Anti-Recall Bozos Step in Own Droppings. Again.
You would think that politicians who have been around as long as the Three Deaf Dinosaurs would at least have enough savvy not to advertise their own misfeasance in office. If you thought that, boy, would you be wrong.
On their website the other day they were blaming the Recall campaign for making an issue of their illegal utility tax that’s been hidden in our water bills. Of course they have to explain that it’s been around for a long, long time; which doesn’t make it any more legal – or ethical. See, the City has been raising $2,500,000 a year by tacking a 10% increase to the amount of your water bill even though there has never been any justification for what is supposed to pay for some sort of “overhead” provided by the City to the water utility.
This big pile of money has been siphoned directly into the General Fund where it has contributed to the salaries, stipends and pensions of Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, and Pat McKinley and all of McKinley’s boys and girls currently on “administrative leave.” Last spring Mayor Jones defended the ripoff here because it would pay for police – obviously people who have absolutely nothing to do with getting that water into your bath tub. And that’s illegal.
The funniest part of the attack on the Recall is some idiot named Larry Bennett’s ridiculous challenge to water rate payers to find any evidence of the this tax on their water bill. Larry even promises to pay your bill if you can find it.
Which begs the question: how stupid can these assclowns get?
Of course the 10% utility tax can’t be found on our water bills. It never has been shown on them. And that’s another one of the reasons it’s been illegal!
good thing your dEALING AND REVEALING small towns ,youd be shot killed and never found on any other level .ty for your tenacity
The mayor reminds me or “Boss Hog” from the Dukes of Hazzard, what a baffoon! The city would be better off having either “No mayor”, “any third grader” as mayor, or Bonzo-the-Wonder-Monkey as the mayor. The only difference between the three choices is that the 3rd grader is probably the most qualified by far.
The Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions board voted 5-3 on Thursday not to review Cicinelli’s pension.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/pension-327663-cicinelli-board.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-for-Kelly-Thomas/202121386512154
Yes it is hard to believe they are that dumb.
That 10% has been propping up their liberal spending habits for years.
The original “fee” was way too high and of course the public at large was never told about it and it never appears on any water utility bills; hidden, as Larry Bennett acknowledges (he really should be ashamed of himself, but I guess he lost any of that shame stuff pimping for Jones all these years).
Not only was it originally too high the real question is whether any of those “overhead” costs are now being directly allocated to the water fund separately from the in-lieu franchise fee. That would make it a pure utility tax.
Right. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the City Attorney, City Manager, and City Engineer costs were charged directly to water. Easy to find out. In any case the true allocated costs would by dinky.
Other overhead – should be puny, too. HeeHaw was right: it’s going to pay for cops. As usual he would have been better off keeping his mouth shut.
What happened to Larry Bennett? I used to have a lot of respect for him.
I’ve even considered the possibility of a mental illness because he never seemed this stupid in the past. No joke. Is he OK?
Simple task, Whittaker and Silva should place an item on the agenda requesting a review of water utility tax and its history. This will bring out in the open for all Fullertonians to see that the water tax is 10%. Next the city attorney should be directed to look into the legality of the issue to not show the tax% on bills. This will be voted down 3-2 but will BRING TO PUBLIC LIGHT who supports the water tax!
Tuco knows politics………
it will only bring out what “staff” wants the public to hear
Anti Recall – Dick lovers!
Just called Tony over this:
http://protectfullerton-recallno.com/news_details.php?id=26
Me: “Tony, do you know who James MacLaughlin is?”
Tony: “No.”
Me: “I think he’s the guy that wears the beanie that said F. Dick Jones while Dick was freaking out about the blue card. The breaking news on the anti recall website is that he’s one of your leading candidates for a recall replacement.”
Tony: “……………………hysteria.”
Who comes up with this stuff? I’m actually beginning to look forward to these daily breaking news items.
They think this crap is persuasive to anybody but a couple dozen septuagenarian Rotarians and Redevelopment freeloaders?
I think they’re trying to be bloggy and provocative. It’s like they’ve decided, “we’ll beat Bushala at his own game.” They just don’t understand that at a minimum, there has to be some degree of truth or it just doesn’t work. They pull council meeting video of some random Kelly’s Army guy being offensive and just decide to say that he’s Tony’s guy.
