(June 7) This week Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford obtained clearance from her colleagues to hire controversial political figure Joshua White as a policy advisor on her staff.
The 24-year-old White is to be provided a total annual compensation package of $98,469, consisting of a $57,190 salary and $41,279 in benefits.
Five years ago, then county assessor Bill Postmus fell under a cloud of suspicion that eventually led to his resignation when it was revealed that he had installed several cronies with little or no practical experience in the realm of assessing properties or businesses as political appointees in his office. Among these was the then-19-year-old White, who was given a simplistic make-work assignment of compiling readily available and already prepared data into the 2007 Assessor’s Annual Report, an assignment for which he was paid $40,000 as an exempt-status employee.
According to a 2009 report by  senior district attorney’s office investigator Hollis D. “Bud”  Randles and district attorney’s office investigator Schyler Beaty, White did little or no actual work related to the function of the assessor’s office during his tenure there. Rather, according to Randles and Beaty, another Postmus political appointee, assistant assessor Adam Aleman, reported that much of White’s time in the assessor’s office was spent making postings to the Republican Party website www.redcounty.com.  Aleman had been hired by Postmus at the age of 22 into the $130,000 per year post of assistant assessor. Aleman was active in Postmus’ political campaigns and served for a short time as a contributing editor to www.redcounty.com.   Postmus was formerly the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. He was drummed out of office in some measure for having allowed his office to be used for partisan political purposes.
A grand jury would later conclude that Aleman, White, and two other Postmus political appointees, Greg Eyler and Michael Richman, were engaged in activities related to Postmus’s “public image” instead of the “core functions” of the assessor’s office. Postmus, Aleman and Eyler were prosecuted and all eventually pleaded guilty. White avoided prosecution by turning state’s evidence.
White had come to Postmus’ and Aleman’s attention as a paid employee of the Central Committee. More recently, White worked as a field representative for Rutherford and was writing for a website,  www.iecrookwatch.com, which was dedicated to the electronic publication of derogatory information pertaining to former San Bernardino County supervisor Neil Derry.
Rutherford also successfully sought to have the $61,337 total compensation contract her office has with Leanna Kobaly, who serves as her executive aide, extended through July 25, 2014.