A while back one of our fans suggested we’d get sued by the City for use of the City seal. (we didn’t). And that go me thinking about the seal itself. So let’s talk about it.
“Designed by artist Tom Van Sant in 1962, the figures shown in the seal are stylized depictions of the qualities important to the City of Fullerton. The orange tree refers to the City’s agricultural beginnings; the man, woman and child represent families; and the open book represents the City’s commitment to providing education and cultural opportunities to its citizens.”
Nothing says 1962 like Fullerton City Hall
It’s a real, stylized period piece, alright. Just like the building it adorns. Like it? Hate it? Don’t give a damn?
Last week we looked at the number of FSD employees who make over $90k. Now let’s see the salaries of Fullerton Joint Union High School District teachers and administrators for the 2009-10 school year.
Wow. Four hundred and thirty-two of them earn over $90,000 per year. Some of them teach a little extra summer school while others get stipends for CERT training, coaching badminton or being a leader. There’s also a secretary and a couple of custodian supervisors who earned over $60k in overtime alone.
You can look at this data any way you want, but it’s hard to deny that Fullerton’s educators are very well compensated. The myth of the “poor, underpaid teacher” is crushed.
Bonus Trivia
Which FFFF blogger spent several years molding the young minds of Fullerton’s high schoolers back in the 1980’s?
I got an e-mail today from an old Friend who wanted to remind me about something.
A way back in the earliest days of the sordid regime of former OC Sheriff, now disgraced and incarcerated felon Mike Carona, something happened that should never be forgotten.
Don't let the beady eyes fool you.
At the behest of Carona, on December 15, 1998 the OC Board of Supervisors removed the professional requirements for the job of Assistant Sheriff so that he could appoint two of his closest cronies and bag men, Don Haidl and George Jaramillo.
I always wanted a badge and a gun.
Oh no, it's that Your Honor guy, again.
These miscreants proceeded to leave a slime trail in their wake that will always be a disgrace to the OCSD and the County of Orange. They were the henchmen who helped the Crooked Sheriff run his sleazy empire. And who do you suppose made Haidl and Jaramillo’s appointment possible along with the subsequent money laundering, bribing, selling of badges, CCWs, illegal deals with crooked lawyers and bail bondsmen, and interfering in criminal investigations?
Yes. I did that. Didn't think you would remember.
That’s right: then Supervisor Todd Spitzer, himself a reserve officer in LA County, and surely somebody who should have known the problem he was creating: because the police are always telling us the importance of their professionalism. And there was Haidl, a shady businessman without a high school diploma and no police experience thrust into the second tier of leadership in one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the nation. Jaramillo was a cop from Garden Grove with none of the requisite command experience previously required.
Carona, Haidl and Jaramillo have now been convicted of crimes and their debauchery has been exposed in one embarrassing media reveation after another. That the scurvy Haidl and Jaramillo toppled over themselves in a rush to rat out Carona is the only redeeming part of the lurid story.
And who helped make all this possible? That’s right, the same guy who approved a retroactive pension spike for public safety employees, and who assures us he has the experience we need in a County Supervisor. Guess Spitzer figures nobody’s been paying attention. He is wrong.
The other day we re-ran a post from last year questioning how repuglican yakmouth Hugh Hewitt was qualified to be on OC’s version of Rob Reiner’s tax and redistribute Children and Families Commission. See, we didn’t believe he could possibly meet the requirements for membership defined in the County ordinance.
Watching yesterday’s Board meeting provided some enlightenment and showed how much Supervisor BillCampbell, who chairs this ultra-liberal commission, wants Hewitt on there. Badly.
Yes. It's a Do Tank.
As Campbell explained, Hewitt does indeed qualify in the education category. How? Because he is a director of the local branch of something called Young Life. I googled the name and found this. Not much to go on. No list of directors, so we’ll just have to take Hugh’s word for it. But check it out. It’s a Christian-based program for adolescents. This has zero to do with 0-5 child development and nothing to do with any professional qualifications for anything, so at least now we can be completely satisfied that Hewitt’s appointment was always bogus.
