Pontius Pilate on Lake Forest City Council

Dr. Gardner will surely write his take on the September 5 City Council meeting. This is the view about a couple of things from the other side of the dais.

First, Robinson’s vehement denial of receiving any contributions from the Deputy Sheriffs Association is closely akin to Pontius Pilate’s denial that he had anything to do with the crucifixion of Christ. (Matthew 27:11)

Robinson is correct in that anyone can donate to a PAC, and he cannot prohibit that. He can, however, disassociate himself from the PAC and he could have, and should have repudiated the racist, false publication the PAC sent on his and the other two council members behalf.

He did not, and as sure as the sun comes up in the east, the OC Sheriff’s Department benefitted from a ‘sole source’ contract with the City, supported by Robinson.

This segues into Robinson defense of the salaries police receive. It is expensive to live in Orange County or California. A lot of this cost is because of the highly overpaid public employees, and the pensions they have been so generously given. This drives the need for more taxes up, and that drives the cost of property up. In other words, it is a self-inflicted wound.

Finally, Robinson talks about the need to pay more to attract the best and the brightest. Let’s see, would that be the deputy sheriff who lost his rifle, but didn’t miss it for 8 hours; or the jailhouse deputies who didn’t notice that three prisoners had escaped until at least 18 hours after they fled; or the deputy in Dana Point who was allowed to remain on patrol and committed a 2^nd sexual assault which cost the County more than $600,000 in a lawsuit; or the Coroner who misidentified a corpse and that will cost the county probably a few million.

He used the usual “they put their lives on the line every day” as further justification for the salary. Dispatching a SWAT team for a cat up a tree is not the same as putting your life on the line.