“Fiscal Conservative” Pam Keller Blows More Than $1200 Bucks At Local League Of Cities Meeting
Hoo Boy! So this is how a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative squanders our money.
In the fall of 2008 Pam Keller attended the California League of Cities Annual Meeting, a useless agglomeration of bureaucrats and bureaucrat lovin’ electeds who like to micromanage everybody’s life while we pay for it.
The event was held at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, a luxury hotel, exactly 26.1 miles from Fullerton. The distance is so vast that Pam decided to stay at the hotel for three nights and amassed a bill of $1236.10. Check out the payment vouchers, the hotel invoice, and even a handwritten request for nine buck’s reimbursement for parking, here.
Seems Pam also took along a guest, and, among other treats, they may have availed themselves of a trip to the LB Aquarium that was included in the deal.
Even if we disregard the questionable usefulness of attending one of these taxpayer funded boondoggles, what on earth was the need for Keller to stay at a hotel whose drive-time distance Mapquest lists at a mere 28 minutes?
And I have to wonder how all of Keller’s lefty knee-jerk supporters could possibly countenance this sort of profligacy of public money. $1,200 could be used collaboratively to feed a lot of homeless people, right?
Now to be perfectly fair (I am a very fair person), Fullerton’s two RINOs, Don Bankhead and Dick Jones also attended this conference and also racked up big bills. At least Jones went alone.
Friends, this is likely not the only Keller taxpayer-funded junket and rest assured, we will be providing examples of others in the very near future if we find them.
$400 a night on the taxpayers’ dime to stay in Long Beach? What a fricking joke.
You would think that an organization as large as the California League of Cities could negotiate a slightly better rate than $400 a night in fabulous Long Beach. Of course, they are not interested in saving money for their member cities.
Pam should have driven. Hell she could have taken a limo from Fullerton every day and still saved us some money. What a waste.
This woman is all about herself. She doesn’t give a damn about where the money is coming from. She got hers… now screw all the rest of you suckers.
Actually it’s pretty amusing that Keller puts in for every dime – after she wastes well over a grand of public funds by staying in a ritzy hotel less than thirty miles from her front door. Well, there you have the limousine liberal mindset to a friggin’ T.
Something tells me the OC GOP just got another campaign hit piece inspiration. FFFF oughta be submitting an invoice to them!
The League of Cities is perhaps as completely useless as SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments) — two organizations with no legal authority, yet both have the ability to suck tax money into worthless projects, causes and campaigns.
Btw, did Jones and Bankhead share a room?
Bankhead put in for the same amount as Keller for the hotel so he must have gone with his wife or someone of equal distinction. Looks like Jones went by himself.
Hardly any point in going after those other two. Both are toast already.
Wrong! I agree that Jones is done. he’s just hanging on long enough so that Ed Royce Ackerman and the ‘pugs can find an interchangeable (useless RINO) part.
OTOH, Bankhead will run for yet another term despite the sad fact that he can’t even tell what going on at the meetings. He will never give up the only job he’s had where he’s gotten any respect. And he loves going to all those other agency meetings and getting paid even more for doing nothing.
They will have to wheel him out of there feet first.
Sooooo. Let’s have a post on Bankhead too!
“Don Bankhead and Dick Jones also attended attended (sic) this conference and also racked up big bills.”
Will we get to see these documents soon too?
Sometimes conferences like these can run late into the evening, and it is certainly tempting to stay in the area instead of having to drive home each night, but twenty miles and four hundred bucks a night is really over the edge.
I wonder how city employees who face pay cuts feel about these expenses?
“Sometimes conferences like these can run late into the evening”
Bullshit, LC. These NEVER run past an afternoon session which is ALWAYS followed by drinkies and dinner. Who pays for the latter? Now that’s a damn good question!
“Drinkies and dinner” can be important times for networking, i.e., sharing ideas with people from other cities. It isn’t necessarily wasted time, but that doesn’t mean taxpayers should be footing the bill, particularly in times of economic severity.
That’s what they are always claiming to be doing for OUR good – “networking.” Really what they are doing is schmoozing and self-promoting on our dime.
We shouldn’t be footing the bill whether times are severe or not. Keller’s gotta go. And she can take the senile Bankhead and the bufoon Jones with her!
P.S., The city also pays for staff members to go. After all these are big staff love-fests. After a while even the so-called “conservatives” go native and start blathering about how important such gatherings are.
The only difference between these meetings and the Ackerman Maui junkets are these are paid for by the government; the lobbyists are not corporate interests but government bureaucrats pitching their big projects.
Thanks Desert Rat and FFFF for bringing this up. Would “girl reporter” Barbara “Wirlitzer” Giasone? Would “crusading editor” Sharon Kennedy? Not a chance!
keep up the good work. I’m dying to find out what else Keller wasted money on!