But as they say on TV infomercials: wait, there’s more!
According to Supervisor Shawn Nelson, who objected to Hewitt’s appointment, the latter missed seven meetings in a twelve moth period, and, per the code, was automatically removed from the Commission. Of course the Commission staff never notified the Board of Supervisors as the law requires. Hewitt was simply permitted to keep participating in the few meetings he was able to make, and was casually “re-appointed” along with the rest of the incumbents. And on that subject Nelson demonstrated that no solicitation for new members had ever been made – also required by the law.
So there you have it. A packed, opaque Commission doing whatever the hell it damn well pleases, and answerable to nobody, except presumably, its grossly overpaid Executive Director and his protector Bill Campbell.
On Monday I went to Fullerton’s State of the City meeting, hoping to hear the mayor deliver one of his colorful oratories. Imagine how disappointed I was to discover that Jones had done a pre-recorded video instead.
Weeeeeell, by Golly!
Buzz Kill. Video removed at the request of Davis Barber, Davis Barber Productions.
In the article, Thompson (the top overall Fullerton vote-getter in 2010) outlines his battle to improve the value and quality of public education by making a portion of teacher compensation based on performance, rather than just seniority and certificates.
Thompson is an avowed conservative in a conservative town, but he frequently finds himself voting against the other school board members on financial issues. He blames the power of the public employee unions for much of the financial challenges that our school districts face today.
So what about that “challenging the status quo” label? Chris doesn’t seem to accept furlough days and class size increases as a good deal for kids OR taxpayers. If that makes him an anomaly on the school board, then our kids really are getting swindled.
Writer and Army wife Kanani Fong provided us with her commentary on the recent controversy surrounding Deb Pauly’s remarks at a Yorba Linda protest:
One of the most disturbing inclusions in Villa Park Council Woman and OC Republican Committee Representative Deb Pauly’s careless remarks at the recent protest in Yorba Linda was that she “knew a few Marines who would….” Of course, the remainder of this threat was that she knew Marines who would act as her personal ruffians to send to a private, peaceful event and do some harm.
Her words are a gross distortion of and do great dishonor to not only The Marine Corps, but all those who serve. The image she invoked reinforces the stereotype of our armed forces as an unthinking, heartless and randomly violent Leviathan force. Nothing can be further from the truth, and it is regretful Pauly brandished this threat as though she were a drunk gunslinger in a lawless saloon.
The Marines do not work this way. Their missions are well planned, involve a great deal of intelligence gathering, planning, and consideration. Perhaps she would not have been so careless with words had she been following The Marines progress in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The fulfillment of their mission has been nothing less than exemplary, showing not only the propensity to live and work alongside them, learn their local language, make it possible for the local Islam girls to go to school, in addition to restoring a climate of entrepreneurship where the local bazaar is thriving again. I have personal knowledge of the efforts being made over there, as my own husband is an active duty soldier, who in the past provided healthcare to Afghan locals in another province, Kunar. This included taking care of many children who were burn victims, and others who had suffered serious injuries due to IEDs.
Female Engagement Team, US Marines, are specially trained teams who work with women and children in Afghanistan.
The fact of the matter is that The Marines along with the world’s armed forces are bringing the first glimmer ofopportunity since the Russians killed an estimated four million Afghans, followed by the killing of 400,000 innocents during the Taliban regime.
I know a few Marines too, and none of them would do as Pauly insinuates. They are not thugs. They are professionals, and a great many have died in the line of duty to protect the locals from thugs who are hired by AlQaeda who come from all countries to work for peanuts for an ideology that results in the stripping away of human rights, torture, and death. Need anyone want a reminder, Dexter Filkins wrotes concisely about what the soccer stadium was used for in Kabul during the Taliban regime.
This is not to say that one does not question organizations such as CAIR. If one wants to look into the checkered past of CAIR, they will find plenty of past actions that run counter to peace. It’s also fair to ask this new offshoot of CAIR: Why didn’t they join up with local organizations that have been addressing homelessness and abuse decades? And of course, as I asked on my own military blog The Kitchen Dispatch, it is entirely fair to ask if they wanted to have a first event: Why invite two controversial and suspect individuals to an area known to be politically to the right?
