When West Orange County Republicans look at their June Primary sample ballots, they might see a familiar name—former Los Alamitos Mayor and Councilmember Dean Grose. Grose is running for a seat on the Orange County GOP Central Committee. For those who may not be political junkies, these positions might be one of the more mysterious on the sample ballot.
To start with, the election of central committee members is only open to party members. Thus, unless you are a registered Republican, you will not have the page for central committee members in your sample ballot. For those West OC voters who are registered Republicans, and any “declined to state” voters who requested a GOP sample ballot, there will be a page for the “Central Committee, 67th District–Vote for 6” There is no Democrat central committee vote for the 67th District.
The Republican Central Committee is organized by state Assembly districts. Each district sends 6 delegates to the countywide central committee. West OC is in the 67th Assembly District and is represented by Republican Jim Silva in Sacramento. There are 12 candidates running for the 6 seats from the 67th District.
As it turns out, at least 3 of the 12 names are pretty familiar to West OC Republicans. The big dog of the OC GOP, Scott Baugh, happens to be in the 67th District. Baugh, who lives in Huntington Beach, is the Chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County, a former member of the state Assembly from the 67th District, and a former Leader of the Republican Caucus in the state Assembly.
In addition to Baugh, West OC GOP voters might recognize the name of Cathy Green, Mayor OF Huntington Beach, and Dean Grose, former Mayor of Los Alamitos. Grose received national media attention back in 2009 when he was forced to resign his seat on the city council because of what was considered by some to be a racial slur. See our related articles below.
Grose told www.OC180NEWS he was returning to politics “because I’m disenchanted with both parties and rather than standing on the outside complaining—it starts with the Central Committee—I might as well throw my hat in and try and be on the inside and work toward a solution, rather than just being on the outside complaining.”
Shortly after Barak Obama was elected President of the United States, Grose emailed to some friends a cartoon which depicted the front lawn of the White House as a watermelon patch. The supposed humor of this cartoon comes from the assumption that black people are unusually fond of watermelon. The email quickly ended up on the internet and garnered so much media attention and public ridicule, that Grose decided to resign from the city council. It is perhaps the only time in memory when a Los Alamitos City Council meeting had national live television coverage.
But, that was then, this is now, and memories can be short. We asked Grose if his legacy from the Los Alamitos City council would have any affect on the upcoming election. He said “I made a mistake, I apologized, and I did at the time what I thought was necessary to do on behalf of the community, myself, and my family, by stepping aside.” Referring to the ill-fated email, he said “If I had sent that same email out today, it wouldn’t have even been a blip on the radar. Unfortunately, it went out 30 days after we just elected the first black president. It wasn’t, in my mind, a racial attack on anyone—it was funny.”
We asked how the cartoon could be considered funny without the racial angle and Grose said “I guess it may have seemed to some like it was racial. I didn’t allude to that—I didn’t create it and I forwarded it on—I laughed at it and I forwarded it to some friends. “
Beyond Scott Baugh and Dean Grose, we attempted to find some information about the other 10 central committee candidates. Dismaying as it might be, central committee members are the one position on the June ballot where candidates are not permitted to include candidate statements in the sample ballot. Further, the GOP Central Committee does not endorse any of the candidates and could not provide any information or references on any of them.
Even though he does not reside in the 67th Assembly District, we contacted our County Supervisor, John Moorlach, for his take on this contest. We went through the 12 candidates and he came up with 7 that he liked for the 6 slots. But, he was not yet ready to make his final cut.
Although it was late yesterday and we caught up with him while he was still running between meetings, we pressed him for his thoughts on Dean Grose. Moorlach said “I know Dean, I know him as a sincere guy who’s made a nice faux pas, but he’s a great community activist, but I haven’t made a decision yet.”
Stay tuned to www.OC180NEWS.com for more coverage of the upcoming June Primary election.
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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