Mimi Walters Formally Enters Congressional Race - She Should Be Looking for a Larger Irvine Apartment

Mimi Walters, circled in yellow, at a special birthday
celebration for her chief-of-staff, standing above her.

As you may know, a career politician, State Senator Mimi Walters has announced that she is a candidate for the Congressional seat currently held by Rep. John Campbell. Rep. Campbell, as far as I can tell, was forced into retirement by those of us in the district disgusted by his RINO status and his relative disinterest in actually meeting with and talking to his constituents. In the picture above, you can see Mimi Walters celebrating the birthday of her chief-of-staff - the fellow who is bending over her in the picture. Below, Walters declines to answer a question about her residency in a video published by the Sacramento Bee on March 28, 2014.

Walters ran poorly in her recent race for state Treasurer. She is termed out of her current office. Her family business is in trouble with the state of California and with its former employees who now assert she has not been paying them on-time for their work. Sadly, she still received endorsements from Representatives Ed Royce, Supervisors Pat Bates, Shawn Nelson and Janet Nguyen and Assemblywoman Diane Harkey. I guess not paying your employees and living largely off money you earn from the State of California is not a big sin in some circles. (The Harkey family also has questionable business practices.)

Personally, I have found Walters to be one of Orange County’s least friendly public servants. I guess, in this sense, she will be a representative much along the lines established by John Campbell

Mimi possesses a B.A. degree from UCLA. She has a minor background in business, finance and local government. Her professional career only lasted for seven years when she served as an investment executive. Her credentials seem less than spectacular and she strikes me as something of an affirmative action candidate.

Ironically, she has won all three awards that are issued by the Orange County Republican Party, being named Local Elected Official of the Year in 1997, Volunteer of the Year in 1998 and Legislator of the Year in 2005. Of course, this is the same group that fought hard to promote Sheriff Carona despite the fact that he was cheating on his wife or supported Rep. Campbell despite his vote for TARP and his bizarre support for gays in the military. Most recently, Walters was in the news for claiming that she lived in Irvine in a one bedroom apartment that lacks a dishwasher. As a recent lawsuit noted: 

The suit goes on to say that from 2008 until earlier this year, Walters' official State Senate website said, "She and her husband, David, live in Laguna Niguel with their four children." In May 2012, the suit says the site was changed to say, "She and her husband, David, live in Irvine with their four children."

"If the present language on the website is truthful," the suit says, "5 adults and 1 child reside in (a) 570 square foot studio apartment. If the present language on the website is truthful, David Walters voted illegally when he cast a ballot in the latest election using the Laguna Niguel Residence as his place of residence."

Personally, I find this sort of lying to be deeply offensive. It is not the sort of behavior that reflects well on Republicans in our community. Sadly, it looks to me like telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is not a Walters family value.  

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist. He applies his skills as a grant writing consultant in the Southern Calfornia area. His website is at the following link: http://drdrewguaranteedgrants.com/about-us/

Feeling Blue About Amber Property Management in Mission Viejo

I guess I had an intuition this year that I needed to get more involved in politics at the local level, the extremely local level. I'm running for one of the worst jobs in America - a spot on my HOA board of directors.

I'm running for a position on my HOA's board of directors, in part, because I got fed up with the way that Amber Property Management was picking on me. They have been driving me nuts with their arrogant attitudes, their barely disguised contempt for me and my neighbors, and a level of sloppiness and careless that I find to be both disconcerting and potentially dangerous. A quick Google search reveals I'm not the only one fed up with their bizarre behavior, and their inadequate attention to procedures and details.

One of the most disturbing mistakes occurred this month when I got a letter dated March 13, 2013 asking me to take out the safety lighting sensor on my building. Since this sensor - which controls the building's outdoor lighting - was near my front door, they concluded that it was some sort of spy camera or other device I had installed without their permission. See their letter below:




Letter from the HOA Board of Directors asking me to remove the
building's safety lighting sensor dated March 13, 2013.

I, of course, immediately fired off an indignant complaint daring them to touch even the tiniest cord in this lighting sensor without my express permission. Even so, it took them a couple of days to figure out their foolishness and to send a follow up letter to letting me know that the safety light sensor was safe.



New letter from Jamie Hackwith of Amber Property Management indicating
that my safety light sensor was now safe from destruction at the hands of the HOA.

Sadly, the list of errors caused by Amber Property Management goes on and on. Just this month, they failed to properly notice the board of directors meeting. They put up a sign that indicated the date of the meeting was in the previous month, not the current month.

In 2016, I caught our Amber Property Management representative, Jamie Hackwith, sending out violation letters that violated our own rules. These rules call for the violation letter to indicate the exact rule broken by the homeowner or their tenant. Instead, the letters coming from Amber Property Management made only vague charges against the homeowner or tenant.

One of the most disgusting things about Amber Property Management is that when I have complained about them to the Better Business Bureau or some other agency, they have routinely sent a letter threatening legal action against me. 

Clearly, their aim is to intimidate me into silence. I talked to two homeowners just this month that cannot stand Jamie Hackwith. One called me in tears to report that Jamie insulted her by saying he understood she had an "angle" when she called to get information. Another homeowner just shared with me that when he speaks to Jamie Hackwith, Hackwith makes him feel like the homeowner is working for Amber Property Management rather than the other way around.

Luckily, there are now many avenues available for complaining about your HOA or property management company. I found, for example, that you can read the complaints of others and add your own at www.yelp.com. In addition, Google+ also gives you an opportunity to tell the truth about your HOA services. In my case, I'm lucky enough to have this blog and about 100,000 thousand followers on Twitter. All of this means that consumers have more power to fight back when they are mistreated or, as in my case, mistakenly blamed for an eyesore that was installed two years earlier by their own HOA.

I should probably add in the end of the story. We had a terrifying brush fire on our Del Prado property on June 29, 2017. Personally, I blamed Jamie Hackwith and the landscaping company, Douglas Landscaping. As far as we know, this fire was caused by a spark coming off the mower used to do a fuel reduction project on our western slope. Ideally, this work should have been scheduled a month earlier when the fire danger would have been lower.

At any rate, on-line court records show that Jamie's wife, Tracey, filed for divorce on July 13, 2017. Tracey is the daughter of the owner of Amber Property Management. We got the news that Jamie would no longer be our property manager at Del Prado through an e-mail from Tracey Hackwith that was dated August 14, 2017.

All in all, this experience reminded me of why it is important to avoid smaller companies that are rife with nepotism. Virtually no one knows how to deal with employees who are family members. In general, they are poor performers and difficult to fire. In fact, in this case, they may have been easier to divorce than to fire.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.