Joe, Lou, and Mike; Does Anybody Know What’s Going On?

Here’s a couple of interesting e-mails from the final day of July, 2011, between Acting City Manager Joe Felz and soon to be MIA Police Chief Sellers.

The options were running out...

On the surface it seems that Acting City Manager Joe Felz is unhappy with Lou Ponsi for writing “Very Old” news. But maybe he is really upset that the public gets to hear (again) that the cops who killed Kelly Thomas had been out on the streets for over three weeks like nothing had happened; or that maybe Sharon Quirk looks like she is actually in charge. Sellers seems to be concerned with the latter, and he can already see the writing on the wall.

“Hopefully the remaining three council members don’t feel left out” is code for: “Make sure the Three Dead Tree Sumps get lined up, fast!”

“Lou is Not a bad guy from what I understand,” means that Sylvia Palmer and Andrew Goodrich have previously informed Felz that Ponsi is a reliable regurgitator of their crap.

By the way, is anybody else appalled by the weird punctuation and capitalization deployed by these $200,000+ per year bureaucrats?

 

75 Replies to “Joe, Lou, and Mike; Does Anybody Know What’s Going On?”

  1. At this point, the left has no idea what the right is doing. No official in this city has a clue on how to properly managed damage control.. PATHETIC!!

    1. Like most cities, when their PD’s are caught doing illegal activities, Fullerton bureaucrats were trying to stonewall the little folk(citizens). This is what is called “damage conctrol.”

  2. There is a little more to Felz’ e-mail, too. He is talking about the story that had got out that a settlement offer had been made. He had denied knowledge of a “settlement” offer, quibbling with the meaning of words; about this time Quirk was quoted as also knowing nothing about a “settlement,” and this is the story Felz wants the useful idiot Ponsi to put out there ASAP – the apparent denial that a settlement offer was made (another falsehood from the City). As GC notes, he is also peeved that the public will be reminded that killer cops were left on the streets for the better part of a month.

  3. We should probably change the name of the city to The Acting City of Fullerton until we can get some real leadership established.

    1. Not a bad idea. I’d love to see the official seal and letterhead.

      Instead of “the Education Community” a good logo could be: “Just Holding On Until We Get Real Leadership.”

        1. Darn it! Coffee all over the keyboard agin…

          FFFF has got to be the funniest damn blog in the history of blogs.

          And Fullerton should be the Acting City of Fullerton where everyone pretends to do their job.

  4. These emails were sent at 10:30 pm. Our tireless city employees never stop working. It is a thankless job, especially when our city is under attack.

    1. Unfortunately this is an example of working late hours because Joe hasn’t a clue on how to manage a city.. I sure hope he hasn’t had a good nights rest since July 5’th, 2011..

    2. I would say that a couple of hundred grand a year and a similarly extravagant lifetime retirement and benefits is pretty darn good thanks for writing a poorly punctuated email over a beer at 10:30PM.

    3. Yeah, I noticed that, too. Definitely the sign of poor management. At this point, all hell is breaking loose; but notice that the emphasis is on PR instead cleaning up the FPD.

  5. I love it: Ponsi had to get his name on some news.

    I don’t know why Felz thinks that. Ponsi never did before. Maybe that’s what’s buggin’ Joe.

  6. Look at the Chief cry because his employees might think that Quirk-Silva is running the show and not him. What a big, limp baby.

  7. Read the OCR article referenced in the above email. I find it unusual that Orange County supervisor Shawn Nelson shunned our local civil rights commission, Rusty Kennedy’s Orange County Human Relations Commission, a commission whose mission is to better relations between the community and their police for the unbiased Department of Justice civil rights division to investigate the murder of Kelly Thomas by Fullerton police officers. maybe Supervisor Nelson felt uncomfortable having Rusty Kennedy ,a colleague of ex-police chief of Fullerton and now current Fullerton city council person,Pat McKinley, investigate this blatant hate crime amd civil rights abuse incident
    McKinley objectively

  8. If you read Lou Ponsi’s original story here, you can see that there was a lot of confusion at the time over whether or not the officers were on duty, on leave or on desk duty. Reporters were confused because the city and its PIO’s were not forthcoming at all.

    At the time, many Fullerton residents were extremely scared at the thought of being pulled over by one of these officers.

