Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Intelligent, Responsible, and Accountable. These are the general qualities we seek in our elected representatives – plus the independence and integrity required to be effective leaders.We intend to support candidates in Fullerton who possess the willingness and ability to use their independent intelligence in weighing public matters; who will be responsible to his or her constituents; and who will insist on accountability for all the actions that he or she takes. We will actively oppose incumbents who have failed to demonstrate the qualities described above; who fail to remember that they are servants of the public; who believe that being a “team player” is more important than principle; who don’t have the courage to stand on principle when it means standing alone; who are not humble enough to admit error and are incapable of learning from their mistakes; and those who fail to treat constituents with the respect and dignity they deserve. And we will oppose candidates who through their words or actions indicate that they would not provide intelligent and responsible leadership, accountable to citizens of Fullerton. If you agree with our philosophy, you are a friend of Fullerton’s future.
Dear Friends: The issue of Pension Abuse continues to dominate the National, State and local scene. If you haven’t already heard Jack Dean with Pension Tsunami speak on this important topic, hopefully today is a great relaxing day to do just that. Happy August 1st, 2010!
Join Martha Montelonga live and her guest Fullerton Tax Fighter Jack Dean of Pension Tsunami, tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 10:00A.M. to noon on Outlook with Martha, possibly the name for her new show, on CRN Digital Talk Radio on the story about the $800,000.00 annual salary for the City Manager of the City of Bell, CA. Could this be the story that breaks the public employee compensation and pension abuse of the public trust and budgets? Will it be the match that lights a fire under the taxpayers, to cause a productive and revolutionary revolt?
If Bell City Manager retires now, he stands to reap over $30 million dollars in retirement funds. He’s not the only one with outrageous pensions. He’s just the worst case by far, but we’ll look at the more common, and yet still, very unjust overcompensation awarded to various officials and ex-officials, all on the dime of the taxpayer, who is on the hook to pay, no matter what.
If you spend much time driving around Fullerton you become painfully aware of the sad state of the streets. The deteriorating infrastructure underneath is a disaster just waiting to happen. Some folks might characterize this as blight. I know I do. And yet when it comes to dealing with blight, the one and only mission of Redevelopment law, our agency would much rather spend millions on subsidies to commercial developers, land “write-downs,” low income housing, crummy remodels, fire sprinklers for dance clubs, transforming a useful alley into an elevated pedestrian paseo, purchasing a poisoned park, and relocating a McDonald’s for $6,000,000, etc. etc.
One of the key points of our settlement negotiations with the City over its Redevelopment project area expansion will be to require the Agency spend a significant portion of its funds on infrastructure replacement – the very “talking point” that the pro-expansion mouthpieces used at the public hearings in the first place.
Well, Friends, this is our 1000th blog post.
Those thousand posts have taken us from the ridiculous to the sublime; from the arid steppes of Kharakhastan to the steaming jungles of Tanzanisha; into the squalid precincts of the Poisoned Park; through a sad litany of humiliating Redevelopment failures.
Friends around the world have darkened our blogstep, including irrepressible Barney Wewak, the Papuan Highlands tribal headman and 1974 Troy High School exchange student.
We have exposed the unintentional corn pone comedy of our beloved Doc HeeHaw; we have chronicled the heavenly observations of Jan Flory’s deceased canine (me). We have skewered repuglican miscreants and Democrat boohoo spendthrifts. We have awarded coveted Fringie Awards© to the deserving among us.
We have shared the serial nonsense of the Yellowing Submariners at the decrepit and irrelevant Fullerton Observer. We noted the vacuousness of the local mainstream media.
We have blasted unscrupulous carpetbaggers – from the revolting Linda Ackerwoman to the comical Lorri Galloway and the even more comical #2 – Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu whose phony residence at the now infamous Calabria Apartments must rank as the stoopidest stunt ever pulled by an OC politician.
As the Fullerton Redevelopment bureaucrats like to say: much has been accomplished, yet much remains to be done. With the perpetual misbehavin’ and idiocies of our electeds to provide us constant inspiration, we seemingly will always have job security!
Not me.
The other day at the self-righteous Blue County Blog, Boy Reporter #1 Dan C-somethingorother, put up a post defending himself in the dust up between him and the OJ Blog’s Art Pedroza. The funniest comment came from our old pal, Boy Reporter #2, Matthew J. Cunningham, the biggest hypocrite in Orange County – you remember, the creep who by day is a mild-mannered Welfare State teat-sucker, but who at night transforms himself into some sort of uber-conservative super hero. Here’s some of what he had to add to the comments thread:
Well said, Dan. As you make clear, “the blog war” is just Pedroza code for the LOC lawsuit against him — and that’s what he wants ended, not the poisonous atmosphere in the OC blogosphere the he, Tony Bushala and others have created.
And Pedroza’s claim today that he doesn’t allow personal attacks on me — that’s just an out-and-out lie. But typical, when you consider the source.
Oh boy what a guy! Somehow it’s my fault that this slime ball who pretends to be some sort of social conservative is actually the biggest, most liberal, whole-village rearing apologist and pond scum skimmer in Orange County, and we’re letting folks know about it. And that’s a personal attack? Funny how I’m “poisonous,” and yet this free loader still hasn’t got the balls to explain to his readers at the Red County blog about his day job passing out toothbrushes at $200 an hour.
