Mission Impossible: Defending O.C. Registrar

I want to make an argument for why Orange County Registrar Neal Kelley shouldn’t lose his job. In case you’ve been preoccupied with other things, some folks are arguing that Kelley was too cozy with Capistrano Unified School District officials in handling petition signatures in a recall effort against all seven of the district’s board members.

Kelley already has acknowledged that earlier this year he let two district officials review some of the petitions. That was illegal, and Kelley told the Board of Supervisors July 18 he made “the wrong decision” and indicated he didn’t know it was illegal to show names to recall opponents.

I said I want to make an argument for Kelly, but I’m not sure I can. Here’s all I’ve come up with so far:

* In tough economic times, I don’t like to see people lose their jobs;

* He’s only been on the job less than a year;

* The job seems occasionally confounding to whoever runs it;

* No one died because of his decision.

That’s about it. As you can see, I’m pretty much a softie.

Here’s my problem: it’s hard to lobby for a public official who doesn’t know the laws governing his own office. More troubling, Kelley’s lapse in letting two district officials -- an assistant superintendent and the superintendent’s spokesman -- see signatures wasn’t exactly benign in its potential consequences.

That is, the Capo district was already hip-deep in turmoil, with an energized group of parents looking for changes at the top. That, naturally, ratcheted up the defenses of the administration and, next thing you know, it has its agents at the registrar’s office.

And while it’s true that the district hierarchy knew who some of the recall leaders were, it obviously didn’t know all the sympathizers. My concern -- and it may be a needless one -- is that some district employees, including teachers, probably signed some recall petitions.

Some Capo parents already have complained that their anti-administration activities provoked retaliatory actions taken against their children. I’m not going to debate that here, but I’d venture that teachers -- whose assignments and working conditions are under district control -- might feel extremely uneasy if their names were known.

That is the potential peril that Kelley permitted by making the names of petition-backers available. To my mind, it’s a pretty egregious mistake even if it wasn’t made with any conspiratorial intent on his part to take sides in the acrimonious recall dispute.

Problem is, recall backers say Kelley did a few other things that appeared to give aid and comfort to the Capo administrators.

So, Kelley has a problem. Next Tuesday, the board of supervisors will get an outline from the county CEO detailing how an investigation of Kelley’s actions could unfold. The board then will decide whether to press ahead with an investigation.

I called Kelley’s spokesman, Brett Rowley, to see if Kelley wanted to talk. “It would be inappropriate to talk about it since it’s going to the board next week,” Rowley said Wednesday, “but we would really love to talk to you after the meeting.”

Kelley’s goose already may be cooked, but surely there would be another spot for him in county government. His gaffe may well end his registrar’s career, but it need not expel him from public service.

Interestingly, Kelley got the job when his predecessor, Steve Rodermund, was reassigned after being put on paid leave last August. Rodermund’s precise offense never was identified, but he never returned to the job. And his predecessors had occasional dust-ups over such things as election night vote-counting and whether recall petitions distributed in Santa Ana needed to be printed in Spanish.

So, in Kelley’s defense, maybe no one can get a handle on the registrar’s job.

Maybe that should be Kelley’s strategy, assuming it’s not too late. Something along the lines of, “I just think everyone should know this job is very stressful and, actually, quite complex.”

For someone on the public payroll, however, that may not play well.

If I were him, I’d use one of my arguments from above:

“Hey, nobody died!”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.