office: $3,375, Track lighting with dimmer switch for Supervisor Janet Nguyen's office: $1,300, 90 high-end, “high-concept” Herman Miller office chairs for Treasurer Chriss Street: almost $50,000, 52-inch wall-mounted flat-screen television for EACH NEW SUPERVISOR'S personal office: $4,000 (each) (Street's flat-screen TV cost $7,800).  Seeing complete hypocrisy from all these supposed “fiscally conservative” Republicans featured in the Orange County edition of The Los Angeles Times yesterday: PRICELESS!

Follow me after the flip to see just how much taxpayer money our “fiscal conservatives” in Orange County are wasting on their “extreme makeover”…

So what the heck is going on here?

You might call it “Extreme Makeover: Orange County Government Edition.” As one of their first orders of business, Orange County's four newly elected officeholders — the treasurer and the three new members of the Board of Supervisors — are collectively spending just over $1.1 million to spruce up their offices in the months since they were sworn in, according to documents reviewed by The Times.

The spending is hardly noticeable in a budget totaling more than $5 billion. But the renovations for the four officeholders are occurring in a county known for its anti-tax attitudes, dim view of government spending and Republicans who boast fiscally conservative credentials.

OK, so our new Supervisors and County Treasurer are spending some money renovating their offices. What's the big deal here? Well, should it be costing us taxpayers $1.1 million? And do they really need “high-concept office chairs” and wall-mounted flat-screen TVs? Is that really the best way to spend our money?

And aren't there better ways to spend this money?

It also comes as officials weigh funding cuts in their coming budget sessions for services such as drug counseling for court defendants and payments to doctors who provide emergency medical services.

Oh yes, so I guess the poor people who live in this county don't matter. Let the drug addicts fall back into crack. Let the poor people die in the waiting room as hospitals can't afford to care for the sick and injured. No, what really matters is $200,000 to get rid of that retro 1960s Palm Springs look in poor Johnny Moorlach's office!

Moorlach, whose tab was the highest among the supervisors at $198,525.84, said he felt it was unfair to ask office staff to work in the existing environment. “When I got here, I thought I had moved into an old home in Palm Springs in the 1960s,” he said. “It even went beyond my conservative pale. I said, 'Wait a minute, this has got to be upgraded.'

“If I'm asking professionals to work for me on a $6-billion budget,” Moorlach said, “it doesn't make sense to ask them to sit on an antique furniture that wouldn't even sell at a garage sale.”

No, we can't have that! We can't have Mr. Moorlach's highly-paid staffers cringing in disgust at all that “antique furniture that wouldn't even sell at a garage sale”. But if that nearly $200,000 is money being taken away from essential services to the working poor in Orange County, that's no big deal. Who needs poor people, anyway?

And oh yes, look at the guy who collects our taxes. Isn't he doing a great job spending over half a million of our tax dollars? Isn't he?

Roughly half of the total spent — $578,550.82 — was for the treasurer-tax collector's office, which is undergoing a massive renovation aimed at changing the working environment for all of its nearly 100 employees. […]

Asked if the changes were needed to carry out the work of the treasurer's office, Street said: “We had $7 billion in cash being managed here, and you couldn't see what people were doing…. There is no way you can even have $100 million managed by people sitting in closed rooms. That's taxpayer funds. It's grossly inappropriate.”

Yes, having these people work in such a closed floor plan is grossly inappropriate! Yes, open up those walls! Redesign it like your old digs at that bond-trading firm. Wall Street always knows best when it comes to designing efficient yet tasteful office space.

But wait. Hold on a moment. Is this the best way to spend our tax dollars? Is the best way to spend our money when we have thousands upon thousands of people who struggle to survive?

What about emergency medical services? What about keeping people off drugs? What about the needs of the people in this county? The county is facing some awfully tough budget choices, as County Supervisors consider all these cuts to county services. If times are really this tough, is it really that appropriate to spend county money, OUR TAX MONEY, on unnecessary high-end furniture?

Even though I'm happy that Lou Correa is now my State Senator, I often miss seeing him on our County Board of Supervisors. Among all those “fiscal conservatives”, he seemed to be the only one who was actually interested in putting our tax dollars to work for us.

One former supervisor, state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), was surprised at the price tag for renovations to the office he vacated six months ago. When he was there, he said, he asked that a ripped section of carpet be replaced and covered the cracked glass on a desktop with a book.

“A public office belongs to the taxpayers, not to the elected,” he said. “I don't think I need a 52-inch wall-mounted TV to do my job.”

In fact, Correa said, he had a regular 36-inch television in his office; he bought it himself and took it with him when he left.

Cheese louise, why does it always have to be the Democrat to bring some fiscal responsibility to government? And what happens when we don't have any? I guess we're left with a bunch of “fiscally conservative” Republicans wasting money on high-end desks and flat-screen TVs.

So, we get it, there’s no problem with the Democratic Party of the OC. Cool, there are no ego problems with Loretta Sanchez fearing the sheer power of SF’s elected representative, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I get it. And now I see OC Democrats are uniting behind Loretta Sanchez for another fundraiser.  Excellent! That’s great to hear.