Now why is that funny, I thought James was quite good at dealing with a uncomfortable situation and he has public speaking skills.
Maybe we need to start publishing our own version of the”The MacLaughlin Report” on FFFF?
good grief
The use of water as a source of funding for the PS RAGWUS feeders is going on in most of the cities in California. The Idea originated from consultants cities hired to show the bureacracies how to increase revenue without raising taxes.
This mostly took place in the 90’s when the police and fire departments were getting 15% to 20% pay and benefit increases when the cities had no money to pay the greedy bastards.
The truth is the PS feeders could care less what happens to the people of Fiullerton as long as they are paid and pensioned!! 😉
truth
Why is it illegal? You haven’t shown anything that gives credence to why it’s illegal. Case law? State law? Federal law? Please say why it’s illegal.
log onto to the anti Recall and find out. Give your name, address, and e-mail address and they will tell the truth or not!!!….Or they will tell a bunch of crap….
It’s called Prop 218 and it’s been the law of California for 15 years!
In other words the 3 Dried Up Dinosaurs and their pals have stolen almost 50 million dollars from water users and misdirected it to public employee pensions, among other things.
Now do you understand?
thank you. very interesting. got it.
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the Little Foxes of Fullerton:Bankhead, Jones and now McKinley. The good residents, business owners and CSUF students of Fullerton have been supplanted by their public servants’ unfettered greed.
“There must be better ways of getting rich than building sweat shops and pounding the bones of the town to make dividends for you to spend. You’ll wreak the town, you and your brothers. You’ll wreak the country, you and your kind, if they let you.” dialogue from playwright Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play The Little Foxes.
we, the good people of fullerton, must re-occupy our town to save it from its corrupt civic leaders,Bankhead, Jones and McKinley, or we will lose our civic identity to bankruptcy that will cause deterioration of Fullerton.
“we will lose our civic identity to bankruptcy that will cause deterioration of Fullerton” pentimento moment
we will lose our civic identity because our town will deteriorate due to being bankrupted by these same corrupt civic leaders
like Bell? How have they survived? We are in the same boat, but we have sorry ass FPD to go along with it.
Chris – Ina previous post, I think I am the one who suggested we should appoint Jimmy as mayor. Someone else actually seconded the motion. Of course, I was being totally facetious!
Looks like the anti-recall folks and/or there minions have no concept of satire or facetious comments…
Starting trouble huh?
Where can I send an email?
Should I not have seconded the motion? I think that James MacLaughlin is the antithesis of what these three represent. These three city councilman look at the size of the wallet when they see you standing in front of them, instead of looking at the size of the heart. What does Jimmy stand to gain from showing up and speaking at these meetings? Nada. He only does it because like the rest of us, Jimmy is morally outraged at the councilman’s conduct and is not afraid to get up there and speak in front of them and let them personally know how their actions are devastating individuals and families with their callous indifference.
James MacLaughlin in 2012!
oops, that should have been “their” – been up for almost 24 hours; not good at my age 🙂
Answer in one sentence, please.
I SUPPORT THE RECALL BECAUSE______
I will begin with an example of what you could write:
I SUPPORT THE RECALL BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE IT.
Next?
“I SUPPORT THE RECALL BECAUSE” of the facts presented on this website, in the newspapers and in the city of fullerton’s public documents that show a pattern of misappropriation of tax dollars to fund Fullerton’s public servants pensions, salaries, pet projects and to buy off plaintiff’s who have been physically, sexually, financially wronged by same town’s public servants; our civic leaders, those who vowed to represent and protect the public’s interests and safety schemed to cover-up the murder of a disabled , homeless man by fullerton police officers ;our civic leaders, Bankhead, Jones and Rusty Kennedy’s colleague, Mckinley, made Ron Thomas beg for a minute to speak about the murder of his son,Kelly Thomas, at the hands of their police officers at a city council held shortly after kelly thomas was intentionally beaten to death
no crack heads. Please.
Everyone should realize that the odds of Jimmy becoming mayor are slim to none, and slim is out of town. I would certainly agree that some of his comments were over the top during public comments. Comparisons council members to Hitler and/or the Nazis? Come on… that’s going too far! That type of reckless speech does not serve to advance political goals.
