For those of you kind enough to read this space, I’ll be snorkeling with the turtles rather than fishing for stories for the next two weeks.

Check back on Oct. 8 when I return.

Mahalo!

GOP Congressional candidate Dean Andal, who hopes to unseat McNerney, heard a name from his past in the news this week.

Major Democratic campaign contributor and trial attorney William Lerach pleaded guilty to federal charges that he paid kickbacks to recruit plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits. (A lot of Democrats, including Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, are returning the money or donating it to charity.)

By way of background, Lerach successfully sued the state in 2002 over auto smog fees. An arbitration process awarded his firm $88.5 million in legal costs and the state, as the losing party, would have to pay.

Andal, then a member of the state Board of Equalization, was rightfully outraged. He sued Lerach and won when the state appellate court cut the bill to a mere $18.2 million.

Okay, Andal saved the taxpayers $70 million. Look for the message on a campaign mailer coming to your house soon.

But lest we get overly smug, wouldn’t everyone object — except the folks involved in that wacky arbitration deal — to paying a lawyer $8,800 per hour?

After considerable deliberation, Danville philanthropist, teacher and wealthy former investment banker Jim Losi has backed out of a run for Congress as an independent.

Losi is a registered Republican but as a fiscal conservative and social moderate, he didn’t like what the GOP or the Democratic Party had to offer. Earlier this year, he said he would research his prospects as an independent challenger in District 11, currently held by Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton.

He’s out for now but don’t paint Losi out of the future electoral picture.

“I have a theory as to what will happen in our country over the next four years and over that time frame, I will reconsider running,” Losi write in an email. “My thoughts and feelings have not changed concerning the state of our country. I know I couldn’t win this upcoming election and I didn’t want to invest hard earned money if I knew it was for naught. My grandmother taught me that patience is almost always rewarded. I am as patient as an oyster.”

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, will hold his next “Congress at Your Corner” event in Brentwood on Saturday from 1-2 p.m. at Raley’s, 2400 San Creek Road.

Constituents are invited to meet and McNerney, who will answer questions and discuss issues. He has held 22 of these events since he took office in January.

More than 200 people showed up for a free breakfast this morning in San Ramon and a chance to meet congressional GOP candidate Dean Andal of Stockton.

Andal is the only declared Republican in the race so far although the official filing period will not open until Feb. 11, 2008. Andal hopes to challenge Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, in the general.

The host list is a whose who of local Republican dignitaries including Charles Ball, who ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo; Walnut Creek businessman Ed Del Beccaro; Tri-Valley transportation guru Chris Kinzel; Republican activist Becky Kolberg; Shell Oil public affairs chief Steve Lesher and Danville Councilmembers Mike Shimansky and Karen Stepper; and longtime area rancher and landowner Sandee Wiedemann.

Assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, and Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Hayward, have been assigned to an Assembly task force charged with hashing out a health care reform bill.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the Legislature into a special session this month to tackle unresolved healthcare and water bills.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez named DeSaulnier and Hayashi to the Assembly Healthcare Reform Working Group, which started meeting this week.

The working group will attempt to draft a healthcare proposal acceptable to Republicans, Democrats and the governor who have split on how to pay for coverage and reduce insurance costs.

Beverly Lane, an 11-year veteran on the board of the East Bay Regional Parks District, says she is seriously looking at running for the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors in 2008.

As a Danville resident, Lane would run in District 3 against incumbent Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho. Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-San Ramon, has also said he will run for this seat next year.

“I am very concerned about the decision the supervisors made in July (to study an expansion of) the Urban Limit Line,” said Lane. “The voters had just established the line the previous November and I think the public deserves to have a supervisor who is up front with the people.”

Lane refers to a 4-1 board vote in favor a developer-funded general plan amendment study of a proposed 193-house development outside the county’s urban growth boundary in the Tassajara Valley called “New Farm.” In addition to the housing, the project also includes vineyards, orchards and other irrigated crops.

The study does not guarantee approval of the project but critics say the county should not analyze development proposals outside the boundary except during the five-year review period established as part of the line that voters adopted in November.

But Lane, who served more than a decade on the Danville Town Council prior to her election to the park board, says she is nowhere close to making a decision to run yet.

