The other day I used a super secret password to utilize the Fullerton School District’s wireless network, for no particular reason. While connected, I tried to access some of my favorite and least favorite local blogs and news sites. Here’s what I discovered from behind the FSD firewall:
LiberalOC blog – allowed
Red County blog – allowed
Voice of OC blog – allowed
Orange Juice Blog – allowed
OC Register blogs – allowed
Fullerton Observer – allowed
Friends for Fullerton’s Future – BLOCKED
It appears that Friends for Fullerton’s Future has been singularly snuffed from teacher and staff access at the Fullerton School District. Now why wouldn’t the administration want anyone to read our blog?
Maybe they didn’t appreciate our cold look at the ramifications of heavy child-Internet immersion back in 2009. Or maybe they were offended by our unraveling of the Fullerton Collaborative conflict-o-sphere. What if they were upset about blogger Chris Thompson’s spectacular ascension to the Fullerton School Board?
"War is a game that is played with a smile."
Whatever the reason, things are starting to look pretty political over at the Superintendent’s office. OK we get it, Doctor Hovey.
Today the ever-increasingly pathetic OC Register ran an editorial trumpeting the creation of something called the Association of California Cities, a homespun effort to replace the California League of Cities. The Register wants us to believe that anything that replaces the League is a good thing. To which I respond: not so fast.
Here’s a quote from the article, the first couple of paragraphs dutifully and immediately passed along verbatim by Red County repuglican flunky Matthew J. Cunningham:
Orange County cities often have stood for sensible, taxpayer-friendly municipal reform in a state where fiscal sanity is the exception rather than the rule. So, while we applaud the 21 O.C. cities that left the League of California Cities (and its Orange County division) and started their own Association of California Cities Orange County, we also want to ask, “What took you so long?”
We’ve long had a beef with the Sacramento-based League, which is essentially a taxpayer-funded (dues come from city coffers) lobbying organization that tilts toward big government. Currently, the League is battling Gov. Jerry Brown’s sensible plan to close down the state’s 425 redevelopment agencies – those fiscally profligate entities that abuse eminent domain and dole out corporate welfare to companies that build development projects hatched in City Hall.
I can’t remember any OC cities that “stood for sensible, taxpayer friendly municipal reform…” so that’s a load of manure right there. But notice the anti-Redevelopment hook there at the end of the second paragraph. Cunningham obviously did. But he didn’t bother passing along the very next tidbit from the editorial:
Certainly, one finds support for redevelopment among Orange County officials, including some whose cities have fled the League…
Well Jesus H.Crisco, that’s the understatement of the freaking year! Is there a single municipality in OC that isn’t addicted to Redevelopment like a low grade junkie is to black tar heroin?
Maybe I can do facebook for the Association @ $200 buck an hour!
The Rag pathetically goes on to cite as some sort of local OC accomplishment the totally discredited Anaheim “Freedom Friendly” policy of “upzoning” property, a conspiracy that put dozens of businesses out of business, hundreds of workers out of work, that was engineered to produce vast profits for Kurt Pringle’s clients, and that has left the Anaheim city scape cratered, dark and dismal. The editorialists who are employed by The Register may think we can’t tell the difference, but boy are they wrong.
I am somebody! At last.
Of course you can check out the leadership of the new Association. It doesn’t inspire any sort of confidence. In the roster we find a sad collection of small town political hacks, bag men (and women), and poseurs whose only true resentment of the League is likely based on the fact that it precludes them from cashing in on anything. Oh, yeah we know the sort: the brain dead, yet greedy city council members who make up the boards of things like the OCTA, the Vector Control District, and the Sanitation District: just the perfect sort of drones who can be manipulated to direct “policy” in the direction of the Pringles, Dick Ackermans and John Lewises of the oh, so conservative Orange County.
Cunningham claims the inaugural dinner was the scene of near euphoria. Eu-effing-phoria. For him and people like him who cash in on government largess there was probably every reason to feel giddy.
The real question is why should we poor plantation hands substitute one collection of overseers for another?
Should the city actively seek to suppress any evidence of harassment by city staff from the court record when prosecuting code violations? That’s exactly what’s happening in the strange case of an allegedly overgrown fig tree in south Fullerton.
