An interesting aspect of OCCORD calling on the state Attorney General and the OC District Attorney to prosecute all four members of Anaheim City Council for imaginary violations is it puts some members of the OCCORD Board of Directors at political odds with themselves.

OCCORD is the political offspring of UNITE-HERE. Unions provide OCCORD with funding, and at least 40% the radical group’s board of directors consists of union executives and members.

Among those are Ada Briceno, Secretary-Treasurer of UNITE-HERE Local 11; Rick Eiden, the executive vice president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324; Rob Penney, organizing director for the United Nurses Associations of California;  Jorge Inestria, UNITE-HERE activist.

In addition to being a director of OCCORD, Eiden is also the president of the Orange County Labor Federation (the OC presence of the AFL-CIO) — which endorsed Jordan Brandman for Anaheim City Council in 2012.  UNITE-HERE is represented on the OCLF board by its president, Tom Walsh (Briceno is UNITE-HERE Local 11’s No. 2).

On its face, you have UCFW President Rick Eiden – in his capacity as an OCCORD Director — calling for the criminal prosecution of an elected official (on absurd legal grounds) whose he officially and materially supported as head of the OC Labor Federation.

While OCCORD Chair Ada Briceno is not on the OCLF Board of Directors, the president of the union of which she is the second-in-command is – creating a situation in which UNITE-HERE’s top leadership has endorsed and supported Jordan Brandman in the union’s OCLF leadership role, while also calling for his prosecution in its OCCORD leadership role.

Endorsements don’t expire. Jordan Brandman remains endorsed by the OCLF until he isn’t. So how does the leadership of these unions simultaneously support Jordan Brandman being an Anaheim councilmember while calling for his prosecution (on a sure-fire loser of a case, by the way)?

How does that sit with the rest of the OC Labor Federation Board of Directors that the OCLF President is a director of a union-funded organization that is trying to have an OCLF-endorsed elected official prosecuted for a made-up offense?

Was the OCCORD Board of Directors was consulted and gave its approval to hauling Cory Briggs up from San Diego to level baseless accusations against Brandman (and his council colleagues)?

Or did OCCORD Executive Director Eric Altman go it alone and launch this Scud missile at the Anaheim Council on his own authority and without consulting his board?

If it hadn’t already alienated the four embers of the Anaheim City Council, this move has done so permanently. I think it is almost certain the lawsuit that OCCORD and Briggs promise is forthcoming, will be thrown out – in which case the radical community group will have nothing to show for its rashness.