So, I assume Rep. Sanchez will be giving at least half of that money that she’s raising to the OC Dem. Party and/or the DCCC. Right? Flip it:

Back to that fundraiser invitation:

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is one of our finest and most respected elected Democrats.

Congresswoman Sanchez is not only a great leader in Orange County, but also in the United States Congress. We must do our best to ensure that a leader such as her is elected and re-elected to represent Orange County to Washington DC.

Please join former Senator Joe and Diane Dunn at their home, for a Lobster Bash honoring Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez!

Congresswoman Loretta SanchezSaturday, June 16, 2007
3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
1911 Heliotrope Dr.
Santa Ana, CA 92706
Live Music by The Lost Boys!!!

Kids Welcome!

Suggested Donations:
$150 – Individual
$1,000 – Table
$2,300 – Sponsor
$2,500 – PAC
Please RSVP to Kelly Martinez at 714-832-4431 or [email protected]

Sounds fun, right? Yup, but it sure is strange that the max individual contribution asked for is $2300. What’s the significance of that you ask? Well, that would be the max contribution to a Representative. I mean, she could ask for more for money to go to the OC Democratic Party and/or the DCCC.

So, here’s the deal, I can point to opensecrets.org and show you Loretta Sanchez’s huge cash disparity in her post B-1 Bob Dornan Elections. I’ll leave that data out, but suffice it to say the disastrous Tan Nguyen campaign was the best financed campaign for a long time.  And Sanchez already has about the same amount of money as Nguyen spent against her in the bank.

So, let’s start Use it Or Lose It 2008 in time to build field organizations, grow the grassroots, and develop opportunities in California’s 18 Republican Districts. Because while I’ve heard Loretta is fabulous, I think we’d be a lot better off with some of the money from that fundraiser going to other opportunities in the state (Gary Miller…Jerry Lewis…John Doolittle…the axis of corruption) and into organizing field through the Orange County Democratic Party than with the money going to raise Ms. Sanchez’s name ID for a possible statewide run in the 2010 election in the LA Media Market.

So, let’s not wait for election to bear down upon us. Let’s use it before we lose it right now, here in California.

I don’t write a lot about Mayor Villaraigosa; I don’t live in the city, and I get the sense that Antonio wants everyone to know he’s there without necessarily knowing what he does, which makes it frustrating to try to gauge.  But this is an interesting article about the promise that he had matched with the difficult reality of this last year.  His eye appears to be off the ball of improving the lives of Los Angelenos, and toward the crystal goblet of higher office, and it shows in the work he’s done.  He’s very active in pressing flesh (it’s almost a permanent campaign) and tackling high-profile projects like the school takeover and LA Live development downtown.  But substantively, I think this list of accomplishments are a little thin.

Villaraigosa and his senior aides acknowledge the recent disappointments but prefer to see them as minor bumps overshadowed by the mayor’s accomplishments on education, public safety, mass transit, the environment and city budgeting.

They say, for example, that he deserves credit for balancing the city’s books and dramatically reducing a $295-million structural deficit — by more than $200 million — amid declining revenues.

They also speak of his successful effort to win an increase in trash collection fees to hire 1,000 additional police officers, saying the city is well on its way to meeting the goal as the rate of violent crime — including gang homicides — drops.

They single out his efforts this year to tackle gang crime by devoting more money to suppression and prevention programs.

And they point to Villaraigosa’s securing billions of dollars in state bond money for mass transit projects — including carpool lanes on the 405 Freeway — and an aggressive expansion of the Department of Water and Power’s use of alternative energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A lot less than meets the eye here.  There’s still a deficit.  The reports on gang violence and police protection has been tempered by the MacArthur Park riot and the fact that LA County still has 120,000 gang members.  I resent the focus on carpool lanes on the 405, and mass transit projects are actually stagnating, plus MTA had to raise its fees last week.

Villaraigosa is succeeding in the sense of setting himself up for the Governor’s mansion by taking on the big issues even if he doesn’t really move on them.  I don’t know if residents of the city will look back fondly on this time, however, thinking they had a champion for them at City Hall.  I’d welcome another perspective, however.

At this point, even Chris Daly has admitted Gavin Newsom will be re-elected. It is too late to mount a credible campaign. So the question becomes who would be best to throw themselves on the sword. I agree with Mr. Brown on Sheriff Mike Hennessey:

Mike was my first choice for Mayor and I stand by that. The guy’s an unpretentious giant.

I agree, any Sheriff who starts his speech by saying he wants everyone to know he agrees with everything the Public Defender said rocks, yet he’d never do it. But what about….

What about Jake McGoldrick?

He gave the best speech of the day — by far.

And he gets the idea of Wi-Fi way better than any other elected in town. So if you want to go with the Karl Rove school of thinking that you attack on your opponent’s strengths, consider:

“We are more committed than our opponents,” Newsom shouted as he rattled off a list of what he considers to be his accomplishments since taking office in 2004, among them, a plan for universal health care for the uninsured and one to bring free wireless Internet access to the city.

If this is just going to be a debate, McGoldrick is the only one I know who really gets why Newsom’s Wi-Fi sucks. And, if the recall hit the ballot he could probably raise and spend out of two accounts.

Everyone already realizes Newsom will win, but McGoldrick could completely disarm Newsom’s privatization spree that is totally screwing up the City.