Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
I’ve just learned from an inside source at Fullerton City Hall that F. Richard “Dick” Jones has resigned from the city council, effective immediately. As a matter of fact, here’s a copy of his official letter of resignation:
Well, we all saw it coming. Frankly, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.
We just received the following press release and forward it along to the Friends:
Anaheim City Council member Harry Sidhu today officially joined the race for Orange County 3rd District Supervisor to replace outgoing Bill Campbell.
“I have the experience and the know-how to make a difference,” said Sidhu from his home, the Elegant Yorba Estate. “Decisions I have made have affected hundreds of jobs in the Platinum Triangle. My campaign theme will be “jobs, jobs, jobs.” “Nobody in this race knows how to create jobs like me,” continued the two-time councilman. “Those other guys are just career politicians. I am a jobs factory.”
“In the coming months and weeks I will be organizing a vast network of volunteers who will fan out across the Third District to sell my message of “jobs, jobs, jobs” said Sidhu.
Sidhu has been endorsed by 1st District Supervisor Janet Nguyen, former State Senator the Honorable John Lewis, and former Anaheim Mayor the Honorable Curt Pringle.
The other day someone remarked that Don Bankhead has never accepted the blame for any of the bad votes he’s made since the beginning of his 23 year reign on the city council.
Twenty-three years at the helm…surely there must be at least one single thing that even the most narcissistic of government officials would accept partial blame for, right? Well, how about Fullerton’s pension crisis? Don Bankhead voted for every single pension and salary spike put in front of him over the last 23 years, and has done absolutely nothing to curb the excesses that have brought hundreds of millions in debt upon the shoulders of Fullerton Taxpayers.
Let’s see what he has to say for himself:
Who’s fault is it? Oh, it’s the stock market’s fault!
Nobody could have possibly predicted that stock investments carry an inherent risk, and that their value may not increase forever, and that by boosting these pension commitments, Bankhead was dumping ever-increasing chunks of risk onto future generations of Fullerton taxpayers. And of course the unions would never try to talk an unsuspecting buffoon into boosting their benefits at the very peak of a cycle, where smooth sailing into a rich eternity seems practically guaranteed.
Nope, none of this is evident to the dim bulb who went along with the biggest series of heists in Fullerton history. It’s all somebody else’s fault, and there’s nothing that he can do about it now.
Sadly, nobody has had the heart to tell Don Bankhead that the pain of nearly two hundred million dollars in pension debt will be shared by his very own children and grandchildren.
How’s that for a legacy?
It’s almost April. Our wise and courageous city council is already wading through wage negotiations with the city employee unions for the upcoming budget year. How did we get this far without adding up Fullerton’s total unfunded pension obligation? Oh well, here it goes…
|
Pension Plan
|
Total Liability
|
Market Value of Assets
|
Unfunded Liability
|
| Fullerton Public Safety |
$324,288,070
|
$197,444,920
|
$126,843,150
|
| Fullerton Miscellaneous |
$202,257,209
|
$136,167,010
|
$66,090,199
|
That’s a grand total of $192 million in what is essentially “pension debt” for which we have no foreseeable plan to pay, even when we include all of our future contributions and expected market gains.
The pension plans are already paying out $9 million more per year to retirees than they are taking in via contributions, so there’s no help there. But our required contributions are increasing significantly, starting this year.
With no perceivable way out of this hole, maybe it’s time to hit the road and put it all on black.
All of these numbers came from the 2010 CalPERS reports for Fullerton’s Public Safety and Miscellaneous pension plans.
The election to fill the vacancy caused by 3rd District Supervisor Bill Campbell’s 2012 departure is starting to shape up as a slugfest between Todd Spitzer and Chuck Devore.
An interesting choice, but one that may cause some to wonder if a better choice isn’t available to succeed Campbell. The departure of latter, who has been just about as liberal, big government a RINO as is humanly possible, presents an opportunity for some real small government conservatism.
Enter Todd Spitzer. Fired by the DA last August for, well forget what for, it hardly matters anymore, Spitzer brings a huge campaign bank and an equally monstrous Board of Supervisors legacy as one of the green lighters of the disastrous retroactive 3@50 that has saddled the County with a huge unfunded pension liability. When he was on the Board, Spitzer developed a well-earned reputation as a megalomanaic media hound and shameless self promoter. He’s backed every measure designed to separate the police from accountability for what they do. The unions, particularly the cops, just love Todd to death. He’s one of theirs.
Then there’s Chuck Devore, the former assemblyman, whose earnestness and willingness to engage his constituents is commendable; he’s also been pretty good on fiscal issues although apart from budget time he wasn’t able to do much in Sacto. Devore also believes that permitting gays to get married will open the floodgates of Gomorrah as the degenerates seek to marry their pets and potted plants. Also Chuck’s neo-con blather is pretty typical of the misdirection of American foreign policy. Fortunately as a supervisor the last two points are virtually irrelevant.