Ill take a good heart and an honest man over any one of these three jackals we have now.
why dont you ask jimmy? i’d like to hear his comments
me too
Just my opinion.
yeah-i get ya, but i want to hear jimmy speak
Crazy thing is most cities have that hidden fee in there and other hidden fees and taxes.
Now a majority of cities and water companies are raising the rates. The for profit water companies execs make huge dollars. It’s a mess.
Ontario going up now too.
ONTARIO – Despite protests from a handful of residents, the City Council has agreed to rate hikes for its water and sewer services over the next two years.
Rate increases for residents will result in an average monthly increase of $1.77, or 1.6 percent in the first year.
In 2013, rates will go up by another $1.42 on an average month, or about 1.3 percent.
The first rates increases will become effective Jan. 6 2012.
Speaking out against the increases, several residents have cited the poor economy and unemployment as reasons they could not financially support the changes.
“Raising the water bill means I can’t water my yard. I’ll have to let my yard dry out and let the weeds grow,” senior citizen Leonard Henry said.
But city officials defended the hike, adding the revenues are necessary to meet its operation costs through 2013.
Revenues for the city’s water, sewer and solid waste comes from user fees – they are not taxes, said Mohamed El-Amamy, utilities general manager for Ontario.
Those fees support the expenses for each department, El-Amamy said.
Prior to coming to the council for the rate hikes, El-Amamy said several cost-cutting measures were implemented to keep the rate increases as low as possible.
Officials were also able to reduce expenses in their solid waste department to cover their costs for the year.
Due to the reductions, the solid waste department will not have
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to increase rates, El-Amamy said.
Increases in sewer treatment costs as well as an aging infrastructure are some of the challenges the city faces in the coming years, El-Amamy said.
It will cost the city $600,000 to operate its sewer services. Staff was able to reduce costs by $200,000, which still left the department with a $400,000 deficit, but a 3 percent rate increase will make up that difference, he said.
El-Amamy said residents will notice a $0.37 monthly rate increase to their bill.
With the water industry facing many challenges statewide in the coming years, El-Amamy said it will continue to increase the costs of providing water services to its residents.
Among those challenges are the increased cost to import water, which accounts for a third of the city’s water supply, as well an increase in costs to replace aging infrastructure.
With a $1.25 million operating budget, city officials said they have taken some measure to offset those costs.
Among them is expanding the use of recycled water to reduce water supply costs, El-Amamy said.
Officials have also reduced labor costs and energy costs by controlling the time of pumping and more using efficient equipment.
Despite those changes, officials still needed to increase the water bill by $1.40 a month to cover costs, he said.
Several residents proposed that the council either put off the hikes until the economy improved or put the measure on a ballot for the residents to vote.
Mayor Paul Leon said when joined the council 14 years ago the rates had not been raised in years.
When the time came to raise the rates, residents were faced steep increases, he said.
“It is never a good time to raise funds, of any kind,” Leon said.
If the city puts off increases then it would have to cut other services they provide residents to pay for the deficit, Councilman Alan Wapner said. It could also mean the city would have to ignore infrastructure improvements. It’s a move, Wapner said, could end up being costlier to the city.
Ontario could face similar issues like the City of Los Angeles, which is constantly repairing sink holes and broken lines, he said.
Reach Liset via email, call her at 909-483-8556, or find her on Twitter @DBOntarioNow.
wow reality
you are like a super pig protecting the streets and laying out the truth on this BLOG 24/7….
much respect
you know its alot of work being a security guard
i owe you a krispy kreme
RESPECT
Thanks. Love Krispy Kremes. Yum.
I support the recall because it is 100% justified. The three that are under the magnifying glass are being paid to serve us and are only serving themselves. They do not represent the citizens of Fullerton. They are simply taking our tax money to fill their pockets, and I’ll be damned if I put up with it any longer. Look at ANY time that they speak and you will see what I am talking about. McKinley is a heavy handed fist that hides behind his LAPD “accomplishments” while forcing big city policies on a relatively small town, all the while sticking his foot in his mouth at every opportunity.
Jones is…wait do I really need to say anything about him? Really?
Bankhead I almost feel sorry for, but he chose sides in this so I don’t care: out he goes with the rest of the trash running my town.
Is that clear enough?
