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Community Corner

Monica Maddox keeps firing blanks in her campaign for OC Clerk-Recorder

I just received my mail-in ballot this past weekend. I am one of those voters who actually reads everything a candidate says on their candidate statement. One of the most interesting races is the one for Orange County Clerk-Recorder. I noticed that only one candidate took the time and spent the money to have a candidate statement.

However upon more research, I noticed that there are four candidates for the position: Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen, Monica Maddox, Steve Rocco and Gary Pritchard.<!--more-->

First of all, I don’t take anyone who doesn’t present a candidate statement as a serious candidate. If a candidate really wants a position, they need to show me as a voter that they are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so no candidate statement to me is a lack of commitment to the position being sought - score one for Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen.

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I conducted more research on the candidates and ran into http://monicamaddox.com/%20 about.html" target="_blank">this web page.  This happens to be Monica Maddox’s campaign website. She seems to be a nice lady, claims to be a business woman etc., etc. She even puts a nice picture of her trying to look as “pretty” as possible. But her bid for Clerk-Recorder started to go south for me.

1) She claims to have “years of experience making organizations more efficient.” To me she looks a little too young to have “many” years under her belt doing anything. More clarification please on how MANY years you have doing what you are claiming to have done. How about names of some places or businesses you have “made more efficient.”

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2) She claims to be the only candidate to have “private sector experience.” Where? And how many years? Funny thing is in the same website she accuses the current Clerk-Recorder of running a sandwich shop. Is this a government run sandwich shop? That would mean that Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen also has “private sector experience” so it seems like candidate Maddox is confused. Can you please post some actual proof that Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen was running this mystery sandwich shop on county time? It appears that she got this information from a democrat leaning blog – Liberal OC. What self-respecting supposedly conservative candidate, married to former “Republican “assemblyman Ken Maddox, would take this information at heart and post it on their campaign website?

3) Monica goes on to claim that she has a proven track record of success as a business woman. Again, how about the name of the “successful businesses” she has run and where?

4) I almost choked on the water I was sipping when I read that she promises that she “will never vote for a tax increase.” Does Monica have a clue as to what exactly the Clerk-Recorder does?

This tells me that Monica is either too lazy to find out what the job she wants entails or that she thinks she is going to win this election by sitting there looking pretty. The Clerk-Recorder position has no legislative authority and therefore- Yes Monica - YOU DEFINITELY WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A TAX INCREASE!!

5) She promises to cut waste, fraud and abuse. How?

6) Now for the kicker. Monica claims that she will “not accept” the county’s generous pension plan. After doing some more research, I learned that Monica is married to former assemblyman and RECALLED Trustee of the Capistrano Unified School District Ken Lopez-Maddox. Of course you won’t take the county pension, you don’t need it. Your husband will be collecting a big pension compliment of the California tax payers. And how bad must you be if 60% of the voters opted to recall her husband from the school board? After reading about Monica’s husband at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Maddox" target="_blank">this web page, it has become more clear to me that the Maddoxs’ are used to living of the government. Her husband doesn’t appear to have had a private sector job since being recalled. He is currently working as an Information Officer II with the Board of Equalization. He was also a former policeman. Could Mr. Lopez-Maddox be triple dipping the pension system? On a side note – there is no mention of Monica being married to or in any way connected to Ken Lopez-Maddox. Why?

7) In her home page, Monica claims that the last five men to hold the position of Clerk-Recorder were all appointed to the office. This once again show me how Monica plans to win this election by sitting there and looking pretty or that she is plain lazy. I was able to discredit this lie by researching of all places , the clerk-recorder’s webpage. Apparently, the clerk-recorder department is also in charge of the Orange County Archives. Under Orange County History http://ocarchives.com/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=25979" target="_blank">web page here -  I was able to confirm that former Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly was elected to the position 3 times in a row. Before that, Darlene Bloom was appointed to be interim Clerk-Recorder by the Board of Supervisors. Prior to that, the late Gary Granville was elected to run the office for many years and before that Lee Branch was the elected recorder. Monica’s campaign need to learn how to do some simple research. If Monica can’t do simple research what makes her think she can run the Clerk-Recorder Department?

8) Facebook – I guess it is true that you can say anything in Facebook and hopefully no one calls you out on it. On https://www.facebook.com/monicamaddoxforclerkrecorder" target="_blank">her Facebook page here.

Monica claims to be the first Latina in the history of Orange County to run for Clerk-Recorder. I would like to remind Mrs.” Not so Latina last name” Maddox that former Assistant Clerk-Recorder Renee Ramirez tried to run for the office in 2010 but decided to drop out after her boss Tom Daly jumped back in the race after a failed run for County Supervisor. Anyways isn’t Monica’s real legal last name Monica Lopez-Maddox? Why is she hiding the Lopez part of her last name? She can’t have her cake and eat it too right?

The only thing that Monica made clear for me is that she is no honest Abe and that she is out of her league and element when it comes to running for Clerk-Recorder. Her website is full of misinformation  and strategically placed lies with no beef – no substance. I was so exhausted after getting through her website that I decided to stop doing research on the other candidates. Again I ask, Monica where’s the beef?

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