Kinde Durkee
Prominent California politicians swindled of $8 million by Democratic campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee will get back about half that money under a settlement reached this week with Durkee’s bank, according to the O.C. Register.
Politicians who will get some of the $4 million dollar settlement from First California Bank include United States Senator Dianne Feinstein, Reps. Loretta Sanchez, Linda Sanchez and Susan Davis, as well as state Sen. Lou Correa. Continue reading
Janet Nguyen and Carlos Bustamante
From the OC Politics Blog
“Supervisor Janet Nguyen raised about $50,000 in campaign contributions from the medical industry in the nine months after she began restructuring the board of CalOptima to give health providers a stronger voice, according to her campaign reports,” as reported by the Voice of OC.
This is not the first time that Supervisor Nguyen has reaped the benefits of her votes. When she cast the decisive vote against letter grade health ratings for our restaurants – a common practice in every other Southern California county around ours, she ended up collecting over $20K in donations from restaurant owners who had poor restaurant health records – many of them had received multiple major health violations. Continue reading
Our posts about Santa Ana’s Cafe Lu and Councilman Bustamante topped the charts in 2011
What a year it has been here in Santa Ana – and on this blog, the New Santa Ana. Since January 1, 2011, we have had 226,798 Visits and 407,051 Pageviews. Wow! That’s not bad for a blog that was started not too long ago, in September of 2009.
Now let’s take a look at our top stories this year:
UPDATE: The Occupy protesters are going to show up at this event! The dinner is sold out. It should be quite a ruckus.
“California Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed SB 847, a bill by Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) that would have required medical cannabis cooperatives and collectives be located at least 600 feet from residential zones,” according to 420 Times.
The bill was SB 847, by state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), who said he wanted to allow cities to chose their own regulations and to protect children living near such facilities from second-hand smoke, according to the L.A. Times.
In vetoing Correa’s bill that would have unnecessarily restricted medical marijuana clinics, Brown wrote “Decisions of this kind are best made in cities and counties, not the state Capitol,” according to columnist Steven Greenhut, in the North County Times. Continue reading
None of us knows for sure what is going to happen to Santa Ana Councilman Carlos Bustamante, who is under investigation by his employer, the County of Orange, for allegations of sexual harassment and an alleged attempt to tamper with the witnesses. However, what I do know is that this scandal has been gold for our blog, to wit we have gone from averaging just over 22,000 visits a month to over 30,000 visits in the month of September, 2011. Thank you Carlos!
Here is a breakdown of our site visits over the past year – note the immense spike in readership in September: Continue reading
UPDATE: Democratic Party Chair Frank Barbero says the FBI has frozen bank accounts connected to Orange County’s Democratic Party, according to NBC News.
UPDATE: Kang is done: Irvine mayor Sukhee Kang says his bank account shrunk from $20,000 to $700. Kang opened a second account in July to fund his run for congress, but it is missing about $25,000, too, according to NBC News.
UPDATE: O.C. Register reports that Democratic candidates may not be able to replace their stolen campaign funds. Continue reading
Frank Barbaro, the longtime Chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County (DPOC) was compelled to issue a press release ripping Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez, for her use of a Hitler analogy with regard to developer and property owner Irv Chase – even though Barbaro noted in his release that he had no sway over her as she is not a member of his party’s Central Committee, and even though Alvarez had already apologized. But why hasn’t Barbaro commented about the arrest of Kinde Durkee, the onetime Treasurer of the DPOC?
We found evidence that Melahat Rafiei, the former Executive Director of the DPOC, had promoted a meeting that Durkee spoke at, and Durkee oversaw the money at Barbaro’s Victory Fund, a PAC he uses to promote candidates he likes.
Kindee Durkee photo by Henry V
Kinde Durkee of Burbank-based Durkee and Associates, a prominent Democratic campaign treasurer who works for federal, state and O.C. lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Rep. Loretta Sanchez and state legislators Lou Correa and Jose Solorio, has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of mail fraud, according to The Orange County Register.
State Sen. Lou Correa of Santa Ana told the Register the FBI notified him late Friday that he was one of many victims. Correa said he believes he has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds. Durkee had been his campaign treasurer since 1995, according to the Huffington Post.
Correa quickly posted a response on Facebook: Continue reading