My run in with this clown began over a year ago when the supposed conservative paragon started doing his typical lame song and dance for liberal spendthrift and serial mis-manager, Democrat Tom Daly. Then came his back-handed promotions of the carpetbaggers Ackerwoman, and Hairball Sidhu; and the efforts to undermine the campaign of a real conservative – Shawn Nelson.
Well here’s a news flash: I’m going to do my best to clean out OC of its repuglican hypocrites, pharisees, and plantation overseers no matter how long it takes and no matter how much it costs. And that’s a promise.
Besides, I’m having way too much fun.
There will be 3 open seats (and maybe 4) for Fullerton’s city council this November.
For those that are interested or considering running for any one of those seats, our Friends would really like to know your opinion about the following issues:
1. What’s your opinion about Redevelopment in Fullerton and the recent council vote to expand Redevelopment?
2. What’s your opinion on the roll the city manager plays with the city council?
3. What is your opinion about public employee pensions?
4. What is your opinion about holding people accountable for their actions?
5. What is your opinion about Zone changes and General Plan Amendments; are they ever justified and if so, why and when?
6. What is your opinion on the High Speed Rail coming through Fullerton?
7. What is your opinion about the way things are going in Downtown Fullerton?
8. What is your opinion about the proposed Fox Block development?
9. What is you opinion on future development in West Coyote hills?
Okay, now that I have your undivided attention, I’d like to share the contents of an e-mail we just got. It’s about a store in downtown Fullerton called “The Naughty Teddy” that opened up in what used to be a pawn shop on Commonwealth.
The Fullerton Savage wrote a post about this back in April, and it seems that the Fullerton News Tribune’s intrepid Adam Townsend just got around to doing a piece about the issue that cites FFFF. Two months late. Not bad for the mainstream media.
Anyhow, here’s what the e-mail said:
Just read the article on the OC Register about the Downtown Fullerton store,The Naugthy Teddy and your opinion of it. That store is not trash, this Website is Trash. You need to get a grip. Its not their fault you are sexually repressed. I would not be suprised in a couple of years the people who run this site will be caught having a gay extra-marital affair or end up drunk at a ditch with a dildo up your ass, just like the countless of conservative politicians who preach to repress other people’s sexual freedoms. You make sick. Grow up.
Now if this individual had bothered to read the actual post he/she would be well aware that some of our posters and regs did not agree with the Savage; if they were familiar with our blog he/she would know that each of us is perfectly free to write about whatever we want and non of us speaks for any other FFFFsters.
As to whether any of us are sexually repressed, I can only speak for myself and say that my wife says no. I may indeed end up in a ditch, but I’m pretty sure my lower alimentary canal will be free of foreign objects.
Now that Shawn Nelson is moving up to the Supervisor’s office, his imminent departure creates an even more unpredictable Fullerton City Council campaign landscape.
Pam Keller has already announced that she’s out. With Nelson gone that means there will be two openings, plus the interminable candidacy of the antediluvian Don Bankhead.
It’s hard to believe that the four remaining councilmembers could decide on a replacement for Nelson, so the prospect of a rump council (okay that’s pretty funny if you think about it) and a November election to fill the remainder of Nelson’s term seems inevitable.
Then, of course, there’s the sad deterioration of Doc Jones, whose antics and idiocies continue to mount. Re-elected in 2008, there has been speculation that he would hold on for two years and then quit when a suitable Ackerman/Royce Chamber of Commerce zombie could be coughed up.
Could there be yet another seat up for grabs, come November?
It’s already getting late in the year so the interested and the ambitious must surely be contemplating their political futures today.
Good luck to them, with a caveat. The ones whose ambitions outweigh their brains will be scrutinized closely. By us.
We received this letter from an anonymous person who raises some serious questions that we should ask ourselves on this Memorial Day and every day as well:
Can we honor our heroes who’ve fallen in distant lands and still question the politicians who put them there? Should failed foreign policies be allowed to hide behind patriotism?
The Greatest Generation needed Pearl Harbor before fighting World War II. Would many of them have bought the rationale for invading Iraq?
How can those who don’t trust the federal government to run health care still trust it to run Iraq and Afghanistan? How can those so critical of Obama’s domestic power grab not criticize his sending 30,000 more troops to prop up Karzai?
How did the Neo-Cons (McCain, Cheney, Palin, Krauthammer, Wolfowitz, Perl, etc.) hijack conservatism for a vast expansion of deficit spending on ill-conceived foreign wars?
Can Ron and Rand Paul remind their Tea Party followers that open-ended foreign military commitments were never envisioned or sanctioned by our constitutional framers?
The British numbered their Afghanistan fiascoes: First, Second and Third Afghan Wars. They all ended the same. They never tried a Fourth. Can we learn from them?
When will any of the anti-deficit Republicans running to face Boxer question the $900 billion in deficit spending so far in Iraq and Afghanistan?
As John Quincy Adams said, “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. We are the supporters of freedom for all but the defenders only of our own”. Should these words still apply? Are their prudent limits on what, where and how we should use military strength?
If our purpose is to extend freedom, why has our Iraqi regime forced half the Christians to flee and our Afghan clients suppress religious freedom entirely?
In honoring all those who fought in our wars, can we also question the limits of military force in achieving political ends? Can we remember that no soldier or general ever got us into war, but civilian authorities–here and abroad? The biggest tribute we can give all who served is to use their lives wisely and only when a clear goal can be achieved.