“I am very interested in the park district and its issues, so it would take a bit for me to consider moving,” said Lane, who will not be up for re-election in the district until 2010. “I’m still talking to people.”

Lane’s entry into the race would fulfill what some Republicans fear might happen: While Piepho and Houston split GOP vote in June, a Democrat like Lane slips into the November run-off.

Technically, the Board of Supervisors are nonpartisan officials, which means that unless one candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes in June 2008, the top two voter-getters will have a run-off in November.

But this is the only Contra Costa supervisoral district with a Republican registration majority — 7 percentage points — and the GOP doesn’t want to lose the seat to a Democrat.

Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor is known for talking about himself in the third person, a trait Americans found alternatively endearing and annoying in former presidential candidate Bob Dole.

Characteristically, Bob Taylor sends me an e-mail this week from Bob Taylor.

“FYI, sometimes it is good to hear positive things about politicians on the local level. Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor is doing a marriage ceremony in our park on Saturday, do not know when that has occurred in Brentwood. Brentwood mayor is going back to Maryland for a course in survival in case of an earthquake catastrophe for his town. Brentwood mayor won an electric car at League of Cities for a year for his town.”

Yep, Bob Taylor declared in advance Bob Taylor’s intent to win one year’s use of an electric car at a recent conference of the League of Cities and wasn’t surprised a bit when Bob Taylor’s name was drawn.

Look for Bob Taylor to be driving Bob Taylor around Brentwood in a spiffy, four-seater electric car but Bob Taylor won’t be breaking any speed limits: The car’s maximum speed is 35 miles per hour, which Bob Taylor says is fine with Bob Taylor.

“Bob Taylor will stay off the Highway 4 Bypass,” Bob Taylor said.

UPDATE: The electric car that Brentwood will receive the use of for one year is produced by Global Electric Motorcars, a division of Chrysler. Check out the web site at www.gemcar.com

Hercules Mayor Ed Balico is contemplating a run for the Board of Supervisors next year and a possible challenge to incumbent Supervisor Gayle Uilkema of Lafayette.

“I’m thinking of running, what with the mess the county is in with its retiree health care issues,” Balico says. “I don’t think any of the incumbents are strong enough to stop the bleeding.”

It’s time for District 2 to have a representative from outside Lamorinda, he says.

Yet, Balico, who has held office in Hercules since 2000, doesn’t sound as though he’s quite ready to run. says he’s excited about helping Hercules finish its new train and intermodal station. The town will break ground on its new downtown in a few months, too.

Balico, a mechanical engineer and owner of a real estate and mortgage company, doesn’t have much time to decide.

Uilkema is a well-funded incumbent who has carefully avoided controversy in her 10 years in office and has few public detractors.

Balico, on the other hand, is largely unknown outside of Hercules by the general public and hasn’t formed a committee or started raising any money.

“I know I’m late,” he says. “I’ll have to decide in the next month.”

The only other possible candidate in this district is Vernell Crittendon of Pinole, the retired spokesman for San Quentin prison.

Buried deep in the consent calendar, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors on Tuesday gave the county’s elected elections chief a $24,000 annual raise.

Contra Costa Registrar of Voters and Clerk Recorder Steve Weir will now earn $147,000 a year.

Weir is unquestionably one of the state’s most highly respected elections officials and he was among the lowest-paid among his Bay Area peers.

But the county’s other elected department heads including the assessor, auditor-controller, district attorney, sheriff and treasurer-tax collector haven’t had raises in a few years, either.

It’s creates an interesting set of tensions.

These officials are directly elected by the people of the county but must appeal to the Board of Supervisors for their own paychecks as well as the budgets of their departments. It’s one of the reasons that elected department heads tend to shy away from dipping their toes too deeply in the elections of the supervisors.

But last month, several of these folks diverged from their traditional support of incumbent supervisors. Sheriff Warren Rupf, Assessor Gus Kramer and Treasurer Bill Pollacek have endorsed Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-San Ramon, who has said he will challenge next year board President Mary Piepho of Discovery Bay.

Hmmm. At $187,000 a year, Rupf is already the highest paid of the six officials but Kramer and Pollacek now sit on the bottom after the supervisor’s hiked Weir’s salary. (They earn $143,746 and $142,608 respectively.) I’m guessing they’ll be waiting a few more years for that raise.