THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:

The troubled state of one of the county’s investments prompted Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman John Moorlach to contact the British Consulate after he met Prince Andrew last week at a local luncheon.

Orange County has $80 million invested in the United Kingdom Channel Islands-based Whistlejacket Capital Ltd.

Whistlejacket is a structured investment vehicle that could default this week after the fund failed to repay maturing debt, according to Standard & Poor’s. The fund’s U.K. roots prompted Moorlach to call his new British friends this week and ask, “Hey, can you help us out,” he said.

Moorlach is unsure what the consulate could do, but he said it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“This could become an international concern,” Moorlach said.

The chairman met Prince Andrew when the two were seated together during a luncheon at the Orange County Hilton last week. The prince visited Costa Mesa to strengthen business ties between the U.K. and Orange County.

Structured investment vehicles are used to purchase assets through short-term borrowing. Whistlejacket would be the sixth SIV to fail to repay its debt in recent months, according to Bloomberg Business News.

Moorlach said Wednesday the fund’s underlying assets had deteriorated to such a level the county would probably try to salvage as much as it could of its principal investment.

“Getting anything less than 100% back is probably going to have an impact in the county,” he said.

SLOPPY JOES AND SLOPPY FACTS

Rep. John Campbell has been up in arms over the Berkeley City Council’s recent call for residents of its city to resist Marine recruitment in the city, but his eagerness to clobber the notoriously left-wing city appears to have overshadowed his fact-checkers.

Campbell and Sen. Jim DeMint (R – S.C.) both sponsor bills — the Semper Fi Act — that would withhold $2 million in earmarks for the city, in retaliation for the City Council’s recent vote calling a Marine recruitment center near UC Berkeley an “uninvited intruder” and calling on residents to resist recruitment efforts.

Both lawmakers have criticized the school’s lunch program, which they characterized as “gourmet organic” food subsidized by taxpayers.

“One earmark provides $243,000 in taxpayer dollars for the organization Chez Panisse to create gourmet organic school lunches in the Berkeley School District,” according to Campbell’s office. “Chez Panisse is dedicated to ‘environmental harmony’ and their menu features ‘Comté cheese soufflé with mâche salad,’ ‘Meyer lemon éclairs with huckleberry coulis;’ and ‘Chicory salad with creamy anchovy vinaigrette and olive toast.’ ”

DeMint derided the city’s condemnation of the Marine recruitment center as well, reportedly complaining that the district provided students with “gourmet organic lunches” while “Marines make do with military rations of sloppy joes and chili beans.”

But there are no such gourmet meals sold in Berkeley public schools, officials there say. In fact, the day before DeMint made the remarks, Berkeley students also “made do” with sloppy joes, according to a February lunch menu — along with pizza, pasta and the standard public school fare.

The anchovies and soufflés are part of the $100-a-meal Chez Panisse Restaurant — not the Chez Panisse Foundation opened by proprietor Alice Waters, a nonprofit aimed at improving youth nutrition.

Even more egregious, Chez Panisse has nothing to do with preparing meals for Berkeley students — the group runs a city program called “Edible Schoolyard,” in which young students harvest and prepare vegetables in an effort to teach them good nutrition as adults. Meal preparation is carried out by the district, officials said.

While efforts to reach DeMint were unsuccessful, Campbell acknowledged news release making the gourmet food claims was erroneous — though he blamed the earmark’s language and not staff.

“That was our understanding form the earmark,” he said. “Usually the earmarks are very descriptive, so we did the best we could based on what on was in the description.”

“If that’s what we did, and we’re off, then we’re off — but that’s not our fault,” he continued. “Part of the problem with the earmark issue, again, is that if we send it off without people really knowing what it’s used for, then that’s a problem.”

Campbell emphasized that the real issue remained the City Council’s rebuff of the Marine Recruitment center, not the earmarks themselves.