Union Goons
Fullerton Liability Insurance Cash Drawer Empty
Posted by Joe Sipowicz in Chronic Failure, Fullerton City Council, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Crime Beat, The Culture of Corruption, Transparency, Union Goons, Watch Your Wallet on February 3, 2013

The Culture of Complaisance is about to get a lot more expensive.
If you notice item 12 on the Fullerton City Council agenda for Tuesday, good for you. It means you have pondered other idiocies – from the moronic CSUF “College Town” boondoggle through the closed session legal embarrassments involving Chief Danny Hughes and his goons in blue.
Which is a nice segue back to item 12. According to staff the City’s insurance well is dry due to a couple of big payouts in 2012. That’s bad news because now the City will have to issue a big chunk of debt so that the FPD payouts can proceed apace and Garo Mardirossian can get that 2014 Ferrari.
Of course the cash, raised by the sale of bonds will cost the General Fund a nifty $500,000 a year for the next couple of decades. City Manager Joe Felz will be enjoying his massive pension by then, so who the Hell cares, right?
Ironically, the cases of Veth Mam, Trevor Clarke, Edward Quinonez and Ron Thomas will drain the coffers yet again, requiring even more debt for fiscal year 14-15. The staff report says we need to protect Fullerton’s credit rating by issuing new debt. That’s a creative argument. I think we could protect Fullerton’s credit rating by eliminating the Culture of Corruption.
Now, What About Our Water Tax Refund? Part 1: A Recap
Posted by Joe Sipowicz in The Cost of Defeat, The Crime Beat, The Culture of Corruption, Union Goons, Watch Your Wallet on January 7, 2013

For 40 years the City of Fullerton has added a 10% tax to your water. The ostensible purpose was to pay for general city costs necessary to deliver water, like the City Manager and the City Attorney. In the beginning the rate was a small 2%. Then in 1970 the City Fathers realized nobody was watching and they bumped it to 10%. But the fee had nothing to do with infrastructure or anything else withing the purview of the Water Utility.
For the first 27 years it was just a scam – the City departments were already charging directly to the Water Fund – the 10% was just pure high-fat content bureaucratic gravy, ripped off from unsuspecting water users by ignorant and lubricious politicians and administrators; then in 1996 Proposition 218 was enacted, requiring that objective studies, approved in public, be the basis of these charges. At this point the annually rubber stamped water tax became illegal; but it was still there, happily rising whenever the cost of the water commodity itself went up – from 1997-2012.
In 2012 the City itself acknowledged the magnitude of the ill-gotten revenue – over $27,000,000 since 1997, a sum that went into the General Fund to pay for salaries and benefits of employees who have absolutely nothing to do with the procurement or transmission of water, as well as other fun stuff – like council junkets to four start hotels.
Last year, the previous council majority made a commitment to return as much of the graft as possible. The new council? Don’t hold your breath. Mrs. Flory, one of architects of the ripoff, and someone who, arrogantly, has never even bothered to proffer an apology for her heist, has claimed that the City can’t afford refunds of even the minimum amount prescribed by law.
Well, we’ll see how this plays out. In the meantime, stay tuned for Part II: How to Phony Up A Report.
FPD Gets Bone
Posted by Jan Florys Dog in Chronic Failure, The Crime Beat, The Culture of Corruption, Union Goons on December 27, 2012
The Register is reporting that the Fullerton cops have collared a potential perp who couldn’t evade them. Not bad.
Can Detective Ron Bair solve this puzzler?
Have At It
Posted by Mr. Peabody in Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Cost of Defeat, The Culture of Corruption, Union Goons, Watch Your Wallet on December 19, 2012

Here’s how it happened. And no, I wasn’t there…
As expected, the new council voted 3-2 to begin “negotiations” with Dan Hughes to become Fullerton’s police chief.
Flory, Chaffee and Fitzgerald took their vote even as questions remain unanswered about Hughes’ role in the aftermath of Kelly Thomas murder, and accusations that Hughes himself was involved in an incident which is now the subject of a lawsuit against the City; and of course ongoing suspicion that Hughes has been an active part of the Culture of Corruption every step of the way.
Now watch ‘em give away the store.
Oh, and yeah: you will not be getting a police oversight committee.







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