Garden Grove Unified School District Board Member Trung Nguyen’s 7-vote margin is being challenged in a recount requested by the runner-up, Garden Grove City Councilwoman Janet Nguyen. Both Nguyens were far ahead of the pack of 10 candidates for a special February 6 election to replace now-Senator Lou Correa.

Trung Nguyen’s election was certified by OC Registrar Neal Kelley last Friday, but he must await a formal swearing-in before a full Board meeting before officially taking office. The next regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors is February 27, which should allow sufficient time for the recount to be complete. Finally, on February 27, the residents of Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove and Midway City will once again have representation on the Board of Supervisors.

Personal and professional considerations caused OC’s County Executive Officer Tom Mauk to reconsider his earlier acceptance of the position of Chief Administrative Officer for Los Angeles County. The OC Board of Supervisors offer of a pay increase of 8% retroactive to June ’06 still could not come close to what L.A. County had offered, but Mauk has decided to stay here in OC, signing a new contract through 2010.

LA County Supervisors were most impressed by Orange County’s tackling of retiree medical liability, one of the first counties to do so nationally. A nationwide search costing $100,000 has so far yielded no acceptable candidates willing to take the L.A. job. The Supervisors of the nation’s largest county (9.5 million) are now seeking to lure retired CAO David Janssen out of retirement and back to his still-warm seat.

The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) Board of Directors, on which I serve as Vice-Chairman, has been wrangling with Granite-Meyers-Rados (GMR), the contractor for the Garden Grove (22) Freeway improvements. The massive design-build project originally had a November 30 completion deadline, but now it’s being stretched out to April 20. Board members grew concerned that numerous delays were not being reported to us and that our November 29 ribbon-cutting, attended by Governor Schwarzenegger, was embarrassingly premature.

GMR claims the delays were caused by rebuilding to the Magnolia Street overcrossing, which was added by OCTA to the original contract, and for which an additional $5.3 million will be paid. However, few of the construction delays appear to have anything to do with the Magnolia work and a change order was brought before the OCTA Board only last week, long after the bridge work was started.

Late fines of up to $50,000 per day can be imposed. Many Board members are upset at being left in the dark about the problems and delays of this vital project. Whatever the causes of the delays, Board members must be given the real truth, not glossed over talking points. OCTA Board Chairman Cavecche has promised a full investigation of what happened and how we can apply these lessons to future projects.

Coplink is a high tech data-sharing system which allows law enforcement agencies greater and quicker access to crime-fighting data. All OC police departments have joined, but County participation stalled due to legal and privacy concerns. The Orange County Sheriff’s Dept. has been the biggest skeptic of Coplink.

Those privacy and legal issues, however, have now been fully resolved by County Counsel Ben DeMayo. With full Board backing, the OC District Attorney’s Office and Probation Department have now joined and we look forward to the Sheriff’s Department joining Coplink as well.