    Of course this email shows how Felz and Sellers are completely callous to the public’s need for information, and instead focused on their own diminishing image.

  9. Travis Kiger :
    At the time, many Fullerton residents were extremely scared at the thought of being pulled over by one of these officers.

    Many are scared today! My wife still says she will call 911 and drive to a neighboring city if she gets pulled over. I can’t blame her for fearing the FPD.

  10. July 31st email from Felz states-
    “5 day old Quirk-Silva email to have officers removed from duty” “old news”- really?

    this original story from OC weekly on 7/29 with update 8/3 says different:
    http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/07/fullerton_cops_involved_in_dea.php

    Felz didnt say so when KFI/John Koblyt went off prior to july 31st about the cops being still on the streets, the story hit on july 27th and those Slaughtering wild west gang were still working and on the streets.

    Heres Lou Ponzi/OC register story of 7/29
    http://www.ocregister.com/news/police-310093-thomas-investigation.html

    so what is Felz talking about -saying its “Very old news”?
    Im not trying to stick up for OC register but I noticed he then tries to blame Ponzi and the OC register, in a passively aggressive way, of course.

    Dang, high paid Sellers writes like he used his foot or asked the neighbor 10 year old to do it for him. I didn’t realize the verb “reported” need to be capitalized, noted.

  11. As for Fullerton Police Chief Selers quoting Quirk Silva quote from OCR that the stories emanating from the Kelly Thomas beating are disorganized is due to the lies spun by Fullerton PD and Fullerton city council to refute the video showing FPD beating to a pulp Kelly Thomas’face and his life.
    These evil fools,Sellers,Felz,McKinley,jones Bankhead spin a web of lies they hope to use as a net to entrap the truth.
    Recalling from public office jones,McKinley and bankhead is the first cut but should not stop there. Felz,Sellers and all those who interfere with justice for Kelly must have the objective eye of the court decide their guilt

  12. It’s interesting to note that the subject heading from Joe Felz’s e-mail account says, “Register story-not important/read in the am” and was sent at 10:31pm on a Sunday.

    And then 12 minutes later, at 10:43pm on Sunday, Chief Sellers resonds saying that he just read the story, even though Joe Felz had said that the e-mail’s contents could wait until the following morning at work?
    This makes these two guys sound like a couple of Jr. High kids getting their stories straight as they’re walking into the Principal’s office.

    1. Good point Fullerton lover. I can blow past a lack of care towards capitalization and punctuation. The three emails we have seen so far have no bearing on the substance of the Kelly Thomas case. Those in charge were simply bantering about the political process with the councilmen and the press.

      The content is no better than some of the less substantive comments that we have read on this blog.

    2. I just posted and mentioned the allegation of Felz instructing Sellers to go out on medical leave. “Getting their stories straight”…you may be on to more than you thought, FL.

  13. …I meant to mention that I noticed that Joe Felz started the original letter out by saying, “Hi All”, which seems to indicate that this e-mail was sent to several recipients, and that the part that we’re reading is only Chief Mike Sellers response. This leads me to wonder who the other recipients of this e-mail were ?

    1. Good catch. I saw that as well. The time of night is telling, too. Is Felz just signaling his troops that Joe’s on the Job?

  14. Some who regularly post on FFFF used to think Felz walked on water; one even singing his praises at a council meeting about he was the hardest worker there and his car was always the only one still at city hall long after everyone left, etc. Most were never fooled by him. Bruce Whitaker nailed it when he spoke up about his proposed permanent position Jones went after Whitaker. I wasn’t able to make that meeting but I wish more would have gotten up to support what Bruce said. On a side note, is there any further info on the allegation that Felz told Sellers to go out on medical leave?

      1. Hey where’s the proof of all those “lies” you were talking about, followed by silence. You made it sound so obvious and easy to find these “lies’ that “everyone knows about” that even you could manage to find an example or two.

  15. I do note that Felz thinks that the press is supposed to cover the official releases and then forget the subject. They play by the old newspaper/TV rules. They are totally unprepared to play with the internet/radio/FBI triad.

  16. Sellers reply to Felz

    “I do not recall receiving any direction from her”
    is he referring to Silva? and inferring she has never given him a letter requesting the cops be placed off duty?

