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HI AGAIN – Gee, I just realized that the opus I didn’t write for last week marked the first time I missed one in more than 800 editions. I was laid low by illness and I’m so thankful for the folks at Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital Emergency and ICU for their great work to save my hide and for the blessing that Father Glenn Dare was kind enough to bestow. I also appreciate the scores of phone calls, letters, cards, etc. from friends – and even some I didn’t think were friends – who wished me well. * * *
THERE WILL BE a celebration of the very productive life of our town’s
Bill Lipschultz (shown in this Sentinel file photo) in the Placer
Building at the Gold Country Fairgrounds this Sunday the 10th at 1 p.m.
and I’m sure that hundreds of locals will attend. Bill died January 29
at age 78 after a lengthy illness. Bill Lipschultz was quite a guy. His name was synonymous with community
service, although I’m sure he would have waved off the “Mr. Auburn”
appellation that some well-intended but historically ignorant people
have laid on him posthumously. He brought vitality to whatever
organization he hooked up with – the Sutter Auburn Faith Community
Hospital Foundation, at the local chamber of commerce, the Performing
Arts Center, the Auburn Symphony, the Placer County Bar Association,
the barbershop quartets with which he sung basso, and, of course, his
treasured Auburn Rotary Club. He was especially close to the chamber’s Tuesday forum meetings in City
Hall’s Rose Room. Knowing that it was I who christened that bunch the
“Tuesday Morning Meddlers” while penning pulp for the AJ about 35 years
ago, he often asked if I’d like to speak to the group, a sincerely
directed invitation that I politely declined (Tuesday mornings are
deadline times for me). Bill was a native of Chicago, IL. He worked for a construction company
owned by an uncle while attending John Marshall Law School at night.
(Note: The only other John Marshall alumnus I knew was the late and
great Judge George Yonehiro.) He practiced law in the Windy City for a
spell before heading to Los Angeles, where he was one of that county’s
2,000 or so deputy district attorneys before deciding on a career as a
criminal defense lawyer. He tired of the LA rat race and finally
settled in Placer County, starting a practice in Roseville before
moving it up the hill to Auburn. It was in 1976 that a Placer County Grand Jury filed an “accusation”
against County Treasurer-Tax Collector F. Earl Corin. It was a civil
action alleging incompetence and politically aimed at throwing him out
of office; criminal charges were involved. So who would press the case
for the county? Certainly not District Attorney Daniel Jeremiah Higgins
nor any of his prosecutors, all of whom claimed conflict of interest
because they knew Earl and liked him. Thus was Bill Lipschultz
recruited as a special prosecutor to bring the case against Corin, who
went out and hired one of the best constitutional lawyers on the West
Coast to defend him. The “accusation” was a turkey, but Bill, assisted by special
investigator Lee Kibbe, now deceased, gave it his best shot. The result
was a win for Earl Corin, who with his lawyer invited the jury and all
us courtroom observers down to the Yue clan’s Shanghai saloon to
celebrate the victory. That was when I got to know Bill Lipschultz and
realized what a great gent he was. Incidentally, Earl Corin continued
to be re-elected by big margins and he and fellow Rotarian Lipschultz
became super friends. Earl retired undefeated in 1993. Needless to say, Bill’s wife Eileen and their kids, Lisa, Steven, and John, have my sympathy. * * * SHOW OF FORCE – Oldtime political hacks like yours truly can’t remember
a more impressive turnout for a candidacy announcement than the one
Doug Ose staged last Friday on the steps of the Placer County
Courthouse. Republicans of conservative and moderate persuasions (and
even a couple of Democrats) were on hand to applaud Ose’s decision to
compete with former state legislator T. Rico Oller for the GOP
congressional nomination in the June primary election. Ose hails from
Sacramento and served three terms in the House of Representatives
before voluntarily retiring in 2004. Oller, of course, is from
Calaveras County and is a disciple of nine-term Congressman J.T.
Doolittle, who is not seeking re-election and remains under
investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for possible corruption
stemming from his cozy relationship with Jack Abramoff, the crooked
lobbyist. Judging from the show Ose put on in Auburn last week, he’ll be hard to
beat. For example, the entire Placer County Board of Supervisors is
backing his candidacy. This included Kirk Uhler, a victim of Oller’s
dirty tricks in the 1996 Assembly election, and Bruce Kranz, who makes
no attempt to hide his loathing for Oller. Also aboard was Rep. Dan
Lungren, who succeeded Ose in Congress and is a former state attorney
general who also served in the House from Long Beach in the ’70s and
’80s. Auburn City Councilmembers Bridget Powers, Bob Snyder, and Mike
Holmes were there as were Placer Sheriff Ed Bonner (a registered
Democrat), County Treasurer Jenine Windeshausen, State Senator Dave
Cox, PCWA Director Gray Allen, tax fighter Lew Uhler (Kirk’s father),
victims’ rights specialist Nina Salarno Ashford, Roseville Mayor Jim
Gray, and a passel of other pols from Rocklin, Roseville, Lincoln, and
El Dorado County. Why, even Richard “Buck” Robinson was there. He’s
expected to be one of Ose’s campaign consultants, maybe the head one.
There’s talk that some far-right GOPers are so ticked off at Uhler and
Kranz for backing Ose that they’re hunting for people to oppose them in
their own supervisorial primary elections in June. I imagine that
Charlie Brown, the certain Democratic nominee for Congress, had a
spotter or two in the audience. Brown had hoped that Doolittle would be
his opponent in November because he figured he could beat him on the
basis of the ethics allegations. No soap now.
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