Los Angeles County Decides to Keep Jailed Assessor in Office, Pay His $197,000 Salary
23rd December 2012
Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez has been in jail since mid-October because a campaign fundraiser allegedly bribed him to lower property taxes for his individual clients, but the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday decided they will not remove him from office and continue paying his $197,000 annual salary, which has already increased by $5,000 since July due to a cost-of-living adjustment.
My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.
According to the Times, “elected officials in California typically can’t be removed from office unless they are convicted of a job-related crime or voted out in a recall.” And Los County officials were reluctant on Tuesday to invoke a rarely used “provision that would have allowed them to remove Noguez for failing to perform his duties for three consecutive months.”
As Jerry Pournelle never tires of saying, the function of government is to hire and pay government workers; in blue states, criminality is no bar to government employment.