I am hearing that Orange County administrator Brian Probolsky has taken a one month leave of absence from his job at the O.C. Community Resources (after being on loan for awhile to Pat Bates, who like Janet Nguyen has left the O.C. Board of Supervisors) to help the campaign of Andrew Do, the former Chief of Staff to Nguyen. I am told that Do will retain Probolsky as his Chief of Staff if the First District Special Election goes his way.
Probolsky, moved to a position that was created for him, as Business Practices Manager at OC Community Resources, after working as a Bates staffer, in February of 2013. His new job came with an 81 percent raise, from $31 an hour to $56 an hour, according to the O.C. Register.
In an interview, Probolsky, 42, said that before he joined Bates’ office he had worked as a stockbroker and been an entrepreneur. He said he helped found a market data company that was sold for $11 million in1999 and later started a business that sold industrial fasteners – screws, nuts and bolts – over the Web.
Bates said she knew his brother, political pollster Adam Probolsky, through the Republican party before she hired him.
Last month, just before getting elected to the state senate on platform of “fiscal common sense,” Bates boosted Probolsky’s salary as her chief of staff to $62.92 an hour – instantly making him the highest paid of any supervisor’s chief of staff, records show, according to the Voice of OC.
Probolsky has drawn fire because he rarely takes time off on his government timecard when he attends morning subcommittee meetings at the Moulton Niguel Water District, where Probolsky is an elected Director, according to the Voice of OC.
He also serves as an alternate on the San Juan Basin Authority Board of Directors as well as the Independent Special Districts of Orange County Association. Lord knows how many public pensions this guy is accruing!
Presently, county officials estimate there are 43 political aides from county supervisors’ offices who have transferred into the county government since 2004. There are five other political aides with executive pay grades like Probolsky at the top levels of county government, according to the Voice of OC.
If this is true that Probolsky and Do have hooked up it means that Do is going to continue the corruption that has been the hallmark of Nguyen’s time on the O.C. Board of Supervisors. This is one more reason to make sure Do loses on January 27.