I do think it is important to address extreme Islam, just as it is to question the actions of a few Christians carrying out extreme acts such as the Westboro church’s hateful protests against victims of AIDS and soldiers, and most recently Rev. Terry Jones’ burning of the Quran in Florida. To this, I would ask CAIR why they did not instead invite Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum For Democracy. Dr. Jasser is a former Navy Officer, who has gone on to speak out against radical Islam. These are the types of questions that are fair to put to the organizers of the event.
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser is a former Naval Officer, physician and devout Muslim who speaks out against extreme Islam.
I am also perplexed why Ed Royce would decide to take his stand at this event. It would seem that while there are bonafide concerns about radical Islam, neither politician used common sense, or went about it in an intelligent way. Pauly’s remarks were self aggrandizing and akin to proving herself as “more a military supporter than others, and also more as a conservative Republican than others.” However, she has fallen short, has embarrassed herself and has greatly maligned the honor and professionalism of those who serve. Pauly seems to be a highly risky person for Republicans to include as it tries to remake itself into a timely and current political party.
Here’s a post we ran last summer. Why is it timely? Beacuse I noticed on Tuesday’s Board of Supervisor’s agenda an item to reappoint all of Supervisor Bill Campbell’s minions on the OC Children and Families Commission – including Hugh Hewitt – who is not legally qualified to be on the Commission in the first place.
Empires of Hypocrisy World Tour
P.S. Apparently you can join Hewitt on a cruise! If you decide to go be sure to ask him to explain the complicity of a “conservative” on a big, liberal tax-redistributionist scheme. Let us know if you get a coherent answer!
– admin
And what useful purpose does he serve there?
According to the State Health and Safety Code, and the County Code that created the “First Five Commissions” (pursuant to liberal activist Rob Reiner’s successful tax and redistribute Prop 10), the commissions are made up of people in the kiddie welfare biz.
Which brings us to Hugh Hewitt, whom Gustavo Arellano has described as a “conservative yakmouth.” We’ll leave aside the conservative tag for a bit and reflect upon the fact that Hewitt is a lawyer, talking head, writer (when not being ghost written for by Matthew J. Cunningham), etc.
Here are the minimum qualifications, per the Code, for the membership category in which Hewitt is enrolled:
A representative of a local child care resource or referral agency, or a local child care coordination group, or a local organization for prevention or early intervention for families at risk, etc…
Say what?
Since Hewitt is clearly not recognizable by the Code’s definition, we are entitled to inquire and speculate about the real reason this ‘pug is on the Commission. Could it be simply to help ratify contracts to his pals and buddies at the behest of Commission Chairman Bill Campbell, the avuncular cipher who represents the 3rd District on the County Board of Supervisors? Campbell appointed him.
That's not a road apple. That's equine feces!
And maybe he is there to help his old friend Cunningham put some sort of conservative polish on this big, liberal road apple.
A while back we did a post on the shameful fearmongering that took place adjacent to an Islamic charity event in Yorba Linda. Our own paper tiger Ed Royce was on hand to help whip up the know-nothing rubes, as was the big mouth, pea-brained Deb Pauly who somehow got herself elected to the Villa Park City Council.
Hate means never having to say you're sorry...
Pauly’s remarks were particularly inflammatory and unapologetic, consistent with her later non-apology as she tried to weasel out of what she had said. The consequence of her remarks was a big demonstration at the Villa Park City Hall in which her outraged opponents and her nutwing supporters showed up en masse to have at one another.
Got something important to say?
The OC Sheriff Department that is responsible for protecting the mean streets of Villa Park brought in the troops, order was miraculously maintained, and everybody went home feeling pretty good about themselves.
And the price tag on the OCSD bill to the City of Villa Park? A City Hall insider places the figure at $13,500. And given the potential for much greater physical and financial damage the well-heeled folks of VP may consider themselves lucky they got off so cheaply.
But my question is this: why not present the bill to Deb Pauly herself?