A few weeks ago this woman, henceforth known as “The Fig Tree Lady,” came before council to tell her side of the story in a code enforcement case against her fig tree, which was allegedly hanging over a public sidewalk last year. The Fig Lady accused city staff of singling her out for criminal prosecution as retribution for her embarrassing victory over the city attorney (Jones & Mayer) several years prior.
That same day, the city attorney had filed a motion in court to suppress any evidence of harassment by City employees.
The fig lady’s guilt or innocence will be decided in court, and is not really the point here. But why is the city using it’s legal muscle to suppress any evidence that it’s code enforcement officers might be harassing citizens?
What if this woman did have evidence that the city attorney and staff were giving her case “special treatment”? Shouldn’t she be able to make her case to the judge? Is someone using the city’s expensive legal resources to bully and silence this outspoken critic in some sort of personal vendetta as the Fig Lady claims?
Exhibit A: The overgrown fig tree
If the motion is granted, the woman would not even be allowed to submit this current photo of her tree (courtesy of Greg Sebourn) as evidence that the situation has been corrected.
Obviously the tree is not a threat anymore. Why is the city attorney still spending our money to silence and prosecute this woman? And are they really worried that she could prove her claims of harassment?
A while back we shared a classic lackey moment when Matthew J. Cunningham gave former Anaheim Mayor-for-Hire and all-round sleaze Kurt Pringle a vigorous lingual lather up.
Hey, those cigars don't pay for themselves...
Not to be out done by an amateur, The Register’s in-house boot-lick-name-dropper Frank Mickadeit decided to do him one better, and offered up a sloppy tongue-job to the man the State’s Attorney general found be conflicted in his serial roles as lobbyist, mayor, and Boondoggle HSR Chairman.
Now, we all know that Pringle is and always has been in it for Pringle. But good old Frank seems perfectly willing to pass along the nonsense that Pringle is out of elective politics to focus on his business. No. Pringle is out of elective politics because there is no longer any elective office that wouldn’t be a detriment to his business.
Of course we hear from former Anaheim garbage hauler Bill Taormina, supporter of the lamest of the lame Lorri Galloway, who believes that Pringle should be California’s governor or maybe a senator. Taormina has millions of reasons to praise Pringle, but there is no more moral underpinning for his support of Pringle than there was for his giving Galloway three fake addresses in his various rental units so she could run a fraudulent campaign for County supervisor.
Which leads to the conclusion that the sooner the pathetic Register goes under for the third and final time, the better.
Good news for OC Republicans who frequent blogs: looks like my buddy Chip Hanlon let my other buddy Allan Bartlett post again. Sha-zam!
Bartlett’s near re-inaugural post makes for entertaining reading. It’s all about some dust up between Mike and Mary and a conservative drinkies hour with Chuck Devore as the featured attraction. Now I personally can’t imagine anything more dreary than drinks and Chuck Devore droning on (except maybe no drinks and Chuck Devore droning on), but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.
What’s really fun is the comments thread where the insiders have at it.
Damn, do we finally have a fun Republican blog in town?
It looks like our City Council is all set to discuss the topic of outside dining on Tuesday. Again.
It seems like only yesterday that the council handed over a public sidewalk to the Florentine Mob under the guise of an outdoor dining lease. The ink wasn’t even dry when Florentine started erecting a permanent, enclosed structure on our sidewalk! The Fullerton Shadow wrote all about it, here.
Sit down and grab some sidewalk, brother...
In 2007 the City gave the whole idea of outdoor dining permits second thought. But now with this gosh darn recession a-lingering the subject is cropping up again.
Well, somebody better go to this meeting to make sure no more public property is given away. After all “Dick” Jones and Don Bankhead chose to look the other way before, just to protect their incompetent staff. And Pat McKinley’s got lots of friends downtown, right?
At the OCTA Board meeting a couple weeks ago, 4th District County Supervisor Shawn Nelson lofted a proposal that the members of this fairly opaque (but very rich) agency who attend the meetings should only receive their stipend if they attend the entire meeting. Nelson’s idea was that in order to get that stipend, someone ought to actually earn it.
Well there’s a novel concept. Getting folks on the government dime to actually put in their time.