I HATE having to go through this, but unfortunately it is necessary. Hopefully Fullerton will be a better place as the result.
Thank God for the constitutional right to recall elected officialsand cronies in Fullerton before they cause more serious damages.
Ask me why I will or won’t vote for or support a candidate, the individual list is long with the top 5 that many surveys miss are personal and are never asked..
1.I don’t like your looks
2.You talk with an accent
3.You remind me of my ex
4.I think you’re just another slick politician with a teflon coating.
5.How many brother-in-laws do you have?
6.Why would you fight for a JOB with such low pay?
7.I never vote for an incumbent
8.Unrelated name recognition
9.Party line identification
10.To cancel my spouses vote
You can add your own reasons with an in depth intellectual analysis of support, please try to limit them to 25 words or less.
These are the fallback criteria if there is no other compelling reason to vote for someone.
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…………if ya don’t know thats shit outa luck
bump
Yeah…ROFLMAO.
Where Tuco livesin Orange Co. the tax is separate on the water bill and the water company is private. The water company must ask the state public utilities commission for their rate increases, not the city council. There was an article in the OC Register that 60% of the sewer workers in Orange County made over a $100,000 per year salary + considerable benefits. This probably holds for Fullerton as well. I’m waiting for Ed Norton to retire so I can take his sewer job!! Hey there Ralphie boy!!! With the help of the three blind wisemen on Fullerton city council, I too can get on the gravy train!
Great post on the jacked up water rate issues! I also like the “three blind wisemen” reference for the three city councilman Senor Ramirez.
The water rate increases approved over the years also bumped the automatic 10% “franchise fee.”
So when the Ackerwoman voted for an MWD commodity increase it came with an increased tax that went to the Fullerton General Fund.
Cant add to ” California city general funds” per prop 218 of 1996- doing that would be, uh, illegal
“All general taxes must be approved by a majority vote of the people.
Tax imposed for a specific purpose (ie. raincoats for FPD) is a “special tax,”even if its funds are placed into the community’s general fund. (Prior to Proposition 218, all taxes placed into a community’s general fund were commonly considered general taxes, requiring only a majority vote.)
Prior to Proposition 218’s passage, the courts allowed local governments significant flexibility in determining fee and assessment amounts. A business or resident challenging the validity of a fee or assessment carried the “burden of proof” to show the court that the fee or assessment was illegal. Proposition 218 changed this legal standard by shifting the burden of proof to local governments. Now local governments must prove that any disputed fee or assessment charge is legal.”
per prop 218. though water increase hikes may be ok to do because it may be considered “property-related” (though, clarification isnt clear about this-the fullerton council jumped on this unclarity to raise water rates) , adding them to the cities funds for whatever they want to do with them is absolutely illegal to do since 1996 without a vote by the citizens-
heres more info about prop 218 if you want to read:
http://www.lao.ca.gov/1996/120196_prop_218/understanding_prop218_1296.html
or salaries or pensions
They can raise water rates to chase commodity and transmission costs; the blind 10% add on is nothing more than a hidden tax.
I’m surprised that a business person like Larry Bennett can’t understand that.
They’re so overly confident they don’t even care what a train wreck their campaign is.
I read the article and I’m confused. Is the argument that it’s hidden or that it’s doesn’t exist? In one sentence the anti recall guy says its 40 years old and in another he says if you can find it he’ll pay. So confused.
I thought the same thing. They are talking out of both ends.
It’s always been well-hidden. That’s why you can’t find any mention of it on your water bill.
10% on top of any water increases?
It’s actually “breaking news”? LOL!!!!
“Jimmy’s new in town. Jimmy doesn’t really know anyone yet.
Jimmy’s really into you.”
If the tax doesnt exist why did council and city manager want the tax rate hike pulled without even discussion? and why has the city paid a consultant to figure out how much the city can continue to take from rate payers?
Oh my lord! That is some of the funniest crap I have heard in a long time. JIMMY FOR MAYOR!!!hahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Must be the new game in town…
Have you looked at your gas bill lately? Old So Cal Gas is tacking on surcharge so that “poor people” (those who makes less than $31K) can pay reduced rates for their gas.
Why? Because we CARE! Or at least the politicians who voted this in CARE about spending our money.
https://www.socalgas.com/for-your-home/assistance-programs/care/