Voice of OC, PBS fault Moorlach again

Unionistas Norberto Santana and Nick Berardino

Once again, the union-funded Voice of OC has singled out Supervisor John Moorlach for taking County pension benefits that he’s been entitled to since he was made Orange County’s Treasurer-Tax Collector 18 years ago.

The Voice partners with PBS SoCal (KOCE-Channel 50) to produce a weekly summary of issues focused on city and county government using Editor-in-Chief Norberto Santana doing a Q&A with the co-hosts of KOCE’s Real Orange news program.  This week’s segment kicks off with Santana slamming Moorlach, OC organized labor’s favorite target, for exercising his right to a pension just as hundreds of OC Employee’s Association members are also entitled.

Santana, the Voice, the OCEA and Santana’s boss, Nick Berardino, have targeted Moorlach for years with the implication that he’s greedy and/or selfish for taking pension benefits while trying to mitigate the County’s overall exposure to these same long-term financial liabilities.

Despite Santana’s slanted rhetoric, NOT ONCE in this video does he offer a number other than his referencing Moorlach’s well-known $143k/pa salary.  We’re left in the dark about the present value of the Supervisor’s pension, his healthcare benefits, car allowance and any other compensation he legally receives as a high-ranking elected official.  For a career reporter, Santana (who’d long been with the Register before cooking up a deal with the county employee union to fund the Voice of OC) noticeably lacks any facts in support of the notion that their BOS nemesis is a greedbag or comparisons of his future fortune to the average OCEA cubicle or counter monkey (never mind the rest of us who are paying for all this while we’re also funding our own retirements).  Santana’s lengthy print piece on pensions in the Voice on July 19th was equally void of actual dollar amounts, just describing Moorlach’s pension as “generous”.

Supervisor John Moorlach
Photo: OC Register

Without any real numbers to compare Moorlach’s benefits to — perhaps our own as private citizens, and certainly those of other county employees which should be available to the Voice via their union sponsor — Santana’s judgment and implied criticism of Moorlach is unsupported.  This lack of simple, verifiable facts is especially troubling from a news reporter of Santana’s experience, but it’s unfortunately typical of an attack by a disreputable unionist and disciple of Nick Berardino.

We questioned the Voice of OC’s funding sources and partnerships months ago: The Voice of OC needs to come clean on its funding.  Considering they do no advertising and employ a number of other pretty good reporters, questioning their support isn’t unreasonable — and neither is asking for some facts and comparisons while they continue to unjustifiably target one of the few local officials who’s trying to pull us out of a pension mess that was largely created by the Voice of OC’s greedbag benefactors.