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The Political Landscape:

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In a lengthy e-mail to his constituents Wednesday, Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach called fellow Supervisor Janet Nguyen a “yeller,” and said her management style was to “bite people’s heads off.”

“If she doesn’t get her way, then she’ll excoriate you,” Moorlach wrote.

Moorlach sent out the angry e-mail one day after he cast a lone, dissenting vote against selecting Nguyen to be the next chairman of the county Board of Supervisors. The ceremonial position rotates among board members annually. At the meeting, Moorlach questioned Nguyen’s management style.

Nguyen fired back at Moorlach at the end, accusing Moorlach of having a “petty political agenda.”

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She went on to say that during Moorlach’s term as chairman two years ago, he had shown a “lack of courtesy and decorum the likes that I have not seen in 13 years since I have worked for the Board of Supervisors.”

In the e-mail, Moorlach accused Nguyen of frequently being unprepared for board meetings, demanding her friends be hired into county positions and forcing a high-ranking sheriff’s department official to resign.

“Regretfully, with our current economy, the shape of the State of California, a vacant Fourth District office for at least five months and a boatload of other issues, we do not need a yeller as our chair,” Moorlach wrote. “We need someone who wants to serve, not someone who demands to be served.”

HELP WANTED AT FAIR BOARD

The state attorney general’s office has withdrawn itself from representing the Orange County Fair & Event Center, also known as the 32nd District Agricultural Assn.

The attorney general’s office represents all state agencies and departments, including the Orange County fairgrounds and its board.

But turmoil surrounding the fair board members’ activities, which included lobbying for the sale of the 150-acre property and forming a nonprofit organization to buy it, led the attorney general’s office to step away from dealing with the fair board members and the state organization itself.

“Given the seemingly intertwined and potentially conflicting interests of the district, the district board members and the nonprofit, we have determined that we should withdraw from providing legal services to the district, including the district board, until all issues relating to the proposed sale of the district fairgrounds have been resolved,” J. Matthew Rodriquez, the chief assistant attorney general, stated in a letter to Kristina Dodge, chairwoman of the fairgrounds board.

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating complaints about the fairgrounds’ board.

Meanwhile, the fairgrounds board family has suffered a loss.

Mary Young, a member of the fairground board, and one of the two remaining foundation board members, lost her husband after he suffered two massive strokes last week.

Ron Young could not recover and was taken off of life support.

Ron Young was much loved in the community, said county Supervisor Moorlach.


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