Newsletter: Farewell to Orange County’s unloved Hall of Administration

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, Jan 6, the Feast of the Epiphany in the Christian world — or as we say it in Spanish, El Día de los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day). I’m Gustavo Arellano, reporting from Orange County. I’m also a Metro columnist, which means I’m allowed to have opinions. Like:

The Orange County Hall of Administration in Santa Ana deserved a better fate.

The longtime seat for the County of Orange, the government entity in charge of the O.C.’s unincorporated areas, opened in 1978 at a cost of $8.1 million and is currently getting demolished. It is the latest structure to go down in the Orange County Civic Center. The area is home to many of the county’s departments, including the Health Care Agency, Orange County Superior Court, the Sheriff-Coroner, District Attorney, and County Procurement, whatever that is.

Those all have their own buildings. But at the Hall of Administration, the spotlight was on the five people who made up the Board of Supervisors. Oh, if those walls could talk. ...

In just the first few years after the Hall of Administration opened:

• One former supervisor, Robert Battin, emerged from a jail sentence for misusing county staff for a failed lieutenant governor run.
• Another supe (Ralph Diedrich) got charged with bribery and conspiracy charges.
• A third (Philip L. Anthony) pleaded no contest to receiving laundered money for his election campaign.
  

Their shenanigans ensured that the Board of Supervisors wouldn’t be majority Democrat again until this year.

All that corruption was just a prelude to decades of drama. There was the 1994 bankruptcy, at that point the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Then there was the dilution of the board’s powers as more unincorporated areas became cities. If the nickname for the L.A. County Board of Supervisors was historically the “five little kings,” the O.C. supes are nowadays more like five Little Lord Fauntleroys. A small public area on the east side of the Hall of Administration saw a weeks-long camp-out by Occupy O.C. in the early 2010s, then a years-long homeless encampment that stopped only when it was finally fenced off.

More recently, the chambers for public meetings became a showcase for O.C.‘s pendejo politics, whether hundreds of people protested against temporary shelters in Irvine or mask and vaccine mandates. All along, the Hall of Administration became leakier and more outdated and decrepit.

It never stood a chance. The Hall of Administration’s design (crafted by a major campaign donor to Diedrich) was half-assed Brutalism. In an article published days before the Hall of Administration’s opening, the L.A. Times described it as a “giant stack of white boxes” and a “a teetering pile of crates”; a reader called it “Hadrian’s villa.”

Norberto Santana Jr. was a regular at the Hall of Administration — first, as a county government reporter for the Orange County Register in the mid-2000s and currently as columnist and publisher for the Voice of OC. He most remembers a press bullpen in the bowels of the building so cramped that the joke was that the supervisors built it that way “so that if there was a fire, every reporter would be burned to a crisp.”

When he was at the San Diego Union-Tribune, Santana said, “I was accustomed to come in and out of supervisors’ offices. I was stunned to find in Orange County, they built edifices to keep out the public.”

The last Board of Supervisors meeting held at the Hall of Administration was in August, with no ceremony to bid the old hoss farewell. The supes moved on to a new $400 million building that Santana described as “something out of the Soviet era” (I personally think it looks more like the sandcrawler that Jawas use on Tatooine). Its “1984”-esque name? County Administration North.

Demolition of the Hall of Administration started in mid-December. What’s going to replace it? To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, the county will pave this non-paradise to put up a parking lot.

And now, here’s what’s happening across California:

Note: Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing.

A pedestrian and dog are reflected in puddles on a walkway along Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach on Thursday. Flooding had closed the PCH between Warner Avenue and Seapoint Street.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

L.A. STORIES

Gregory Yee, Times reporter who chased the stories that shaped L.A., dies at 33. Knew him since his days at UC Irvine. Crushing, crushing loss to everyone who knew him, to journalism, and to the world. Los Angeles Times

After storm slams Southern California, here are the risks that remain. Be safe out there, folks. Los Angeles Times

On an L.A. street corner, day laborers struggle to recover from pandemic. #Respect to all the jornaleros out in the rain this week and beyond. Los Angeles Times

