What Came and Went While I Was Gone?

Just like going through the mail, it’s always fun to catch up on the local news after a vacation. (I know, I need to get a life.)

In scanning some of the bigger stories in my recent absence, I’m feeling a definite “yeah ... but” vibe.

So, in no particular order ...

Yeah, I understand why Irvine wants the final say-so in what gets spent to build the Great Park. After all, the park lies within the city, and the city spent plenty of brainpower and money to keep the park idea alive. It’s a city that, in many ways, has shown it knows what it’s doing ...

But it’s impossible to argue with numbers. And the numbers are that a mere three members of the Irvine City Council can control park expenditures. That’s a pretty low number for such an immense ongoing project, not to mention that city elections roll around and council members come and go.

Yeah, Irvine has a pretty good track record of getting things done. And, yeah, sometimes a smaller governing body can do things more efficiently than an unwieldy larger group of bureaucrats ...

But running a city is different than running a world-class park, which is what Irvine and Orange County residents are expecting. And despite what Irvine keeps telling itself, most residents probably envisioned a representative, countywide governing body making key decisions for the park. The recent Orange County grand jury says it sees potential conflicts of interest and various other possible pitfalls. It also found that the arrangement is “incompatible” with the intent of Measure W, the countywide vote in 2002 that finally killed the international airport idea and forwarded the park plan.

Yeah, I understand why Sheriff Mike Carona, flush with election victory, quickly cashiered the lieutenant who had challenged him and discredited his leadership. That’s what corporate execs do when they win power struggles, and Carona is a corporate exec with a badge. Not a lot of CEOs would listen to an underling trash them for months and then embrace them ...

But we’re talking about a public office, not private business. Lt. Bill Hunt was the police chief in San Clemente -- hardly a throwaway assignment within the department. If Hunt was qualified to handle the job before the campaign, it’s pretty lame to argue that he became unqualified just because he trashed his boss. If someone from within the ranks can’t challenge an incumbent sheriff without fear of losing his job, who can run -- only those with no inside knowledge of how the department operates?

Yeah, I understand completely why people don’t want to take a chance and release convicted pedophile Sid Landau from a California state hospital, even though he’s 67. He’s served two separate sentences, the last for a conviction in 1988, but has admitted to abusing 10 boys in his younger days. His attorney says he’s so medically infirm and aged that he no longer poses a threat, but prosecutors fighting his release can cite recidivism rates for pedophiles and argue that he’s still dangerous ...

But they have no way of knowing for sure that Landau still is a threat. And he has done his time. And he does have a sister-in-law in New York who says she and her husband would not only house him but monitor his behavior. And an Orange County jury deciding his fate voted 11 to 1 to release him. I think we can reasonably assume that a jury of our peers isn’t particularly inclined to let dangerous child abusers roam free.

Yeah, Westminster school board members have every right to hire or not hire whomever they want. They can be as backward or forward in their thinking as they want, because they’ve been fairly elected and someday will face voters again ...

But why are they so adamant about acting like the most dysfunctional public family around? Nothing wrong with a school board with spirit, but when you’ve got a board member withdrawing support of a prospective superintendent because another board member called yet another board member a racist ... well, you wonder what goes into the decision-making process over there.

Yeah, it’s good to be back from vacation ...

But couldn’t you people have straightened out all these problems while I was gone?

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