I am rich.

POST UPDATE.

OC Register (now OCEA) heart throb Jennifer Muir posted this piece today after having talked to Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu. Sidhu, who still does not live in our district claims “money is no object” in his fight to dethrone last night’s winner Shawn Nelson in a November run-off for the 4th District seat.

Aw, c’mon Harry. Are you really that dumb? You have nothing to pitch. The more money you spend to promote yourself, the more people will see what a clown, er assclown, you are.

You raised not one substantive issue during this last campaign. Not one. The pathetic “jobs, jobs, jobs” bullshit wasn’t swallowed by anybody. Go ahead. Spend a million. Spend two, or three. It won’t help. Like I said earlier today you can’t sell a car that has no wheels and no engine, no matter how slick you are. And Hairball, you ain’t even slick.

By the way Jen, did you bother to ask Hide and Seek Sidhu how the fortune already wasted on his slimy self accomplished so little? Or how this cipher thinks he’s going to beat a sitting supervisor who already kicked his ass by 12%?  Thought not.

Hey, man, where's the park?

The north part of Orange County has a notorious lack of parks and open space. And while the County of Orange spends millions on its park system annually, including vast tracts of parkland in south county, and even on the Harbor Patrol in the wealthy enclave of Newport Beach, us taxpayers up north get almost nothing. We have Craig Park and Clark Park which total about 130 acres; meanwhile the County controls around 60,000 acres of park and open space counting the new Irvine Company “gift.” Now that’s just wrong.

Former 4th District Supervisor Chris Norby kept talking about this unfairness, but he never actually accomplished anything to fix the inequity. Norby’s successor Shawn Nelson also made this topic a campaign issue. Will he be able to succeed where his predecessor tapped out? Let’s hope so. The opportunity for additional parkland, and even bike trails in utility rights-of-way are there. It may not be easy, but some of us voters expect elected folks to do the hard stuff.

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Us rock-ribbed Republicans believe in lots of transparency and accountability.

It’s true. Ask anybody. Everybody says they want accountability and transparency in government, especially political candidates; but those in authority have a lot of incentive to keep their doings free from risk – the risk of being exposed as responsible for some screw-up or other; and the risk of fighting the inertia produced by institutional dead weight in a gravity-free environment. And of course the ability to pass along lucrative contracts to their pals.

And all this bring me to the point of this essay: it’s time for the Orange County Board of Supervisors to take charge of semi-autonomous agencies that have been operating under the public radar. Two of these “hidden governments” spring most immediately to mind: the Children and Families Commission – that seems to have been operating as a cash cow for the local repuglican machine, and the OC Cemetary District, ditto.

The Children and Families Commission is a poster child for liberal, under-scrutinized government. You may agree with its goals and method of revenue collection. But even if whole-village child rearing and confiscatory income redistribution are your cup of tea, you have to admit that paying a connected political operative like Matthew J. Cunningham $200 an hour to update Facebook and read blogs and hand out toothbrushes must diminish from the resources available to actually help kids. And what’s with all the lobbying?  Hundreds of thousands worth in any given year at the State level, with Anaheim’s mayor-for-hire Curt Pringle being the chief beneficiary.

And then there’s the Cemetery District that paid Pringle to find a new graveyard and paid him another $25,000 as bonus for finding a site in Brea. I’m not even sure if Brea is going to go along with this, but let’s hope Pringle’s fee included guaranteed entitlements from the city. But I digress. The real issue here is why the District hired Pringle at all to do the work of a real estate professional whose compensation would have been a partial commission from the seller, not the taxpayers.

Well, we’ve got some new blood on the 5th Floor of the Hall of Administration, and hopefully these guys will start to attend to these and other agencies that need to be examined, made accountable, taken over, and if appropriate, disbanded. Sure, the ‘pugs will squeal and squawk.

And that’s when you know you’re doing the right thing.

Me 'n Norberto 'n Matt are on the same page.

Well, they’re at it again. The Voice of OC which is funded by (drum roll) the OCEA and the OCEA PAC Treasurer Chris Prevatt have coughed up yet another load of happy horse shit about Shawn Nelson.