    Also Seller states that
    “hopefully the remaining three councilmembers don’t feel left out”

    I guess Whitaker already did something?
    shows complacency and indifference that the other “three” just sat there not saying or doing anything

    1. He is signaling that he wants the Three Hollow Logs to ride to his rescue.

      I believe even this is disingenuous because I believe that by now Sellers is communicating directly with McPension.

    2. Sellers says, “Perhaps it’s just a play to the news. Hopefully the remaining three council members [besides SQS] won’t feel left out.”

      That is an odd choice of words. Other than SQS, there are four remaining members on the council. Perhaps he meant the three council members who remained on board the hunker down vessel. He may have felt Quirk-Silva was now abandoning that ship. Either that, or she was still on board and only paying lip service to the news media. Frankly, her statements were bold but seemed a little hollow and laced with qualifiers. Her interviews around that time were less than inspiring as well. At least she said something.

      1. I would love to know who “All” is also. I can’t wait to see more as a result of the request.

        I don’t know sharing of info laws at all; why wouldn’t they have deleted those emails? And if the response is…”it is illegal to delete” my response is ….that has never stopped them before? Please educate me.

  17. Felz’s job application for City Manager must’ve been a dot to dot puzzle.

    Or maybe I am giving him too much credit.

  18. Maybe Sellers should proofread future city managerial memos from his sandy San Clemente beachside enclave…at least we’d have something to show for his $200,000+ annual salary.

    Or would that be too stressful??

  19. karma :
    I would love to know who “All” is also. I can’t wait to see more as a result of the request.
    I don’t know sharing of info laws at all; why wouldn’t they have deleted those emails? And if the response is…”it is illegal to delete” my response is ….that has never stopped them before? Please educate me.

    …Chris Thompson noted earlier that these e-mails were puplic property, and thus were subject to public recrds requests available to anyone that asks for it.
    Most forensics computer experts would be able to recover any e-mail files that the user had thought had been deleted.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_forensics

  20. The best part about all of this is Joe freaking out about Sharon requesting the officers be suspended. If everyone had die their job from the start none of this would have even happened.

    Wasn’t the three blind mice that said the city was safe and the cops did nothing wrong directly after the beating? It’s time we get rid of all of the department heads in this crappy city!

  21. It may be possible that those times of posting on E-mail are GMT, so with Fullerton being on PDT the GMT would be 10:30 PM and Fullerton would 2:30 PM.

  22. Although I have covered som city council meetings, including Fullerton City Council meeting, most of my board experience has been as a contractor working for homeowners association boards.

    Concerning Seller’s comment that hopefully the other tree councilmembers did not feel left out: there is a fear that when a minority of board members stand up and start giving directions, that contractors (or staff) will follow those directions only to find that the majority of the board was not behind those directions.

    Alternatively, Sellers may have meant that with two of the five council members standing up and acting like councilmembers, he hoped that the other three would not feel that they would have to take charge too, and not move from the stance of Dick Jones, “Don’t start asking questions or you might get answers.”

    Ultimately, the three dinosaurs did not feel left out, acted like three dinosaurs, were dubbed the three dinosaurs, and not face recall.

    Perhaps Sellers got his wish, but did not anticipate the consequenses.

  23. If those PM posting times are actually local times there is an alert mechanism in the corporate world to alert security when personnel work outside of normal work hours on their own accord or accountability.
    This generally involves security breaches, embezzelment, data manipulation/falsication or some other skulduggery.

  24. I’m now curious about something. When did Sellers stop writing emails and when did city officials quit sending them to him? Or, is he still receiving them and sending them?

  25. Hey I saw that tweeker looking blonde chick in front of the post office last week. I thought you FFFF’s were gonna have all the signatures by Christmas???? What happened??

    1. You have no idea what we have or what we’re doing and it’s driving you guys crazy, isn’t it? It’s ok, admit it. And then keep walking in circles, backwards. You might get it. Or not. bwahahaha

  26. They’re collecting more signatures than they need to ensure they exceed the total needed to move forward with a recall election. Then the real fun begins. In the event the big three are recalled you can rest assured they will ask for a recount and will break out every trick in the book to string out the process into the next election cycle.

  27. SherBear :You have no idea what we have or what we’re doing and it’s driving you guys crazy, isn’t it? It’s ok, admit it. And then keep walking in circles, backwards. You might get it. Or not. bwahahaha

    I really dont care about the recall. I dont like the three guys either, but I hate Tony Bushala even more. So there is my answer.

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