Nobody told us about the depth charges.

Previously we noted the Fullerton Observer’s legal maneuvering in an attempt to add itself to the city payroll. Last week we found out that Sharon Kennedy’s court filing had been met with objections by both the Orange County Register and the City of Fullerton.

The City’s objection is based on the same points we brought up a few weeks ago – namely, the Observer is not printed within the city, it is not printed weekly and it doesn’t have a bona fide list of paying subscribers as required by law. That’s three strikes for the Observer.

City of Fullerton’s Objection

The city calls into question Sharon Kennedy’s own filing, where we learn that the Observer boasts a whopping 598 paid subscribers and a monthly online distribution that rivals FFFF’s daily hits.

Next we have an objection filed by OC Register attorneys, which finds fault with the notice that Kennedy filed for her own hearing. The Register sums up the problem by saying “It is ironic that the Petitioner [Fullerton Observer] is seeking to publish important legal notices, yet cannot even publish its own Notice correctly.”

OC Register’s Objection

Kennedy pushed out her hearing to the end of July. I suspect she will drop it all together rather than suffer further embarrassment.

Bottom line: Kennedy’s dying cause here is to get the Fullerton Observer onto the city payroll. We’ve already demonstrated the paper’s inability to criticize city staff, engage in any kind of investigative journalism within city hall or participate objective reporting all while claiming that it is a legitimate newspaper. It’s hard to imagine any of these conditions improving should Kennedy’s paper wind up on the taxpayer’s dole.

‘The author called the shop’s merchandise “trash.” ‘The blog said that seeing the underwear-clad mannequins and other sexually-oriented merchandise would harm children and said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.’

To be fair, I did use the word “trash”, but trashy isn’t the worst thing to associate with lingerie.  I never wrote that the sight of the busty mannequins etc. would “harm children.”  I did write that they would get “quite an education” from looking into the shop’s windows.  Remember, we are The Education City!

So maybe Adam Townsend got the wrong idea about my attitude toward a sex-themed business.  No big deal, but where he really blew it in his article was when he wrote that I ‘said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.”‘

No, Mr. Townsend, what I asked was “Is there any better evidence of redevelopment engendering blight?”  This is no small distinction.  Shops like The Naughty Teddy are sometimes cited as examples of blight when cities are trying to establish redevelopment zones.  Downtown Fullerton has been a redevelopment zone since 1973.  My point, Mr. Townsend, was that despite nearly forty years and millions of dollars spent to push out pawn shops, lure in restaurants, add trees, build signs, commission murals, rehab storefronts, brick street medians, redesign traffic signals, build mixed use developments, and whatever else The Redevelopment Agency unilaterally decides is good for the area, in the end a 5,000 square foot shop that sells lubricants, videos and sex toys to the 21-and-over only crowd is open for business near a major intersection downtown.

Well, just for the record, I don’t really care what consenting adults do for sex and I don’t care what a business sells, as long as both are safe.  But if a city spends millions of taxpayer dollars trying to turn a downtown into restaurant Disneyland or whatever it is they are trying to do with it, I would really like to know how The Naughty Teddy fits into their vision for the whole place.

Did the business lie on their application to the city, as has been claimed, or are they the victims of a prudish municipal mindset?  I don’t know.  Several tattoo parlors have already opened downtown, and the city is right behind that curve.  Look for an agenda item concerning the classification of tattoo parlors on the next council meeting agenda.

Today the print edition of the OC Register contains two endorsements of Shawn Nelson. One is in their list of all ballot and candidate endorsements. The second is part of a piece called “Ten things that matter in this election.”

We agree with this statement from the Register: “The two most important issues, we believe, are public employee union pension reform and continuing a lawsuit that challenges a retroactive pension spike for sheriff’s deputies. If the lawsuit prevails, it will have implications in California and nationwide. Mr. Nelson is the only candidate to pledge to pursue both issues.”

Harry, what deal did you cut?

I promise to drop the lawsuit

Today the Register’s Frank Mickadeit penned an interesting column about Harry Sidhu’s desire to drop the county’s pending lawsuit that would eliminate a retroactive union pension spike. The same pension scheme that’s breaking our government.

