One day after winning reelection in an incendiary campaign battle against one of his lieutenants, Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona placed that lieutenant on paid administrative leave.
Carona declined to comment on Lt. William Hunt's fate, saying it was a personnel matter. But he praised Hunt's pledge to put the heated campaign aside. Carona also vowed to heal the department torn by scandal and politics.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday August 15, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 106 words Type of Material: Correction
Orange County politics: A story in the June 8 California section about Orange County politics stated that the day after Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas won reelection in March 2002, he demoted his opponent, Deputy Dist. Atty. Wally Wade, and six other prosecutors who had backed his challenger. In fact, although Wade was assigned to a new job, he was not demoted in pay or grade. Two of the other six were demoted. The article also said six of the seven deputy district attorneys sued and some of them got their jobs back, including Wade. Only one of the prosecutors, Jane Shade, was reinstated through the courts.
Hunt, who got about half as many votes as his boss, said he was due back Wednesday after taking a month off to campaign, and was caught off-guard by the action.
"The only reason I was given was that there were open investigations regarding election activities," Hunt said from his home in San Clemente. He has headed the sheriff's operations in that south Orange County city.
"I was prepped for anything," he said of possible consequences from his election loss. "You step into something like this and there are likely to be consequences. But I had as much right to run for the job as he did. I have no regrets."
The sheriff needed a majority of the vote to avoid a November runoff. He received 50.9% of the vote with about 24,000 ballots to be counted, including absentee ballots received on election day and those cast by voters whose registrations must be verified. Hunt received 26.5% of the vote; two other candidates trailed.
Confident the numbers would hold, Carona met with county police chiefs Wednesday and then with his command staff for a "what-next summit."
There will then be meetings with the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, which endorsed Hunt, and the Orange County Employees Assn., which represents the bulk of department employees.
A joint labor-management committee that was created by Carona to deal with personnel issues had suffered during the campaign, he said, because of dueling loyalties.
"Things have been tenuous because of politics," he said. "Some of this is going to be ... that we as a department need to change some things, that there might be a need for some management adjustments or adjustments just in people's minds."
He said the internal rift and attacks from Los Angeles County Sheriff's Cmdr. Ralph Martin, who got 17% of the vote, cast a pall over his attempts to lead the department in recent months. Rank and file deputies endorsed Hunt, though their union leadership favored Carona.
