Sat. Dec 21st, 2024
norberto&nick
Voice of OC Management Norberto Santana Nick Berardino

From the OC Politics Blog

Regular OCP Blog readers have observed we usually preface anything we use from the Voice of OC as attributed to the “union-funded” Blog.  It’s important to understand that the Orange County Employees Association at least partially funds their operation, although no one’s ever learned how much — the union won’t announce it and there are no web links between the two.  The Voice does not sell advertising, and lists sponsors including the AP, Californians Aware, HealthyCal.org, California Watch and PBS SoCal.  Per its website, it appears to have at least seven staffers at its Santa Ana office.

A number of well-known Democrats are members of the Voice’s Board of Directors — folks like UCI Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, former State Senator Joe Dunn and “Southern California Super Lawyer” Wylie Aitken.  The Voice’s Editor-in-Chief, Norberto Santana was an excellent investigative reporter at the OC Register for years (where he’s never been adequately replaced).  We’ve also been very impressed with reporting from the Voice’s Tracy Wood, David Washburn and Adam Elmahrek that’s reached much further into certain local issues the Register never has.

For the past few weeks, Santana has been appearing on Real Orange, Orange County’s only regular television newscast.  It’s usually a good pairing, especially considering the paucity of TV news for low-information voters with any focus on the OC, but we were troubled with his first story from last night’s session, Friday on PBS: Moorlach Considers a Run for Governor.

moorlach
Supervisor John Moorlach<br >I am still moving forward with my decision process to aim for the top

Santana was discussing the surprise 2/13 leak of County Supervisor John Moorlach’s interest in running for Governor.  But it took no time at all for him jump on Moorlach’s County pension — an issue that the OCEA and its neanderthal leader Nick Berardino has been goading him about for years.  Santana first said Moorlach was going to run for Governor — no, he’s considering it.  He then said Moorlach’s “weakest point” was his own pension, the “most lucrative” of the five Supervisors.  Santana didn’t fail to mention that Supervisors Bates and Nelson are not taking pensions, and Spitzer and Nguyen have the “lowest pension benefit” of the remaining Board members.  Santana said Moorlach was “leading from the rear” and would take a lesser pension when other County employees do.  He predicted Moorlach would be running a “low budget” campaign as he wasn’t a good fund raiser — that’s subjective as we’ve saw him be quite successful at raising money for his first Supervisorial campaign.  His term was apparently so successful that he was unopposed for his second run and needed little monetary support.

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author avatar
Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

By Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

6 thoughts on “The Voice of OC needs to come clean on its funding”
  1. When are you coming clean about how much Pulido’s campaign paid you to run his blog editor?

    1. You seem a bit confused. I was paid to run the Mayor’s blog, not this one. How much I was paid is public information if you know where to look. And it should have been more as I helped him to soundly trash Benavides. I would have done that for free but it’s nice to be compensated for one’s work.

  2. Since you let someone comment as Michele’s mom on the annversary of her mother’s death, are you going to let people comment about Tinajero;s father? Hasn’t anyone mentioned your cowardly brother who forgot to shut off the motor while the garage door was closed? Wasn’t your son at Pulido’s kids party where that girl got raped?

    1. Not sure where you’re getting all this misinformation. I was at the Memorial Service for Michele’s mom.

      So what do any of your untrue and libelous comments have to do with the subject at hand? Is this what we should expect from the supporters of the Voice of OC? Or are you speaking up on behalf of Nick Berardino?

      In either case it’s obvious you people have no class.

  3. Annual Information Return – A tax-exempt organization must disclose its annual information return (Form 990 series) with schedules, attachments, and supporting documents filed with the IRS . Returns need to be available for public inspection for three years.

    Ask VOC for their 501c3 Form 990; they are required to provide this for only the cost of copying to the public in order to maintain their 501c3 status.

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