O.C. Board of Supervisors mull outside probe, ethics code after corruption case
In the wake of former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do’s conviction on bribery charges, an outside audit of contracts related to his tenure on the board may be on the way.
During Tuesday’s board meeting, supervisors debated hiring independent investigators to vet contracts “directed or influenced” by Do for any possible corruption.
Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento made the push for the external audit.
He cited the example of Anaheim contracting with an outside firm to issue a corruption report in the wake of an FBI investigation that led to the conviction of former mayor Harry Sidhu.
Assemblyman Avelino Valencia wrote a letter to the board expressing his support for an external audit. During his time on Anaheim City Council he voted in favor of its own independent corruption probe.
“In the past three years, there have been two federal probes involving former elected officials,” Valencia wrote. “These corrupt actions will not be tolerated and it is imperative that we take decisive action to prevent future abuses.”
Last month, Do pleaded guilty to steering more than $10 million in federal pandemic relief funds through a nonprofit connected to his daughter, Rhiannon, for personal gain. He admitted to receiving more than $550,000 in bribes from assistance approved to provide meals to elderly residents during the pandemic.
“These were public dollars that were diverted,” Sarmiento said. “We have to demonstrate to them [that] this is an objective finding.”
Though supportive of Sarmiento’s initiative, Supervisor Katrina Foley sought to broaden the scope of any potential outside probe.
“This external audit needs to be expanded to all contracts, not just isolating the ones by ex-supervisor Do,” she said. “Over the past 2½ years of attending these meetings, I have yet to see any contracts that were ever denied and not unanimously approved by the entire board.”
Foley also wanted to ensure that there wasn’t any overlap with county efforts already underway in the aftermath of the Do scandal.
During the same Sept. 24 meeting when supervisors censured Do, they also voted to direct the county’s internal auditor to carry out a risk assessment of American Rescue Plan Act funded contracts within 90 days.
On Tuesday, Foley asked if that included all federal pandemic relief funded contracts.
Aggie Alonso, the county’s internal audit director, noted that over 2,000 such contracts existed and that, within the time frame given, his office could only carry out a sample with recommendations before the Dec. 24 deadline.
“If we’re going to do something so grand, we’d probably have to contract it out,” he said.
For over a decade, Nick Gerda reported on Andrew Do the way a sculptor works a slab of marble. His torrents of public records requests led the former supervisor to derisively refer to “the Noise of OC.”
In August, the county also filed a lawsuit against Viet America Society — the nonprofit affiliated with Do’s daughter at the center of the scandal — alleging that it had “brazenly plundered” pandemic relief funds for personal gain.
County counsel Leon Page noted during Tuesday’s meeting that auditors would be retained to review documents obtained through discovery.
The lawsuit gave Foley pause about the timing of hiring independent investigators.
“I don’t want this to impact … our ability to litigate our case because we want to get the money back,” she said.
Sarmiento doubled down on the importance of ordering an independent probe on top of everything else the county is doing on its own.
“What I’m asking staff to do … is have an outside, independent firm do a review of not only what we’re doing internally, but again, any gaps that we may have missed,” Sarmiento said. “Our item … that we adopted on Sept. 24 was pretty thorough. That doesn’t mean it was completely thorough.”
Board Chairman Don Wagner did not support hiring outside investigators.
“We can audit until the cows come home, and at the end of the day, we will not root out willful misconduct,” he said. “As good intended as these policies are, I think they end up being window dressing.”
The board also considered a proposal by Supervisor Doug Chaffee to approve a policy revision on transparent and ethical contracting. Chaffee moved to have the county’s office of campaign finance and ethics publish quarterly reports on all required disclosures from supervisors, contractors and third parties.
Supervisors found in violation could be censured or referred for criminal prosecution, and contractors would stand to be banned from doing business with the county in the future.
The proposal raised more questions from Foley, who otherwise supported the idea behind the effort. Pointing back to the Sept. 24 board meeting, she reiterated that supervisors moved to have quarterly reports on contract disputes come from the county’s procurement office.
Foley also noted that the county doesn’t have a debarment law to ban contractors found in violation.
Michelle Aguirre, the county’s interim CEO, weighed with recommendations for how to manage the layers of oversight being requested in the wake of scandal, including the call for an independent investigation.
“By process of elimination, we would identify those contracts that are not currently being looked at, and then those would be on the list to make sure that we’re looking at those contracts,” she said. “That would be by the independent auditor hired by internal audit.”
Sarmiento found much agreement with the recommendation but also wanted to allow for any independent investigation to have a broader scope than what was outlined by the Sept. 24 vote on internal audits.
With all the outstanding questions, supervisors voted to revisit the proposals during their scheduled Dec. 3 board meeting.
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