Here is Tracy Wood of the Voice of OCEA; and here is Prevatt, picking up the ball and running even farther out of bounds. Of course Matthew Cunningham passes along the story as a “top story”, too, just as if the Voice of OCEA were a real news source.

They are deliberately mischaracterizing Nelson’s statements about a possible new Coyote Hills meeting, trying to make it look like Nelson was trying to lobby for a new meeting so he could change his vote.

At the Council meeting last Tuesday at a “second reading” of the Council denial (BTW, that’s a new one on us!) discussion arose about additional information that the Council had not heard. Whether there was any real merit to that claim remains to be seen. Nelson was dubious, but basically volunteered to attend one last special meeting before swearing in as Supervisor if his colleagues felt inclined to do so.

Quirk and Keller declined, and on a vote of 3-2 the original denial was confirmed. Story over.

What’s funny is that Prevatt is spinning this as some sort of issue that Hairball Sidhu can use in the fall against Nelson. Did he let slip the official union position on the fall election? Hmm.

This was at the very tail end of the urban renewal era of social engineering that gutted old neighborhoods and districts across the land only to see the creation of bureaucrat-planned ghost towns and vast housing projects that nobody wanted to live in.

Although the downtown area was pretty much left to its own devices in the 70s, the 80s saw a new and noxious interest in re-inventing the area according to the whims of the Redevelopment manager and whatever cookie-cutter standardization idiocy was emanating from central planning workshops. Anybody remember the embarrassing concrete trestles?

True, the old businesses were leaving, put out of business by a new Mall culture. But what was the cure? Specialty retail, standardized street furniture, stamped concrete paving, design guidelines, and a plethora of silliness whose only aim seemed to be to create a roofless mall (an obviously pointless goal) – and provide employment for the Redevelopment manager. Hideous trees were planted that destroyed the sidewalks and on-street parking was removed, spelling final doom for what was left of the downtown businesses, but it was all part of the Master Plan, see? And new Master Plans kept being spit out every five years or so.

And while the City professed an interest in historic preservation, and even took credit for it, historic buildings kept disappearing – either completely or under a wall of brick veneer.

Things weren’t working. A ban on churches and pawn shops and junk yards couldn’t alter the fact that the low rents were pulling in businesses that weren’t “specialty retail.” They were mom and pop second hand stores masquerading as “antique” this and “vintage” that.

Ah! Much had been accomplished, but more work needed to be done. Job security for life!

The FFFF pages are strewn with the ugly history of the late eighties and the nineties when an unaccountable city staff engaged in boondoggle after boondoggle with a complaisant council going along every step of the way, and always taking credit for “revitalizing” downtown Fullerton.

Much had been accomplished, but clearly more work needed to be done.

Huge apartment blocks were approved, giving away millions in profits to favored developers through entitlements and grants. City streets were handed out like Monopoly deeds. The hope was that a captive residential audience would have to patronize downtown business. Synergy was the watchword of the day!

Much had been accomplished, but clearly more work needed to be done.

A new phenomenon was beginning to emerge in the late 90s. The subsidized restaurant. And a  new booze culture was coalescing. Was it policy or accident? Who can say now. But what is inescapable is that for more than a decade the City’s actions and lack of actions had demonstrable effects. And the effects weren’t salutory. The restaurants morphed into bars and the bars morphed into bootleg night clubs and dance halls. The latter weren’t shut down; they were permitted. And then they were subsidized by the taxpayers with free fire water lines.

Every night the downtown area was filling up with drunken out of towners; fights, rapes, a murder. The City Manager wrung his hands. The downtown area was costing over a million dollars a year more to manage than it was bringing in in revenue.

Much had been accomplished, but clearly more work needed to be done.

In the 2000s the merry chase for revitalization continued apace with lustful Redevelopment eyes alighting on a vast Fox Theater project, cynically calculated to leverage popular interest in the Fox Theater. Aha! The anchor project that would make all the other pieces fall into place: success was at hand! Sure, we could move the McDonald’s a couple hundred feet. Six million? No problem! Environmental impacts? No big deal.

Then there is the Amerige Court monster. Aha! The anchor project that would make all the other pieces fall into place: success was at hand! Environmental impacts? No big deal.

