In the paper this morning I saw a note that Jerry Brown has ordered the states government fleet of cars halved.
In my private message window this morning is an anonymous entry mentioning a “Ghost Fleet” of Enterprise Rental Cars utilized by the Facilities Management Unit Maintenance Administrators of the Office of Court Counstruction & Management going on for years that permits OCCM people to avoid the take-home rules on state vehicles (because they are rental cars) and avoids any purchases of state vehicles – even though OCCM ownership of state vehicles would be far more economical.
Apparently, paying for a ghost fleet of rental cars keeps the matter off everyone’s radar…..
What do you think about AOC’s “Ghost Fleet”? Can you tell me more about it?
To clarify: This is not “normal” car rental. This is car rental by the month, for years at a time. (Around $700.00 per month for a compact car… the larger the vehicle, the more expensive it is…excluding CDW and taxes…) The Facilities Maintenance Administrators are the representatives of the AOC who interface with the local courts and consist of those employed by the AOC and additional admins employed by AppleOne.
Judicial Council Watcher 
AlwaysAmazed
January 29, 2011
Every time I want to say “unbelievable,” but then it happens so much that it’s totally believable anymore. And I also believe it’s another case of what’s good for the goose is good for the trial courts. I remember hearing some rumblings about how the Contra Costa CEO (yes, the Wall of Shame Kitty Torre) set up some kind of deal with her new IT Director (after “laying off” the previous IT Officer for budget reasons…go figure) where he took the Court car back and forth from BART, and got his long-term BART parking paid as part of his employment agreement. Thereby making the car unavailable for IT staff to make deliveries or other court business whenever he wasn’t at work during normal hours. But even worse, from my perspective, affording him some benefits never afforded any other court manager–they all should have been demanding parity. It was just another case of how Torre makes her own rules, fair or not.
That said, back to the Ghost Fleet…Who’s got the Governor’s ear? Does it seem like he’s interested in putting a stop to all these Court shenanigans? Is the outcry for transparency in the judicial system ringing with him? (See SEIU Local 521 Stop Court Waste site at http://www.seiu521.org/chapter/courts/stopcourtwaste/Default.aspx?category=45)
Wendy Darling
January 29, 2011
These aren’t the only “ghosts” floating in the hallways of 455 Golden Gate Avenue. Among others, are ghost employees on the payroll for months or years at a time that don’t actually work there but are getting paid, ghost contracts, ghost invoices, ghost policies, and other hauntings.
Michael Paul
January 29, 2011
Leadership would be calling DGS and taking some of those excess cars off their hands.
Wendy Darling
January 31, 2011
From Cheryl Miller at The Recorder, the online publication of CalLaw:
Capital Accounts: New Chief Won’t Need Appointment to Talk About Appointments
Cheryl Miller
The Recorder
January 28, 2011
SACRAMENTO — She’s been on the job for just a month, but Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye already has a friend in the governor’s office. Literally.
Gov. Jerry Brown last week named Democratic operative Mona Pasquil his new appointments secretary. Her name may sound familiar, and not just because she served briefly as acting lieutenant governor after voters elected John Garamendi to Congress in 2009. Pasquil is also one of the witnesses who spoke glowingly of Cantil-Sakauye at her confirmation hearing last August.
The two women have known each other for years, according to Cantil-Sakauye, having both grown up in Sacramento County, the grandchildren of immigrants and farmworkers. They’ve both worked in and around the Capitol for years, and they remain active in the Filipino-American community.
Cantil-Sakauye called Pasquil’s appointment “a wise choice” for California. “I have tremendous faith in her abilities.”
What role Pasquil will play in filling judicial vacancies around the state is unclear. She isn’t a lawyer. But Brown hasn’t named a judicial appointments secretary yet, and a spokesman said the governor is still deciding what the right “structure” for his Cabinet should be.
Either way, it can’t hurt for the chief of the judicial branch to have the ear of the governor’s chief appointments adviser.
