And by come home to roost I mean a veritable pile-up of embarrassing and expensive lawsuits we will all have to pay for.
Check out the slew of new legal threats against the city on this week’s agenda, ironically followed by salary and pension negotiations with the unions whose members caused these problems in the first place. I wonder if Bankhead, Jones and McKinley will make that connection. Highly doubtful.
And don’t forget that City Manager Joe Felz is going to take another swing at getting that raise. God Almighty, who is minding the store?
Correction: Felz raise didn’t make it on to the agenda for some reason.
Thus speaketh the frightened rabbits at the anti-recall website, a site so lame and amateurish that I will be regularly featuring its idiocy.
The operators of that site, Mssrs. Alexander, Ellis, Ackerman, and of course the Three Bind Dinosaurs are positively terrified of protesters wearing scary masks. Well, here’s another one, courtesy of our Friends at The OC Weekly.
FYI, the Kelly Thomas Concert on Saturday was chock full of Fullerton families, including kids who were learning all sorts of positive lessons in humanity and citizenship.
The ironic thing is that the Three Blind Dinosaurs want you to forget the values they have established in Downtown Fullerton: drunken, brawling, lawless, fecal, condom-strewn, that’s DTF. Are these the “family values” being peddled by Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley? Guess so.
Well, old dudes, hope that fact doesn’t upset your lunch of Metamucil and oatmeal.
At Saturday’s protest of the hapless Fullerton Police Department, some perceptive folks espied a character who immediately drew suspicion, sore thumb-like, as some sort of plant. Of course they challenged this individual, who, thoughtfully provided a business card.
Craig Fury. “Law Enforcement Territory manager.” Aardvark Tactical.
FYI, an aardvark is a homely creature that roots through the dirt for bugs which seems aptly descriptive; the use of the name could also be a tactic just to get to the front of the phone book.
Our Friends discreetly followed Mr. Fury for several blocks down Commonwealth Avenue before he doubled back and wandered into – the FPD HQ! So what gives? Did the cops employ this clown to spy on peaceful protesters? If not why was he there?
I note that on their website that Aardvark “featured partners” include Safariland, the company that McKinley worked with (on the taxpayers dime) developing his special vest that was later purchased by the Fullerton Police Department. Aardvark is an “authorized dealer” of Safariland equipment. Did McKinley and the anti-recall drones employ this guy to take pictures of scary members of Kelly’s Army? If not why was he there, and why the loop-de loop?
I think somebody in authority (now who would that be?) needs to inform the police that the FPD facility is owned by the taxpayers (us) and that they had better stay out of politics on public time (ours) and in a publicly owned facility (ours).
The Fullerton School District had the summer off while our attention was diverted to more important matters. Under that cover and with the convenient assistance of closed session, the Board handed a ridiculous $35,000 cash settlement (our money, not theirs) to a previously fired six-figure employee who didn’t like getting terminated.
Lisa Reynoso is an ex-Director of Nutrition Services who presumably neglected her job duties so badly that the district took on the daunting task of actually terminating her employment and replacing her with someone better.
The board had been wanting to fire Ms. Reynoso for years, but the first attempt at some sort of action in 2007 was overturned by the Personnel Commission, a crazy union invention in which a dubious mix of unelected and unaccountable bad-employee sympathizers actually have power above and beyond the school board itself.
So the lunch lady’s tenure was extended by a few years, which was more than enough for her to earn herself another termination by doing something else bad. We don’t know what she did this time, but anyone who’s tried the meatloaf knows that the bar is pretty low in a grade school cafeteria.
Did the board take charge and let her go this time? No. Our spineless representatives took the easy way out and gave her a parting settlement instead. At the taxpayers’ expense, of course.
It’s lost on these unprincipled, short-sighted administrators that handing cash to an ex-employee who doesn’t deserve it only encourages future bad apples to pursue the same jackpot. Shampoo, rinse, repeat, waste money, hope nobody notices.
The scam was ultimately abetted by the spineless “ayes” of board members Bev Berryman, Janny Meyer and Hilda Sugarman in closed session, with Chris Thompson dissenting.
I keep hearing persistent rumors that the Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz has had discussions with high level County officials about the possibility of abolishing the Fullerton Police Department and replacing it with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
Apparently the hook is not just the recent revelations of FPD misconduct, perjury, cover-up, crimes high and low, a spokesman caught blatantly lying, and the attendant PR curse that the department has visited upon itself. There is an issue of huge cost savings. And I mean huge.
While the prospect of getting honest, competent and respectful police services from the Sheriff’s Department is probably only marginally more likely than with the FPD (and there’s no way in the world it could be worse), extrapolating from current costs in contracted cities, using the OCSD could save the taxpayers of Fullerton as much as $13,000,000, per year from the FPDs bloated budget of $37,000,000.
That’s a whopping 37%, and $13,000,000 could go to a lot of things Fullertonians hold near and dear.
In this era of government fiscal constraint brought about in large measure by irresponsible decisions by dimwits like Don Bankhead, Dick Jones and PatMcKinley, to hand out exorbitant pay and benefits to “public safety” employees, everything should be on the table.
Update 2: An FPD officer told a Friend last night that the police were in fact gearing up for potential protests in response to the DA’s announcement, which is expected in this coming week.
-Travis
Update: Travis, I can’t believe the FPD would be stoopid enough to start a riot at a benefit for the homeless (still, I’m wondering if their dumbness even has a bottom level). I truly believe the protesters in from of PD HQ are getting into their little heads. Everyone make as much noise as you want but PLEASE stay on the sidewalk!
– Mr. Peabody
Today a helpful Friend snapped these photos of Fullerton police officers dusting up on their riot control skills and baton swinging techniques inside the walls of the FPD compound.
