A press release from Hansberger’s office:
Supervisor Dennis Hansberger today sent an internal memo to Board Chairman Bill Postmus expressing his objection to Postmus’ appointment of private attorney Dennis Wagner to the Interim County Counsel position in light of former top attorney Ron Reitz’ abrupt departure last week.
Hansberger’s concerns outlined in the memo include his concern for the integrity of sensitive “in-house” legal information now being subject to an attorney whose clients’ interests clearly may be in conflict with those of the county. Further, Hansberger claims that Mr. Wagner has a financial interest in the affairs of clients who now, or in the past have had financial contracts with the county.
“Mr. Wagner and his firm have a clear conflict of interest in county matters, as they represent clients who have financial dealings with the county,” said Hansberger. “Subsequently, at least one of his clients’ contractual relationships is under scrutiny in an investigation by the FBI, if not state and county agencies, as well.”
Hansberger cites the example that Wagner and his law partner, Tristan Pelayes represent members of the California Charter Academy.
In the memo, Hansberger requested that Postmus rescind the appointment he made without the benefit of discussion with the entire board, and indicated that he saw no reason that the county’s existing team of counsel should not be tasked with handling county legal matters until a replacement can be agreed upon by the board.
“We have appropriate leadership and structure within our County Counsel’s office to handle all legal affairs in this county,” continued Hansberger. “I see no existing emergency that would warrant such a hasty appointment.”
This story has more implications for Hesperia readers than is immediately obvious (yes, even with the CCA thing). Consider this a taste of things to come for readers, and a notation for me so that I’ll remember to keep my eye on this particular ball.
We just got back from a mandatory (but with Baskin-Robbins ice cream) staff meeting at the Daily Press, where Publisher Stephan Wingert announced that Gretchen Losi, formerly the DP’s Hesperia reporter and now doing a bang-up job on education, was the DP’s Employee of the Month, for her leadership in the newsroom while the paper temporarily was without a city editor. Well deserved, even if this is half a step towards management, Gretchen.
This was a really great story on NPR yesterday:
At many newspapers, the top priority is how best to prop up revenues. But the family that owns The Anniston Star in Alabama is quietly planning to devote the paper’s profits to training new generations of reporters.
The Star is a small daily that packs an outsized punch, situated in a town west of Atlanta. The paper has a circulation of just 27,000. But under the leadership of publisher Harry Brandt Ayers, it fights above its weight class. It campaigned for racial desegregation at a time when much of Alabama was brawling to keep it out, and it has uncovered pollution and government corruption. The newspaper has maintained a staff that is twice as large as what industry consultants recommend.
The Star has long served as a training ground for aspiring journalists. Rick Bragg and Jim Yardley went on to win Pulitzers at The New York Times. Others graduated to the Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal.
The audio version has more to it than the text sample on the NPR site.
The Anniston Star sounds like a great paper. I wish every community in America had a paper like that.
In response to this week’s article about Postmus pulling the manga art book from county libraries, which mentioned Dr. Laura in passing, I got this e-mail earlier this week:
Thank you for the mention – very serious situation in public libraries – used to be they were a safe place for children. Shame.Â
Â
Warmly, DrL
Peter confirmed it was, indeed, Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
This brings the number of celebrities who have read the Hesperia Star up to one.
Peter and I haven’t had as much time to put into the Hesperia Star blog as we’d hoped, but I’ve been casting around for other small newspapers that blog, trying to get some inspiration … OK, steal some ideas. We’ve gotten a few readers commenting over there so far, but it’d be nice to get some more, if only to give us hints as to what clicks with folks and what doesn’t.