Speaking of appointments, a new nameplate recently appeared inside the governor’s office. Cliff Rechtschaffen, Brown’s climate change guru in the attorney general’s office, has followed his boss to the Capitol. But what he’s doing there is a bit of a mystery.
Brown spokesman Evan Westrup would only say that “Cliff is continuing to advise the governor … More details on the role will be announced with his appointment.”
Rechtschaffen, on leave from his position on Golden Gate University School of Law’s faculty, did not return a phone message. A message on his phone at the AG’s office says he started his new role with the governor after Jan. 10.
As a special assistant attorney general, Rechtschaffen was Brown’s point man on global warming. His section’s efforts to link local land-use planning decisions with emerging climate change law in California thrilled environmentalists but irritated business groups and some local governments.
Whatever his duties, Rechtschaffen will be able to tap plenty of legal advice from former colleagues. Brown has all but raided the attorney general’s office to fill top posts in his office. Among the AG alumni: legal affairs secretary Jonathan Renner, executive secretary James Humes, senior adviser Julie Henderson and Jacob Appelsmith, the new director of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
Also in the Capitol, the Alliance of California Judges has been busy shopping two bills aimed at shifting more decision-making and budgetary power to local trial courts. The first, the Trial Courts’ Rights Act, is similar to legislation the alliance proposed unsuccessfully in 2010 to create an elected advisory group akin to, and perhaps a rival to, the Judicial Council. The second bill would create a trial court budget commission to take authority for spending decisions affecting California’s 58 superior courts.
The would-be bills are a response to alliance members’ ongoing anger with what they see as a too-powerful Administrative Office of the Courts.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm for the trial courts’ rights bill,” said alliance Director and Kern County Superior Court Judge David Lampe. “There’s an interest in the budget commission.”
Former Chief Justice Ronald George and his allies were able to block the alliance’s bill from ever developing in the Legislature last year. Lampe predicted that won’t happen this year.
“We expect it to move across the desk and to receive a fair hearing in the Legislature,” he said.
judicialcouncilwatcher
January 31, 2011
Does anyone have the text of the would-be bills?
judicialcouncilwatcher
February 1, 2011
Here is a list of arguments for the rental cars sent to me via that same private message window.
1. The AOC does not maintain a statewide fleet of vehicles. They maintain a small group of state vehicles for AOC employee use and they maintain some police package outfitted cars for ERS use.
2. You do not need to maintain a rental car. If the engine blows, a flat tire happens or an accident occurs you call the rental car company and get another car on demand. You rotate cars you know can use an oil change or other vehicle maintenance so that AOC reps have minimal downtime in the field.
3. While it may seem more expensive, in productivity terms it is a least cost alternative. (no, the telephone is the least cost alternative)
______________________________________________________
While I wish to thank someone for submitting this a Ford Red Carpet Lease on a 2011 Ford Fusion on a 24 month lease is $199.00 per month. That is a far cry from 840.00 per month when you add taxes into the mix.
judicialcouncilwatcher
February 28, 2011
Our intel gal detected a question buried in someone’s search window. The question was, “What is a ghost fleet?”
The department of general services utilizes about 3000 cars in a parking garage located in Sacramento as a virtual state rental fleet of vehicles, providing maintenance and other services to these vehicles for use by state employees. They typically purchase cars and SUV’s for this purpose.
It is alleged that the AOC, in addition to a tiny fleet of vehicles and vans they maintain, have some individuals in enterprise rental cars full time as opposed to state owned and maintained vehicles. While there is a claim of flexibility, it comes at a substantial extra cost and we would like to get an understanding of these substantial extra costs.
courtflea
March 29, 2011
Crikey, the AOC has been using Enteprise rentals for more than 12 years by my reckoning. What took so long for THAT to come out? There was a finance directive at one point for the trial courts to use Enterprise, who had the AOC contract to provide services to the branch, and what was allowable as far as rental cars go. So much of this stuff is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg and small potatoes compared to the real waste and corruption that goes on there. Keep digging JCW.