Government Center Postings and Palaver

“WHO is this avuncular looking gentleman?” you ask your Auntie. “Why, surely you recognize this fine gentleman as Mr. Phillip Clark, Chairman and CEO of Clark Patterson Lee Design Professionals fame.” Auntie says. “They were hired to do the work on the Government Center.”

Is this important? Yes, it is, not only because of the recent news (remember the utterance of the CE earlier this week, so disjointed that I will not repeat it as a “STEVE SAID”) that the Government Center project may be moving forward but ALSO because of news in the not too distant past.

You may remember that back in February of this year, Legislator Leigh Benton, who headed the committee that chose this firm for the Government Center project, resigned from his newly acquired position with this firm. (He was hired even though his background and expertise are not even in this field. Which is funny when you consider this from the CPL website: “Today we have a staff of over 200 dedicated professionals offering expertise in architecture, engineering, planning and construction services.’) Anyway, he was hired despite, in light of, or because of his standing as a legislator, we all get it.

”CONFLICT of interest” you cry out! Well, many agreed, even…get ready…Steve Neuhaus and David Hoovler!

HOOVLER SAID: "Stronger, more well-defined ethics laws are certainly needed in Orange County," And it goes on, STEVE and HOOVLER issued a joint statement “affirming their commitment to "the highest possible standards of conduct" and suggesting potential improvements in the ethics code, such as clarifying what constitutes a conflict of interest.” From THR, C McKenna

So because Legislator Benton inappropriately received a job from the firm of Clark Patterson Lee, and he received campaign contributions from Mr. Clark, you might view that as wrong.

But Benton is not the only one.

Even though he did not offer Steve a job (does political operative qualify for architect and engineering?) in December last year at the post-election soiree, Mr. Phillip J Clark gave Steve Neuhaus a $2500.00 campaign contribution. “A mere pittance” you say! “That won’t buy influence!”

Your Auntie finds it disturbing that you may criticize another elected official for taking things from a firm doing business with the County while you do the same thing. And there is no record of our puerile County Executive returning the $2500.00.

Maybe he thought we wouldn’t notice.