Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
UPDATE: APPARENTLY THE ACKERMAN MOB DOESN”T WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT THEY LIVE IN A “SECRET GATED COMMUNITY” IN IRVINE. THE YOU TUBE CLIP HAS BEEN REMOVED.
Check out where the Ackermans really live! And they seem to think we want the Mrs. representing us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTc_kJBmUkYA “secret gated community.” In Irvine!
And we thank OC GOP hack and former Mike Carona flack Jon Fleischman for all his hardwork producing this 2007 holiday greeting!
UPDATE: A WISE GUY COMMENTER MADE A SNIDE REMARK ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE IMAGE ABOVE. BUT RATHER THAN BE OVERLY SENSITIVE, WE HAVE UNCOVERED ANOTHER IMAGE THAT WE THOUGHTFULLY SHARE BELOW.
Well, it’s official. Linda Ackerman the wife of our former State Senator and Assemblyman, Dick, has decided to run in a special election to replace the Ackermans’ old pal, disgraced perv Mike Duvall, for the 72nd Assembly seat now vacated by the latter.
Mrs. Ackerman has a few things going for her, including a lot of contacts with big money and a husband who knows a lot of people; and she made it pretty clear to Martin Wisckol at the Register that she intends an amicable relationship with all those Redevelopment interests. She also has zero political record so that it would be pretty hard for an opponent to go negative on her record – she hasn’t got any. And as a woman – possibly the only woman on the Republican ballot – she could get a gender boost.
But she’s got some practical problems, too. First off, she doesn’t live in the 72nd District and although she doesn’t seem to think living in Irvine for the past decade is an encumbrance, we’re not too sure that many north countians won’t resent a carpetbagger. So she’s gotta move – presumably to Fullerton – and set up a temporary residence, at least through a primary. Second, her strength of no political record is also a liability: no experience either. Third, any ties with Duvall’s sordid 72nd career are bound to come out. Fourth, her opponent is none other than Chris Norby, a sitting County Supervisor who already has a lot of money in the bank and has pretty high name recognition in the district – in which he actually lives.
Behind all the ifs and buts is one solid truth. Mrs. Ackerman’s spouse detests Norby with a weird passion, and obviously sees his wife’s candidacy as an opportunity to do his enemy a bad turn. Ackerman went out of his way to endorse an unknown ribbon clerk for the County Clerk job when Norby had his eyes set on that dubious prize. And now Ackerman’s plan is perfectly transparent: suck up all of Norby’s money advantage in a special election primary for the 72nd, beat him, and then watch with satisfaction as a tapped out Norby is bested by a politcal novice for the Clerk job. Sayonara Norby, Sacramento here we come. Again.
Martin Wisckol over at the Register wrote about the possibility of Mrs. Linda Ackerman, wife of former State Senator, Assemblyman, Fullerton Councilman, and gerrymanderer par excellence , running in a special election to replace disgraced Mike “the Big Dripper” Duvall in Sacto. You can read about it right here .
Several thoughts spring immediately to mind. First, Wisckol reached Mrs. Ackerman while she and Dick were vacationing in France at the home of the Marquis de Sade. We’ll just let that one go except to add that that’s a pretty apt place to announce you’re might just replace Mike “Spanky” Duvall.
Second, Mrs. Ackerman doesn’t live in the district. She and Dick decamped a while back when his field of operations permitted him to move south. We don’t care for carpetbaggers even if they used to live here and we care even less for the spouses of politicos who trade on their mates political connections. Mrs. Ackerman’s political star has ascended in a not-so-curious trajectory, as her husband’s career wound down. She’s on the MWD board and that gives one cause to pause lately.
Third is the great irony of immediately placing yourself in the discussion about replacing a degenerate that was handpicked for office in the first place by your hubby and his “in crowd” GOP hacklings. Look how that one turned out!
Fourth, we read in Wisckol that Mrs. Ackerman claims she is conservative, but does not share Chris Norby’s anti-Redevelopment stance. In other words, she likes government intruding into local development and business, she likes affordable housing set-asides, she digs corporate subsidies, and she admires all the other big-government baggage that Redevelopment brings with it; hardly conservative at all, really. Well, hooray! Now we know what the Ackermans mean when they use the term conservative.
Finally, we note the possibility of a Norby-Ackerman rematch of the 1995 assembly election between Chris and Mrs. Ackerman’s husband, a spectacle in which Dick proved just how low he could go. Ackerman loathes Norby with a undisguised passion that has long since crossed over the threshold of obsession. Although the match would be highly entertaining, fulfilling a brain-dead family vendetta is a poor reason to do much of anything, let alone run for public office. Mrs. Ackerman should stay in Irvine.
