With the swearing-in of Vicente Sarmiento, who used to be the mayor of Santa Ana, the top elected body in Orange County has officially switched from being run by Republicans to being run by Democrats.
Tuesday marked Sarmiento’s first meeting in his new role as county supervisor. He attended the meeting together with fellow Democrats Doug Chaffee and Katrina Foley, all of whom were re-elected in November, and Republicans Andrew Do and Don Wagner.
Before the meeting, when he was formally sworn in, Sarmiento said that his top priorities were to make housing more affordable, reduce homelessness, improve public health services, make the board more open, and hire more people and give more money for civilian oversight of county law enforcement agencies.
Before leaving the mayor’s office in Santa Ana, Sarmiento said, “I’m really pleased with the fact that we implemented one of the most aggressive police oversight commissions.” He also said he wanted to “robustly boost the financing and staffing” of law enforcement supervision in the county.
Making sure that “our children and our youth can afford a home in the county they grew up in” is another goal, he added. “I want them to have access to that dream.” Sarmiento said he has been learning about the difficulties and what can be done, but he did not specify how he would go about doing it. According to him, he is only the third Latino supervisor in the history of the county and the first inhabitant of Santa Ana to serve on the Board of Supervisors in more than 74 years. Sarmiento was the lone dissenter on a $13 million contract increase for the renovation of the county’s Musick jail in one of his first votes as a supervisor. He highlighted his absence from prior conversations and claimed that design issues were to blame for the unanticipated cost hike. Nearly $9 billion is allocated annually by the county board for local and regional services like law enforcement, public health, social services, and a wide range of other priorities like libraries. Democrats currently have three of the board’s five seats following the change, which saw Republican Lisa Bartlett leave and join Sarmiento, giving them a governing majority for the majority of the board’s decisions. But the truth is more nuanced. Chaffee, one of the three Democrats, is a centrist who frequently agrees with his Republican colleagues on important issues and was rejected by his own party in the election of last year. He is regarded as the swing vote who might most likely determine contentious matters. During his short speech after taking the oath of office, Chaffee thanked his family for their support and mentioned a few times that he didn’t agree with Foley.
Among them was the fact that in 2021, after the county had stopped providing such updates entirely, he and Do joined forces to prevent county health professionals from joining Foley for weekly public coronavirus updates. Chaffee said to Foley before he took the oath of office, “I look forward to working with you and building a pleasant working relationship—in spite of tension—on vital matters affecting the quality of life of our inhabitants. Audience members laughed when Chaffee mentioned the “friction.”
Foley expressed her gratitude to public employee unions for supporting her campaign and vowed to stand up for all residents, from the poor who live in tent cities to the wealthy who stay in mansions. “I appreciate your work. I appreciate your support throughout the past 20 years. Your home is here! You created it! Foley expressed gratitude to the police and fire departments. The representation of homeless people and efforts to help them differ significantly from that of residents of the most opulent homes in Orange County, according to Foley. “They all deserve our advocacy,” Democrats last held a majority on the Board of Supervisors in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was the president of the United States. The corruption scandals that dogged that administration included the 1976 felony conviction of then-Supervisor Bob Battin for manipulating county resources to advance his lieutenant governor candidature. As is customary at the first meeting of the year, following the swearing-in, supervisors selected Republican Don Wagner, the outgoing vice chair, as their new chairperson for the year. However, they disagreed strongly about who would serve as vice chair. While Sarmiento and Foley endorsed Foley, Chaffee stood with his Republican colleagues in choosing Supervisor Andrew Do as vice chair.
Wagner stated his support for the social safety net for the most disadvantaged in his first speech as chairman. “We must help the poor and homeless people in our community. The social safety net has a function, according to Wagner. By protecting liberty, we make sure that those who collectively know more than any member of the government does are best prepared to care for themselves, which reduces the extent and reach of that safety net.
