We knew county leaders didn't like President Obama and really hate Obamacare but would they be so petty that they'd stick the new crew supervising the Affordable Care Act into what workers swear is a sick building?
That's not sick as in “Dude, those are sick kicks you're wearing” but sick as in cough-cough, sneeze-sneeze, crud creeping-creeping.
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Perhaps you caught our past coverage of the buildings at 800 and 840 N. Eckoff St., Orange:
To Flee or Not to Flee, That is the Question as County Workers Say Buildings Make Them Sick
At issue:
Lisa Major, assistant general manager of the Orange County Employees Association, told [the county board of] supervisors the 500 or so workers at the buildings believe the air they breathe there is “toxic” and assurances to the contrary from their superiors are “hollow.” The union has sought the closures for eight months, according to Majors, as many workers fear even showing up to their jobs.
But Michael Riley, the Social Services Agency director, countered that air in both buildings has tested within safety guidelines.
Well, now the county wants to put 45 new Obamacare workers in that same building, and the employee union is squawking again. The association previously sued over conditions at what was once the site of an oil drilling company.
“We've had so many examples of women who have delivered children who have serious issues … people who have fallen ill with strange, auto-immune illnesses there is no explanation for, except for exposure to toxic chemicals,” Jennifer Muir, the public employee association spokeswoman, has reportedly said.
She wants more testing done to ensure the facility is safe, but county officials have said they've done enough testing and the place is fine. And if it isn't, well, that's why they get those ripping health plans.
Now if only the cure for what's made county workers sick was medical marijuana …
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
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.