The lawsuit, by the way, has already been filed and is pending review by the court. And yet Sidhu says “it’s a waste of money to go further”.

A waste of money? Imagine filing a lawsuit, doing discovery and depositions to the point where all that’s left is for a judge to decide if your case has merit to go to trial… and then you decide to drop the lawsuit?

It makes no sense, but that’s what Sidhu wants. And that’s what the unions want, too.

Brian Calle sized up the Supervisor race in Sunday’s print edition. After looking at all three candidates, Calle determined that Sidhu is weak on pensions while Nelson is committed to bold reforms. Calle concluded that the pension issue is inarguably the most important issue facing Orange County right now, “bar none.”

John Seiler wrote on the Orange Punch blog about the $900,000 that the unions have spent trying to defeat Shawn Nelson. Seiler draws some interesting comparisons to John Moorlach’s election in 2006, when the unions also spent big money in a failed attempt to defeat a candidate who was known for being fiscally responsible. At the time, Nick Berardino called Moorlach “the biggest threat in the county to employees’ personal financial security.” Sound familiar?

We’ve been hearing the same message over and over: this race is about the clash of The Unions vs. The Rest of Us. Will that resonate with voters in 2010? Something tells me the answer is an overwhelming “yes”.

I'll have one Grand Slam, please!

I had it on pretty good authority that OC Register reporter Jennifer Muir was spotted brekfasting with Harry Sidhu this morning at the Denny’s at State College and Katella.

What on earth could they have been talking about? Carpetbaggery? Perjury? Jobs, jobs, jobs? Clown make-up? C’mon Jen, spill it!

Well, whether she does or not I’ll probably have something for you. As soon as I heard the news I immediately dispatched the FFFF surveillance crew in the non-discript white van that has been spotted all over Anaheim, recently. The boys were still a little groggy from the denatured alcohol/grapefruit party last night, but I think they got there in time.

Harry promises jobs. Well, he's sure provided employment for the guys in the van.

We’ll be reporting back what we have learned.

In December of 2008, Nick Berardino and more than 1000 union workers stormed the County’s Hall of Administration to protest the remodeling of the Board of Supervisor’s lobby.   The OCEA leader and his supporters were protesting the $300,000 lobby remodeling project because it was the wrong thing to do because at the time, the County was laying off employees due to the budget crunch that hit the whole nation.

That day, Berardino used his bullhorn to make his point well known. He was also quoted by the lame duck O.C. Register as saying that “Labor knows that financial hardships are on the way and say they are willing to share in the pain. But before he has to look a person in the eye and tell them they are out of work in this economy he wants management (the County) to scratch every perk with the aim of saving jobs.”

Well, Nick  it is time for you to break out your bullhorn again as you look every association member in the eye and tell them why the OCEA felt it necessary to contribute more than $4000 of their union dues to a free spending, incompetent career politician like Tom Daly. This guy’s spending has cost the County jobs!

According to records at the Registrar of Voters, the OCEA has contributed more than $4000 to Tom Daly’s campaigns since 2002. The most recent contribution was in late 2007 for $1600 – prior to Daly’s  purchase of  a $2.1 million money-sucking building.  Why contribute to a politician who has no legislative duties or the ability to save any county jobs. The Clerk-Recorder is just that – a clerk and a recorder. It is an elected position with little political influence. Daly doesn’t know that or it hasn’t registered yet after 8 years of doing nothing but free-spending and taking care of his buddies like Bruce Matthias and Brett “The Brainstormer” Barbre.

Well, Nick where was that bullhorn when County Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly blew $2,100,000 of public money on a real estate venture that could cost another $7,600,000 to fix the problem? This happened in January 2008, months before the $300,000 remodeling project you vigorously protested.

Where was your bullhorn when Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly decided to give out a $48,000 to a political contributor to “brainstorm” an unnecessary sports hall of fame?

Where was that bullhorn when a $1700 a month retainer to a Sacramento government consulting business with no deliverables was discovered?

Why aren’t you using that bullhorn now? How many jobs does this money represent? Wake up OCEA members! It’s time for you to make Your Voices heard to tell Nick to go after every person who is wasting your association dues and tax-payer money that can be used to save your jobs.