Pam Keller is a pig who gorges herself at the public trough along with the other pigs Bankhead and Jones. These three little pigs house must be blown down by the big bad wolf named fiscal responsibility to the tax payer during our current economic depression.
Keep huffing and puffing , FFFF
Don’t know about huffing, but we’ll be doing plenty of puffing in 2010!
I think we are all entitled to a formal explanation as to how in the world it is warranted to stay at a hotel ON THE TAXPAYERS DIME for a conference closer than most of our daily commutes.
I have no problem with staying on your own nickel so you can party with your chums but when you can be home in less than a half hour, how could the city even allow this.
Pam, Dick, Don, this is your chance, please explain.
Dick & Don don’t know how to use a computer and Pam Keller doesn’t like blogs, so Commissioner I don’t think we will be hearing from that group who obviously like to waste our tax dollars.
This is pretty bad. It’s like a party for the big shot pols and department heads. I’m sure it happens all the time, but still.
I would like to learn more about “spouses” going along for the ride. It looks lke both Bankhead and Keller took along a second person. And we paid for that!?
It sure looks that way ACLU Mom.
You can bet that hard-hitting journalists Barbara Giasone and Sharon Kennedy will soon be all over this breaking story. Unless, of course, the big news of food court opening doesn’t get in the way.
Or a KISS impersonator at the library. Don’t miss this hardball journalism:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/downe-225150-kiss-costume.html
What a piece of shit!!!!
That’s ridiculous! Not only did she need a hotel room, but she needed a $300+ hotel room?! She couldn’t have suffered in a $150/night room in order to spend the people of Fullerton’s money a little less cavalierly?!
Now you’re catching on Fern. She is important. It’s all about her.
Pam should be smater than to give ammo for election hit pieces. I expect her to give us an explenation about the money.
Ya know, if she’d o’ stayed home she could’ve tolt wonderful Barbara ’bout all the money she saved us and Babs coulda wrote up a hard-hitting feature story: “Fiscal Conservative Leads By Example!”
except when you put that picture of Spam Kellar up on your blog. Please use a different photo, her fake smile is a killing me.
If you follow the link to the hotel website to the description of the “Regency Club Double” room (the type listed on Pam’s receipt), one of the amenities listed is a “private concierge.” Huh? Does she really need help finding her way around Long Beach? Heck, even Barney Wewak would have to pass on that!
(Just in case you’re reading this, no offense Barney!)
Thanks, FFFF for linking the documents to city council members’ squandering our tax dollars during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. When Keller, Bankhead and Jones run for re-election for the office of public service and trust, I will plaster these documents next to their “vote for me because I’m Keller or Bankhead or Jones” posters. These people are a menace to society because they steal money from our government to use for their personal pleasure.
If we had real news coverage of Fullerton, I personally would not have to take this scandal literally to the streets.
reads the blog!
your nobody, Nobody!
To Nobody, are you referring to this blog or just a the blog?
Hey, maybe Kellar can just hit up a few developers and reimburse the city from the collaborative like she does the school district.
Hollis, I’m sure she is hitting up the developers and the unions for $, but not to reimburse the city. She’s going to need a lot of help to get reelected in 2010.
I’m sure there is no reason to wonder but since the days of this conference were a wed., thurs., fri., during the school year, could we please be sure that Pam properly put in for vacation at her school district job like everyone is mandated to do? I mean, there’s no chance she would have failed to do this as closely as she is monitored by her direct supervisor there (who is that by the way?). I just want to be sure we give Pam credit for being as honest.
Of course, if for some reason she did not properly put in for vacation during this time and took it any way, that would amount to fraud against the district. I’m sure its nothing. Sorry to bother you Friends.
P.S. Just to make sure all the credit for honesty is going where its supposed to, could we please make sure that Pam took proper vacation for her trip to DC to welcome her hero Obama?
Hmm, let’s look in to that.
Admin:
I notice from the reimbursement that one of the breakfasts Keller submitted for included Joe Felz and Sharon Quirk. Among other things this means that council members could obviously make it to the activities (yes even those in the morning) without hitting us up for $400 per night.
Good catch Hollis! I noticed that too. It seems Quirk was there at least one day. Since she submitted no voucher I believe we can assume she just drove over there like any of the rest of us would have done.
Travis:
As long as your looking in to this you may want to check and confirm the September League conference for this year. I believe their website says it was 9/16 to 9/18. Of course school days and no doubt Keller hit the citizens for that junket as well. Being as honest as she is I’m sure she put in for vacation those days as well so lets be sure to give credit where credit is due.
FYI: here is a website that many professional people belong to. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/pam-keller/4/125/54a
I wonder about the expenses of the (Non-Profit Organization Management industry) she is associated with? Hummmmmm