For good measure, we also received this link to a Washington Post article on Orange County congressman Ken Calvert (R-Riverside; his district includes southernmost Orange County) and Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar; his district includes northernmost Orange County), along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, making millions off the sale of separate land parcels they own near government projects overseen by the House. Here is the relevant section on our local reps:
Last year, Calvert, the California Republican congressman, and a business partner bought a four-acre parcel near the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, Calif., for $550,000. He then secured $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away, an additional $1.5 million to support commercial development around the airfield, and sold the property less than a year later for almost $1 million.
Calvert spokesman Bob Carretta pointed to the findings of a Los Angeles-based watchdog group that concluded that Calvert's profit was in line with the rise in market values in the area.
Miller, the other California Republican, helped secure $1.28 million in last year's highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development in Diamond Bar, Calif., that he co-owns with a top campaign contributor.
Kevin McKee, a Miller spokesman, said the road improvement was a mile away from the development and had been designated by Diamond Bar officials as their top priority.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.