A day after approving budget cuts that could trigger massive California job losses, two Orange County supervisors received bomb threats, county staffers said.
Outgoing Board Chairman Thomas Riley and Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez received the telephone bomb threats earlier Friday.A county employee said the telephoned threats, apparently made by the same woman in separate calls, were received about noon.
The county sheriff was alerted to the threats but no bombs were found, county staffers said.
The telephone bomb threats come the day after the beleaguered five-member Board of Supervisors approved a motion to cut $40 million out of the bankrupt county's budget. County departments were given until Jan. 10 to implement the cuts.
Supervisor Roger Stanton and incoming Supervisor Marian Bergeson have already told employees their jobs were eliminated as part of the cost-cutting directive.
Stanton's office has been asked to save $56,000 over the next six months, the equivalent of 10.3 percent of his budget. Two of his employees were told Thursday their jobs were gone.
Bergeson, who is leaving the state Senate to join the board, must cut her budget by $121,000, or 19.8 percent.
She told a member of her staff and an employee of outgoing Supervisor Thomas Riley that their positions were also being eliminated, a staffer said.
Thursday's layoffs were not the first to follow Orange County's Dec. 6 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
A local school district earlier this month announced the dismissal of about 50 employees. With funds frozen in the county investment portfolio, the district said the job cuts were necessary.
Friday's bomb threats were the first received by board members since the county's financial crisis began. The supervisors have received angry phone calls and have faced irate Orange County residents at recent board meetings.