And now Redevelopment in downtown Fullerton is 36 years old. Let’s put this in perspective: Fullerton was founded in 1886. And that means for 30% of its life span downtown Fullerton has had Redevelopment. And in 2010 the very sort of business that redevelopment bureaucrats find abhorrent starts up in the very heart of Redevelopment territory. See the irony yet? I do. It’s not about sex, it’s about failure. Oh, well.

Much has been accomplished, but clearly more work needs to be done.

Thanks for the phony address.

A way back, when her carpetbagging candidacy actually seemed plausible in some circles, Anaheim Hills’ Precious Princess unleashed a video campaign that portended  all sorts of unintended hilarity.

It was called “Lorri in 4th Gear” and was supposed to feature the Precious One in meaningful dialog with her would-be constituents. The first video was so comical and so amateurish that there were no more.

Now, Galloway’s efforts have given new meaning to the phrase “Lorri in 4th Gear” as she has now slipped under the vote count tallied by Buena Park’s Art Brown – who barely campaigned at all and is now in third place. Here are the latest numbers posted by the ROV:

As you can see, things aren’t looking too good for Lorri’s Legacy. Of course her dollar to vote count isn’t nearly as embarrassing as Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu and his union pals, so there’s always that perspective to fall back on.

Okay, to be accurate we’re not sure that this wasn’t the only stuff that was ever in Hide and Seek’s humming Fullerton HQ – the one from which hundreds of  mythical “volunteers” were to fan out, spreading the Sidhu gospel of “job, job, jobs.”

Either way, the forlorn space is a perfect metaphor for the completely hollow Sidhu campaign. And apparently Fightin’ Harry wants even more self-inflicted abuse.

Well, bring it on, boys.

Q-S says no to an appointment.

I recently spoke with Councilwoman Sharon Quirk and she is adamant about letting the voters to decide who replaces Shawn Nelson – not the Council.

I couldn’t agree more. I’m against any backroom deal that would simply appoint a compliant candidate who met the jaw-droppingly low standards that have been set for “anointed” candidates in Fullerton’s past.

There is also the possibility that the discussion of appointing a replacement is tied into the need to get three votes on some issue or other before November. Of course we could speculate on that all day.

A hard rain's gonna fall...

Just when we thought Doc Hee Haw was on the verge of institutionalization, we get word that the good ‘ol boy is working his fellow councilmembers to appoint a replacement for Shawn Nelson. He’ll need two other votes so either Sharon Quirk or Pam keller would have to go along with the inevtable Ed Royce/Dick Ackerman hand-picked idiot.

Not too likely. Still…

Still, my suggestion is get in touch with both these two worthy ladies and insist that no backroom deals be cut, and that the replacement be made by the voters in the November General Election.

This was what was done in 2002 when Norby left. Let’s do ‘er again.

This is not the old West. This is the new West.

And now for the fun part. Who do you suppose Jonsey might be pitching to replace Nelson? Please share your guesses in the space provided below.

Just check out this image borrowed from The Voice of OCEA site:

The Tool Bank is now open...

Yep, there’s the useless pension spiker Bill Campbell on the left standing next to another useless pension spiker who actually did it twice, the pathetic Tom Wilson, former Supervisor of the 5th District.

Good God! What a collection of RINOs and repuglicans of the worst kind: the ones who champion Redevelopment, and who use other tools like Matthew J. Cunningham to pitch the delusion that discretionary land use entitlements are some sort of “property right.” Hey there’s Lucy Dunn who backed the Hairball, too.

Of course Campbell supported Sidhu as part of his and John Lewis’s master plan to get rid of both Nelson and Hairball.

Everything is for sale!

Apparently Curt Pringle, Anaheim’s sleazy Mayor for Sale was hand to prop up his tottering boy Sidhu; but talk about too little, too late! Pringle sure took it on the chops yesterday, and making fun of the party chairman Scott baugh ain’t gonna win him any Brownie points for that High Speed Rail merit badge he’s been working on for so many years.

Of course for Santana,  a last minute, pro-Sidhu piece tinged with a little gratuitous anti-Nelson shit is par for the course. Poor little Norberto! He wants people to think he’s a real journalist instead of what he really is: a toady to a union boss with no reportorial integrity or scruples.