Will Karen Bass’ laser focus on tackling homelessness have a cost? USC professor and longtime equity advocate Manuel Pastor says while staking her political capital on showing tangible progress, Bass must also address other daunting challenges. Capital & Main

#CardCorner: 1983 Donruss Fred Lynn. The pride of El Monte High and USC — one of just two big leaguers to win Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player in the same season — gets highlighted in this ever-insightful weekly columna. National Baseball Hall of Fame

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Historic deadlock continues: McCarthy falls short on 11th speaker ballot. Man, there has to be a Buck Owens song for this fiasco. Los Angeles Times

Gavin Newsom’s awkward crypto timing. The California’s governor’s recent efforts to boost the blockchain and crypo technology and fend off new state-level regulations comes at a time when the entire industry is tanking (Gavin: You’re better as a woke bro than a tech bro, bro). Los Angeles Times

Sewage leaks, power outages, dead body: Complaints pile up as Ceres residents sue landlord. Why can’t Californians pass a proposition that makes bad landlords live in their properties until they’re improved? Modesto Bee

In Coast Central Credit Union’s first competitive board election in nine years, a slate of new candidates aims to boost member involvement. Having just joined a credit union, I didn’t even know board elections for them were a thing! Lost Coast Outpost

CRIME, COURTS AND POLICING

Statue of Native activist mysteriously lost (and found) in Oakland. Artist Rigo 23’s sculpture of Leonard Peltier was eventually found with its arm missing and racist graffiti scrawled on a U-Haul truck in which it was being transported. Hyperallergic

‘Jesus, is that you?’ Inside L.A. Men’s Central Jail on Christmas. Due to the pandemic, this was Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez’s first Christmas Mass at the jail since 2019. Angelus News

HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Deadly results as dramatic climate whiplash causes California’s aging levees to fail. Right on time for this month’s parade of precipitation, of course. Los Angeles Times

The XBB.1.5 variant is taking over on the East Coast. Will it happen in California too? Let’s hope not. Los Angeles Times

UC Berkeley environmental program uplifts Latinx students. Latinx and the Environment was founded in 2018 by Frederico Castillo, an Environmental/Agricultural economist professor. Caló News

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

‘What is wine about? Conviviality. Nothing could be more Latino than wine. Wine is so Latino, it hurts.’ Latino winemakers in California try to figure out what’s the fine line between leaning on Syrahs and leaning on “Chente” too much. Los Angeles Times

Communists in closets: Queering the history 1930s–1990s. Join UC Santa Cruz emerita professor Bettina Aptheker in conversation with Stanford professor emerita Estelle Freedman for this free Jan. 24 webinar about Aptheker’s book, which focuses on LGBTQ reds in the Golden State. California Historical Society

Why can’t Californians buy this snack? So who’s going to be the modern-day “Smokey and the Bandit” to get some Veggie Stix out here? (We already have a Buford T. Justice, of course: former L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva). Now I Know

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: 62, partly cloudy, 62. San Diego: 62, partly cloudy. San Francisco: 59, and — yep — cloudy. San Jose: 62, and — damn — partly cloudy. Fresno: 56, and — wouldn’t you know it? — partly cloudy. Sacramento: 57, and — wow! — mostly cloudy.

But what about Holtville in the Imperial Valley, out there in the southeastern part of the state and in some of the sunniest terrain in the United States? By Jove, it’s also going to be partly cloudy — and 70. Sunny California what?

AND FINALLY

We’re trying something new down here! Ryan asked you to send us photos and blurbs about California landmarks that are interesting or important to you.

Today’s landmark love: The Tehachapi Loop submitted by Walnut Creek resident Ally Whiteneck.

The Tehachapi Loop

(Ally Whiteneck)

Ally writes:

What are California’s essential landmarks? Fill out this form to send us your photos of a special spot in California — natural or human-made. Tell us why it’s interesting and what makes it a symbol of life in the Golden State. Please be sure to include only photos taken directly by you. Your submission could be featured in a future edition of the newsletter.

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