How would Devore do as one of the overseers of the vast County welfare machine? Hard to say. He has zero experience on a five person executive board where politicking happens every day and where the shifting sands of alliances make things a little uncertain over a four-year term. Spitzer has been there and done that. He’s a known quantity. And that may be his biggest problem.
The really fun part about this potential match-up is the way the repuglicans will break. One wing of OC repuglicanism, the Schroeder-Rackauckas-Mike Carona crowd will back anybody but Spitzer and will do it loudly and financially. Others will no doubt follow Spitzer – like Supervisor Pat Bates and the unspeakable Janet Nguyen have already appeared to do. And Spitzer has signed up ‘pug lobbyist John Lewis to work his camapign – and that speaks volumes right there. How will the Campbell/Pringle club go? I don’t know. But the Third District has been their little playpen, and Spitzer has ruined their plans to hoist and foist the mannequin Carolyn Cavecche.
The possibility of two well-supported republicans may suck in a Dem from Irvine or Anaheim to take a shot at the brass ring and maybe even take the top spot in a primary. And then there’s the clown-like Will-o’-the-Wisp, Harry Sidhu, who may just try another ego trip even though he has zero chance of ever being elected anything again, even in a district in which he actually lives.
Then there’s the fact of decennial redistricting. Some lines are bound to redrawn, but which ones? Will it matter?
Stay tuned and enjoy the fireworks!
Well, sure you do. Sally can help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeH14bh6ciUFFFF has been trying to obtain the police report filed after several Fullerton police officers conducted a narcotics raid on the wrong house and held an innocent pastor and his family at gunpoint last year (read the story here).
Since the family presented a copy of the police report to the council at a public meeting, that document is now undeniably a public record. But the cops and the city administrators love to keep secrets when they blow it, and thus have deployed one ornery city attorney to block out any sunshine on this case. God forbid the public learns about the mistakes it’s own cops are making.
But here’s where it gets weird. In this email below, the city attorney justifies keeping the report secret by admitting that crimes were committed when the cops entered the wrong house with guns drawn!
Travis,
After reviewing the police records in a light most favorable to the Nordells if the entry made by the officers were unlawful they may have been victims of several crimes, namely assault, trespass and a civil rights violation. If the officers did enter with guns drawn, they more than likely experienced the fear that goes accompanied with such entry. While, we are not acknowledging any of those unlawful acts occurred it does establish that they are victims of a crime. As victims of a crime they were the only party entitled to obtain the police report under Gov Code 6254 (f).
Kathya M. Oliva
Jones & Mayer
Let’s go over that again. Did our city just deny a public records request by confirming that its officers committed assault, trespass and civil rights violations? Pretty much. Admitting guilt to cover your tracks is a novel approach to criminal defense.
FFFF’s response? If there was a crime committed against the family, the incident should have been referred to the DA for prosecution. Was it? If not, covering up the report because there “may have” been a crime doesn’t hold legal water.
Our question was met with a friendly invitation to sue the city in Superior Court…which is actually a great idea. I can’t think of a better way to bring more attention to this issue.
For the sake of fairness and in the interest of full disclosure, here is the full list of Fullerton School District’s highest paid employees, including administrators. Naturally, administrators top the list. As you can see, the list is considerably expanded.
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It’s a good thing that FFFF is recording the board meetings of the Fullerton School District. I just found out that Superintendent Mitch Hovey orders the district’s own audio recordings to be destroyed 30 days after each meeting.
How’s that for transparency and accountability?
Anyway, here’s the video from last night’s meeting. All of the recordings are available under the FSD Videos tab above.
Scroll ahead 45 minutes and listen to the union spokesperson pat a few fellow teachers on the back for using one of their valuable weekends to attend a conference at a hotel on educational topics, including… retirement benefits!
How selfless.
Remember State Controller John Chaing’s review of “Selected Redevelopment Agencies” in California?
His office’s five week study of a sample of 18 agencies (Fullerton was not in the sample of agencies) in the state has released a report:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/eo_pressrel_9789.html
The authors have come to some disturbing, but not unexpected conclusions beginning with “The Controller found no reliable means to measure the impact of redevelopment activity on job growth because RDAs either do not track them or their methodologies lack uniformity and are often arbitrary.” No one who follows the travails of redevelopment in our state should be surprised by this revelation.
The full report is replete with examples of agencies in different cities improperly filing required reports or not filing them at all as well as using funds improperly. Chiang concludes that “The lack of accountability and transparency is a breeding ground for waste, abuse, and impropriety…”.
Even this short term study confirms what many people in Fullerton and elsewhere have maintained for years, that redevelopment law in California has allowed local agencies to abuse their mandates with impunity from the very start with the dubious establishment of the areas themselves.
“The report notes that the 18 RDAs share no consensus in defining a blighted area.” The definition of blight was, of course, at the very crux of challenges against the unjustified expansion of the Fullerton Merged Redevelopment Area. It is encouraging to see the state government challenging agencies to define the blight in their cities in clear terms instead of allowing laughable images of gum wrappers and aluminum cans in a vacant lot to stand as justification for the wholesale diversion of tax dollars away from vital city services.
