THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:

Too many blogs these days just feature commentary on someone else’s content and links to it. And with original content dwindling as news organizations continue the slow march down to oblivion, shouldn’t someone try their hand at their own journalism? That’s some of the thinking that went into the new ocprogressive.comblog created by Joe Shaw, Gus Ayer and Heather Pritchard, which was launched this week, Shaw said.

“We just wanted to separate ourselves from some of the blogs,” Shaw said. “We want to do more in-depth reporting on some of the issues facing us. For instance, most people don’t know what’s going on with the toll roads but Gus has been reading the meeting minutes” and can comment more intelligently on it than most.

They all have some background in politics and government, too, so that should help. Ayer was a Fountain Valley city councilman, Shaw is a Huntington Beach Public Works commissioner who worked on Debbie Cook’s congressional campaign, and Pritchard, Shaw brags, is a popular Daily Kos diarist. In fact, ocprogressive.com is meant to be a sort of local Daily Kos, and anyone’s welcome to jump in with an opinion.

MOORLACH CONCERNED ABOUT ROVING LENS

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach jokes he might decide to bring an umbrella to board meetings from now on to keep his notes safe from the zoom lenses of security cameras in the county Hall of Administration.

Supervisor Chris Norby said earlier this week he wants to ban the Orange County Sheriff’s Department from handling security at board meetings.

Norby’s call to dump the sheriff’s department comes after an investigator uses used a security camera at a board meeting to zoom in on his notes and Supervisor Janet Nguyen’s BlackBerry while she was texting during a meeting earlier this month.

The security camera in question is meant to scan the crowd at board meetings, but an investigator at the Jan. 13 meeting used it to zoom in on Norby and Nguyen for about minute and a half.

The intrusion was discovered after concealed weapon permit advocates asked for a copy of the tape.

Moorlach, who has reviewed part of the tape, said he is concerned about the privacy issues the situation raises.

“The first reaction was, ‘I want all the tapes,’ ” Moorlach said. “We’ve had some controversial topics at these meetings and I wonder what were they were looking at if they were looking over my shoulder at my hand-printed notes,” Moorlach said.

The board unanimously approved new rules Tuesday that give the supervisors more power over security measures at meetings.

The county also will examine outsourcing security at the meetings to a private contractor or the Santa Ana Police Department.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com. PAUL ANDERSON is the city editor for the Daily Pilot. He may be reached at (714) 966-4633 or at paul.anderson@latimes.com.