After Sandra Hutchens was selected as the county’s new sheriff, she whisked out of the board meeting as TV cameras and reporters surrounded her. As she gave her banal responses about being a “change agent,” she never returned to the board meeting for the substantive public hearing that followed.
Her $700 million budget was up for discussion and she didn’t even sit through it to hear public comments. One of the regular board gadflies even noticed and wondered out loud why Hutchens wasn’t there. She was giving media interviews about being the first woman sheriff in OC rather than worrying about mundane things such as a budget. This conforms to what one OC insider told me: “She hasn’t done any homework.”
The final vote on the budget is June 24, so perhaps she might take an interest in it by then.
Your coverage of the Carona disaster has been exemplary. I don’t understand the extent of your hostility to Hutchens, however, and given your past relations with the Santa Ana chief (visiting his jail and writing glowingly about it etc.) I have to wonder if you haven’t let personal feelings get in the way here. Please don’t go the Landsbaum route; your posts are usually civil, fairly stated (even if i disagree with your position) and refreshingly lacking in rhetorical neck-vein-bulging.
Given the need for her to address the media (reporter blame thyself!), I’m not surprised she was out doing just that upon being selected. And given that she had just been selected, to expect her to have substantive input on the budget that same day is, I think, unrealistic. I doubt the department or the Supervisors shared enough information with her in the interview process to allow her to address the subject in anything beyond the most vacuous generalities.
As for the selection process, I have no horse in the race here, but I have little problem with appointing someone as far removed from the OC police culture as possible. I personally would have disqualified anyone from anywhere in southern California almost per se - the problems with the sheriff’s department are too depressingly similar to those of many local departments, the LAPD etc. Ther culture of all police departments in this area is arrogant, militaristic in all the worst ways (think occupation force as opposed to good ol’ Officer McGillicudy on the beat), trigger happy and disturbing overall, and most anyone associated with it, to me at least, isn’t the right way to go. The new sheriff has to be a fresh breeze on a lot more points than Carona’s particular brand of corruption, and that won’t come from local sources.
And with regard to “feminist” lobbying being the reason for her appointment, I think a more reasonable Machiavellian reason for the result (if you choose to think in those terms) is that the Supes and the local power structure want someone politically weak in the interim position so they can run their chosen successor next time and have a better shot at winning. Expecting a majority of OC Supervisors to be responsive to so-called feminst lobbying is frankly silly, given their overall political philosophy. They’re more likely to hang up on that sort than obey them.
You, and your commentary, are better than the attitude you’ve displayed on this issue. Please, lighten up.