It seems that OCTA, and many similarly under-scrutinized agency and special districts are plagued by members who show up for only part of the meeting to qualify for their stipend, then disappear. And certain pols are most notorious for this behavior – more on them later.
Well, naturally Nelson’s plan went over like flatulence in church. You can’t expect the dope addicts to voluntarily give up their smack, now can you? But our thanks to Nelson anyway for doing the right thing. And to those who continue to rip-off the public: shame on you.
This is a recollection of the day when 11 Fullerton PD units saved us from a plastic gunfight.
We were living on the North side of Dorothy Lane at this time. I would not have allowed this if I were home, but my son Riley and his three buddies had an Airsoft war in the front yard. There was one kid with an automatic Airsoft rifle and the other 3 had cheesy plastic handguns with orange tips.
My very cool neighbor Paul, who was working in his front yard, told me later that he knew the cops were going to come because some of the people driving by were watching pretty intently.
Obviously, a dumb idea. At about dusk, three or four Fullerton cops came screeching up, pulled their guns and told the boys to freeze, drop their weapons, etc… I’m fine with all of this. They’ve got to protect the community. Within a minute or two there were 11 units on scene. One of the boys’ girlfriends pulled up while it was happening and took these pictures.
At that point, my neighbor, who is about 56, very articulate and grew up in the neighborhood, told one of the cops near him that the boys were just playing airsoft and that it’s OK.
Even after the cops were informed that it was an airsoft game, they made the boys put their hands on their heads, back toward them, lie on their stomachs, handcuff them and put them in one of the cars. My neighbor began chewing this cop’s ear that he could not believe they were not putting an end to this event, now that they knew what was going on.
The 8oz clear plastic guns were lying on the ground near where they had the boys lie down. There were real guns pointed at the four boys the whole time. After the cops got all the kids in the car, they sent officers with shotguns down either side of my house, into the backyard and then asked for permission to search the house… which my handcuffed son gave them.
When I talked to some higher ranking guy at the station the next day, he told me that he once was on a bust in Fullerton where guys were out front with Airsoft guns while there were real bad guys with real guns, pistol whipping the homeowners inside. He declined to get me the details of that incident.
I will say this: Once the boys were in the back of the car and the crime scene was secured, my son told me that the police did NOT condescend to them, berate them or generally act like power hungry jackasses. I was told that the boys having their shirts off had something to do with the reaction. It seems that speed freaks are particularly fond of going shirtless. Well, so are boys that practice for Eastside’s High school Worship Group in my garage when it’s 90 degrees outside. Plus, it’s more fun to shoot somebody with an Airsoft gun when their shirt is off.
This happened more than a year ago and I was torn as to whether or not to allow FFFF to post the photos. After this much time has passed, I figured it was worthwhile just to point out that Fullerton is adequately staffed to have 11 units show up to a plastic gun fight.
Tonight’s Martha Montelongo radio show will feature author and editorialist Steven Greenhut, who was attacked this week by the International Association of Firefighters and painted as an evil front man in the battle to rein in ridiculous public employee pensions.
Here is the new IAFF commercial, which was also featured on a segment of some left wing thing called “The ED Show.” The ad replays truthful statements of Steven Greenhut along withJohn Stossel and Glen Beck interlaced with video of fire heroes falling down and putting people on stretchers.
The underlying theme of conflict between logic and emotion is believed to be intentional.
Tune in to KRLA AM 870 or KRLA870.com tonight at 11 pm to catch Greenhut and a few others on the Martha Montelongo Show.
On August 29th, 2010 at 4:28 am a three-alarm fire was reported in a building structure with six businesses at 306 N. Raymond Ave. About 80 firefighters from the Fullerton Fire Department, Brea Fire Department, Anaheim Fire Department and the Orange County Fire Authority were dispatched to bring the fire under control.
Fullerton Fire Marshal Julie Kunze told the Register “The structure itself is a total loss. We’re estimating the structure itself at probably $2.2 million with unknown content.”
The fire department has taped off portions of the parking lot, as charred debris covered the ground around the badly burned building. The roof had completely collapsed.
That was six months ago. Today the charred building is still charred and the site is now a real eyesore. How long should it take for the city to issue a notice to abate the public nuisance?
If this mess were in Sunny Hills, would it be any different?
