AN EDITOR WE BOTH knew used to say that my friend Bill Orozco had a strange obsession with death.
It seemed that the longtime California political consultant always was the first to call and let you know when someone in politics or Latino activism had died, and he would do it in the most unusual way.
“The City Council just recessed in memory of….” he would say, dropping the name of the recently deceased who had just been recognized by political leaders by having a meeting or hearing adjourn in his or her honor.
Often the elected officials paying tribute to the person who had died would have learned of the passing from Bill himself, as he hovered around the council chambers or meeting room having just received news of the death from one of his many sources.
It wasn’t unusual for Bill to follow up with phone calls notifying you of rosaries, masses or funeral arrangements, letting you know the names of the widow and children and offering a photo of the deceased from his own vast collection of pictures.
For Bill was a photographer as well – “an amateur,” he humbly called himself, though his pictures were often as good as those of a pro and sometimes better because he would go places few professional photographers dared go.
He once got a shot of then Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre dressed to the nines in a studded charro suit and a Mexican sombrero at some out of the way Latino rodeo, when the dapper politician normally wouldn’t be caught dead seen in anything but $2,000 designer suits.
Another time Bill captured an image of about 50 gangbanger veteranos who had shown up like groupies at some event to catch a glimpse of actor and former convict Danny Trejo after the making of the film “Once Upon a Time in Mexico.”
Bill arrived with Danny Trejo, who was a longtime friend.
But Bill’s real passion was politics.
After a stint as an aide to former California State Senator David Roberti in the 1980s, Bill began consulting and strategizing for political candidates, mostly in Southern California, and sometimes outsiders challenging established power brokers.
“I’m a democrat with a little d,” Bill liked to say.
Though he had a lot of friends who were movers and shakers and political bosses, Bill in many ways was a rebel and loved the idea of opening the political process to newcomers and the young.
Nothing made Bill angrier than seeing entrenched politicians who took advantage of the system, especially when he suspected there were bribes involved or fixed contract bidding.
When the Los Angeles Times published a series of articles detailing graft and corruption involving Latino politicians in some of the county’s suburban cities, several people suspected Bill of being the whistle-blower, especially given that the wording in some of the stories bore a remarkable resemblance to what he had been telling anyone who would listen for years.
It may have also helped coming to that conclusion that Bill always called you the night before a Times story on the crooked politicians appeared to tip you off to check the newspaper the next morning.
“I don’t care if anyone knows,” he would say about this role as a whistle-blower. “I’m not the one taking bribes and rigging contracts.”
That was typical Bill Orozco.
“He was one of a kind – a lovable character,” said his longtime friend and East L.A. attorney Alex Jacinto. “He left us too early, and he’ll be missed.”
Bill apparently died in his sleep Thursday morning of no known cause. He was 63. An autopsy is being performed to determine the exact cause of death.
Fittingly, I understand that at least one meeting of elected officials recessed in Bill’s memory Friday.
I’m not completely certain because Bill wasn’t around to call and let me know personally.