SLOW START: Since she became state secretary...

SLOW START: Since she became state secretary of child development and education 10 months ago, Garden Grove’s Maureen Di Marco has helped initiate two new programs. But she still has no agency to administer them. The bill that would have created it has been killed for another year. Assembly Speaker Willie Brown did it, she claims, out of “pure, raw, partisan politics” to pressure the governor on reapportionment. The programs will go forward somehow, she says, adding: “Kids are not a partisan issue.”