The timing is curious. There is a rock concert for Kelly Thomas on Saturday. And the DA has hinted that he may make a big announcement about the cops who killed Kelly Thomas as early as Monday.
Nearby residents say that riot training is not a common occurrence in the FPD parking lot.
I wonder what’s going on?
Yes, it would appear so. CNN is reporting today yet another instance of wrongful arrest and brutality by our friends at the FPD. The case involves assault and phony DUI arrest for which there was no basis.
Of course the purported victim, Edward Miguel Quinonez, has a lawyer: Garo Mardirossian. Geez, Garo may as well open up a Fullerton office. Here is KCAL passing along the news:
UPDATE: FYI, KCAL WE INTERVIEWED THIS WITNESS AND POSTED IT ON AUGUST 8 – 5 WEEKS AGO! HERE’S THE LINK.
Yes it’s been a long, long time. When he first climbed the steps to his throne and surveyed his Fullerton domain the year was 1988. Ronald Reagan was president.
Don Bankhead has been on the Fullerton City Council for 23 years. With a few weeks off for bad behavior – an unnecessary Utility Tax and subsequent recall in 1994 – this monument to sub-mediocrity has been demonstrating his dubious mental faculties every other Tuesday night since dirt was young.
I will always fondly remember when Dick Ackerman referred to him as Don Blankhead. Now how many times did Don hear that as his fellow Fullerton cops chuckled at the dunderhead behind his back?
So now let’s take a moment or two to review Mr. Bankhead’s singularly inept career in Fullerton.
Back in 1988 Bankhead tried to get the job of Fullerton Chief of Police. He failed when the council chose somebody else. Ironically, Dick Ackerman who was on the Council then, was well aware of Blankhead’s utter incompetence. And so, out of spite, he ran for the city council: Lo and Behold he won! On the city council he believed that no one would would laugh at him anymore. And he believed people would laugh with him instead of at him. He was wrong.
Bankhead also suddenly revealed what he never told anybody when he interviewed for the Chief job, or even when he ran for County Sheriff in 1990: that he was a virtual cripple from a series of earlier alleged mishaps that, if true, would have made Inspector Clouseau look like an Olympic gymnast. His scam made the news, but the nice people in Fullerton were too polite to say anything. But we all knew.
Throughout the 1990s, Bankhead supported every single Redevelopment subsidy, boondoggle and giveaway of public money to fly-by-night developers; here is my pithy summation.
In the past ten years he has smiled that dim, senile smile as he turned downtown Fullerton into a booze-soaked battle field that costs the taxpayers of Fullerton $1.5 million every single year, all to the benefit his cynical and parasitical “supporters.” He had the effrontery to claim that without his interventionist Redevelopment Fullerton itself would be a ghost town! He tried to lie his way out of that idiocy. It didn’t work.
or to put it another way:
A darling of the cop union he voted for the bank-breaking 3@50 pension formula that has created a massive and permanent unfunded liability for the taxpayers of Fullerton; he continuously voted for the illegal 10% utility tax on the water ratepayers of Fullerton, money that has gone to pay his own bloated pension.
Of course Bankhead was propped up every step of the way by his “public safety” union allies for whom he performed such acts of generosity with our money.
What Bankhead doesn’t want anyone to know is that in the course of his political career he has pulled down hundreds of thousands of dollars snoozing through footling meetings of various agencies and commissions about which he knows absolutely nothing – but for which he applied the same rubber stamp he has wielded so disastrously in Fullerton.
Although Bankhead is a Republican, and supposed to be some sort of conservative, the inescapable fact is that he is big-government in a big way. And if big-government could help him or his developer buddies score big, so much the better. After all who was really watching? FFFF, that’s who. Here we busted Bankhead for blowing $1200 staying at a four star Long Beach Hotel, on our dime – a mere 25 miles from his house in Fullerton!
This year, finally, the extent to which Bankhead has aided and abetted an incompetent and criminal police department has finally surfaced, and the extent of the damage this simpleton has caused Fullerton has become crystal clear.
Will Bankhead become the first man in California history to be recalled from the same office? Let’s work for it!
Don Bankhead, this is your life: a sad, belabored death march of cognitive meltdown, incompetence, lackeydom, and buffoonery. Fortunately your quarter century misrule is coming to a merciful conclusion. Fullerton is finally waking up and finally deciding that it wants real leaders – not clownish cartoons – on its city council.
The Kelly Thomas Memorial Concert and Canned Food Drive will remember Kelly with a day of music and donations that will draw attention to the thousands of destitute, whom our cities remain blind to or worse, ill-treat through willful ignorance and neglect. In partnership with Ron Thomas and the Kelly Thomas Memorial Fund (recently founded in memory of his son), the event hopes to open the eyes of Orange County to the alarming growth in its homeless population and just how few resources our cities have to help treat this social epidemic.
Eric Bootow, bassist for fullerton-based Sederra, was inspired by the tragic events of July 5th to put this show together. By reaching out to the Thomas family and his fellow musicians in Fullerton, the show quickly materialized and has since gathered massive support from all over SoCal. The event promises to have upwards of a thousand in attendance with Ron Thomas (who will be speaking) and family also in attendance.
Where: Fullerton Downtown Plaza (125 E. Wilshire Avenue Fullerton, CA 92832)
When: 3pm-8pm on Sept 17, 2011
Music: Sederra, Julian Porte, New Skool Kings, John Paget, 80 Proof, Mr Mirainga and Robert Gupta of the LA Philharmonic
How People Can Help: Donations, canned goods and clothing and will be accepted during the event.