Talk about lobbyists that aren't on the ball.
It seems the lobbying firm that most local governments pay to look out for Merced County's interests in Washington is a little slow on the draw.
More than a week ago Congressman Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced) sent a scathing letter to the secretary of the Department Housing and Urban Development for what Cardoza called the man's failure to staunch the bleeding in the Valley's foreclosure crisis.
The Sun-Star's Washington correspondent duly reported the flap over the letter, and the newspaper even had an interview with the congressman on its radio show, "Off the 99."
Then on Thursday, more than a week after the letter was written, Merced County Association of Government's flack Candice "Quick-Draw" Steelman forwarded it to the Sun-Star.
Of course, this tardiness should be laid at the doorstep of Van Scoyoc Associates, the county's lobbyist, whose employee, Thane Young, finally forwarded the letter to MCAG Wednesday.
It's good to see the county's money is being spent wisely, and with such haste.
Everything but the train
The cabal of Merced County bigwigs (the Greater Merced High-Speed Rail Committee) who have joined together to bring the area another golden goose -- high-speed rail -- seem to be one step ahead of the game in almost every way: They are media savvy, up on the issues, united, well organized and motivated.
But a look at their Web site is less than reassuring.
When Lips went to www.mercedhighspeedrail.com, the site's home page was replete with a photo of a blue and yellow train, as well as a map of the route through town. But when Lips looked a little deeper, there wasn't much there -- no contact information or membership list, among other gaps.
And it's not as if they just created the site yesterday. According to Network Solutions the domain name was registered back in November 2009.
Lips would have called the committee for comment, but there was no contact number listed on its site.
If they can't build a Web site that's more than skin deep, how successful will their other, more important efforts be?
Flip-flopper Espinoza
Livingston City Councilman Rodrigo Espinoza is at it again. This time the confused policy-maker has done the flip-flop of all flip-flops. Even John Kerry couldn't match this.
As part of his continued effort to stall the council's actions by making the body vote on every warrant he doesn't agree with, on Tuesday night Espinoza made the council vote on a roughly $30,000 bill for the executive search firm that found the city's new police chief.
Why? Espinoza said the process wasn't transparent enough and that the firm was hired by the previous council. OK.
The only problem with his line of reasoning is that he sat on the previous council. In fact, he voted to hire the firm that he wanted to not pay on Tuesday.
When Councilman Frank Vierra reminded Espinoza of that fact, Espinoza's answer was, as usual, perplexing. "I can still vote no now," he said.
Lips can't top that.
