Reports on Recorder Issue Overlooked the Truth

* Since when does the Los Angeles Times care about the truth? If it did, it would look for the truth in the Orange County recorder matter. For many years, the powers that be have had it in for County Recorder Lee Branch because he wouldn’t play their games (they said that he was “uncooperative”). The following is just a small sampling of the punishment heaped upon him and which ultimately included me. The powers that be:

1. Stymied the recorder’s every attempt to move to larger quarters and repeatedly blamed him for costs when he did not spend more taxpayers’ money to renovate a building that did not provide adequate space.

2. Gave lip service to the recorder in his attempts to remove an infamous troublemaker from the office.

3. Refused the recorder’s requests to have the assistant recorder serve “at his pleasure,” as most assistant department heads (of elected officials) do.

4. Repeatedly denied well-deserved reclassification attempts for his employees.

5. Falsely “convicted” him of showing favoritism to me, as well as sexual harassment that could not be substantiated by a grand jury investigation, conducted by no less than the Orange County district attorney’s office.

6. Slandered our names, with the help of the Orange County Affirmative Action Office (which has been advised to contact the Orange County district attorney regarding its investigative methods).

Only when you print the truth about that whole situation can you afford to throw stones at the Mexican government. Remember the one about people in glass houses?

Mark B. Lifland said it best when he displaced the quintessential oxymoron “politically correct” with “responsible journalism.”

NANCY L. SMITH

Huntington Beach

Nancy L. Smith, a county employee, formerly worked in the recorder’s office for almost 23 years.