Yesterday, Orange County’s original Fart Boy, Matthew Cunningham, the irrepressible toady and Energizer Bunny of boot licks, was hard at work for his de facto boss – the political impresario and lobbyist, John Lewis.
A few days before Lewis had sent out out a Chris Norby for County Clerk politcal contribution solicitation to County workers at their work e-mail addresses. That looked bad because it was (and is) bad, maybe illegal; and County employees are banned from using their computers for this sort of thing – both on the sending and receiving end. Well, yesterday Lewis sycophant Cunningham tried to downplay the episode on his own lame and tiresome “Red County” blog go here at the risk of extreme tedium.
The fact that Cunningham’s blog is alternatively referred to as “Red Klownty” and “Brown County” ought to be a giveaway as to the fringe crazies and paid hacks that blog there. Cunningham’s unfortunate nickname – Jerbal – is another telling clue about his personality.
Cunningham’s pathetic rhetoric once again revealed his only apparent talent: diverting attention from the real issue. But it’s only a talent if someone is dumb enough to fall for it. The issue was not, as Cunningham implied, how many government workers actually felt threatened or coerced by the e-mail, but the impropriety of sending it out in the first place, and the incompetence that let it happen.
Cunningham claims that Norby is not vindictive – part of his sleight-of-hand shtick, since nobody ever said he was. The issue is why the campaign is so screwed up it doesn’t know what it’s doing, and how Norby, who wants to be the County’s chief paper-pusher, let it happen.
John Lewis has created a cute little machine that generates him political consulting income as well as considerable wealth as a County lobbyist – after he gets his boys elected. How much Cunningham gets paid for his transparent efforts at damage control for Lewis is hard to say. He may just be doing it for a warm smile and a wink from his mentor.
What’s going on in Fullerton? Many city officials seem intent on “redeveloping” a city that has no blight — even as they have wasted $20,000 in bureaucratic expenses to make sure kids don’t ride their bikes in a vacant lot. As the economy worsens for everyone, the city just can’t get its priorities straight.
First, the redevelopment absurdity. The city claims West Fullerton’s commercial areas and East Fullerton industrial areas are “blighted” and wants to redevelop them. This could mean using “eminent domain” to forcibly take property from its rightful owners, then give it to other private owners for a supposedly “better” use. And it could mean using our hard-earned tax dollars to “help” the new owners redevelop the property.
At a recent City Council meeting, City Councilman Shawn Nelson ripped the redevelopment “argument” to shreds. “Clearly, the data has been manipulated, and it’s been manipulated for a purpose,” he said, referring to a report that supposedly proved the areas were “blighted.” He added, “This is not an objective report…. I don’t think that any… objective report would have reached the conclusion that there’s blight.” He pointed out that the supposed “blight” in Fullerton “doesn’t come anywhere near” the threshold set by the California Court of Appeal for imposing eminent domain. Click here for the YouTube of Shawn’s comments:
Second, the Fullerton Code Enforcement Department spent $20,000 and countless hours of staff and attorney time prosecuting local businessman Tony Bushala (admin) for allowing his sons and their friends to ride bicycles on three acres of vacant land he owns behind the Brea Dam. The bureaucrats grandiosely called the vacant lot “outdoor recreational facilities.” Will they next also call every home driveway in the city “outdoor recreational facilities” — and ban kids from using driveways to ride up to park their bikes in the home garage?
How silly. Isn’t it better to have kids riding their bikes on private property owned by one kid’s dad, than to have them hanging out somewhere else, possibly getting into mischief? And that $20,000 in wasted tax money could have meant half a year of work for someone in the private sector — instead of staying in an unemployment line in this severe recession.
After various bureaucratic wranglings, the Appeals Board found that “no nuisance exists.” But the bike incident produced an incredible 47 pages of documents. What a waste.
These are serious economic times. The go-go days are over. We need to save our money, both private and public. The city needs to stop attacking the private-property rights of citizens, whether by threatening to take their property through eminent domain, or by stopping kids from having innocent fun on family property.
Leave us alone!
Here’s how to vote on tomorrow’s state ballot initiatives: No. No. No. No. No. No.
6 No’s.
Vote against all of them. Terminate the Governator’s bogus reform. The whole thing is a fraud.
The only one that really matters is Prop. 1A, which would jack up our taxes another $16 billion by extending recent tax hikes another 2 years. As if Arnold didn’t tax us enough already! We have the highest state sales and income taxes in the known universe. Taxes need to be CUT, not raised.
We, the voters, elected Arnold 6 years ago specifically to get the budget in order — with no new taxes.
That’s what he promised in 2003, when he was first elected, and again in 2006, when he was re-elected: No new taxes.
He lied.
He’s a fraud and we shouldn’t let him get away with it.
So, tomorrow vote against all six propositions.
Next up: Recall Arnold.
Let’s kick that tax-obsessed bum out of office.