Say, Nick. Where is that bullhorn, anyway?

UPDATED TITLE INFORMATION REGARDING THE  TRANSACTIONS AT 433 W. Civic Center Drive deed 2008

Um, too much information?

Everybody knows that traditional print journalism is on the way out. Why? Lazy citizens? Sensory overload? More convenient access? All of the above?

Dying papers like the Orange County Register are fighting a rear-guard action by turning their print edition into a dumbed-down website-looking format with lots of pictures and human interest stories for us idiots. And of course they have gone on-line with stuff like their political gossip column “Total Buzz.” Which might be better termed “Total Schmooze.”

Rather than actually dedicate itself to reporting real, relevant news, the Register has decided to dedicate its employees’ talents toward the inane, and to the political flackery of Martin Wisckol and Frank Mickadeit. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the worthies than run the Register that Orange County is a market that is starved for local news and, coincidentally, that it is run by a group of political overseers who operate the place like their own private plantation. Seems like an opportunity to do real reporting, right?

But yesterday the Register hit a new low, even for them.

I just can't help myself.

Consider this, um, monument to  cutting edge journalism as Jennifer Muir shares the embarrassing shoe fetish of Brett Barbre with her breathlessly waiting readers.

Brett Barbre’s Shoe Fetish

Huh? FFFF has recently disclosed a series of embarrassing expenditures by the County Clerk, Tom Daly, including a $48,000 contract to the very same Brett Barbre to “study” an athletic hall of fame, and who then turned around and kicked back $1000 into Daly’s political campaign.

And what about the $1700 as month retainer that has been paid out by Daly for over five years to a Sacramento “consultant” to do – nothing. And how about the County spending $2,100,000 two years ago at Daly’s behest on a tear-down building that was supposed to house County’s archives? Of any interest to the intrepid journalists at the Register? Naw.

It's not just a girl thing...

Instead we get pictures of what shoes the political hacks are wearing at the Registrar of Voters Office. They think we want to look at pictures of people’s feet. Meanwhile a lowly blog is forced to actually do a newspaper’s job.

Well, we can take a certain perverse pleasure in knowing that the Register’s days are numbered and that soon its employees will be doing (paid) PR work, or will be blogging for food.

Still, it does seem shame that nobody in the business is willing to try to fill the void where local news used to be.

But he doesn't even live in our district, does he?

I came across this sort of  goofy Harry Sidhu political ad in the News Tribune the other day, repeating the mantra of his paid blog monkeys that Sidhu has “represented” 40% of the 4th County Supervisorial District by being on the Anaheim City Council.

Harry and his “team” must be really concerned that the carpetbagger label is sticking. It is, and it will, because that’s what he is. But that’s only part of the problem. The other issue is whether Sidhu even lives in the District at all.

Please also note that the ad uses the simple title of “Mayor Pro Tem.” Why no mention of Anaheim? Harry can’t be dumb enough to think people in our city are ignorant enough to believe he’s Mayor Pro Tem of Fullerton, can he? Or is it just more sloppy work by his “team.” We already know that he holds Fullerton residents in such low regard that he dodged the Supervisor candidate forum held by NUFF a couple weeks ago. Sad.

The text of the Sidhu ad is even more pathetic. Experience? Harry doesn’t identify a single thing he’s done to make Anaheim government more “streamlined” or “efficient.” He says he fought to eliminate “excessive and wasteful government spending” but doesn’t give a single example of his fiscal conservatism. Wonder why?

Apparently Sidhu and his handlers also hope that voters are ignorant of the fact that the County government has almost no involvement in any sort of job creation schemes; and owning fast food franchises seems to be Harry’s only job creating calling card. More sadness.

Too bad for Harry that constantly running in political campaigns isn’t a job skill that voters hold in high regard.

When you really get to know me is when the fun starts...

Nothing to talk about and seemingly unaware of real County issues – that’s the campaign. And that’s a bad combination.

Fast forward to 22:20 and listen to Greenhut recount the story of how Shawn Nelson saved Fullerton taxpayers from a secretive retroactive pension spike orchestrated by council RINOs Jones and Bankhead in 2008.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/ID/217436