Those fine folks at Reason made a nice little documentary on FFFF and our role in exposing corruption and brutality within the Fullerton Police Department while the conventional media went along with the cover-up. Here it is:
The Old Boy Network of the Fullerton establishment held a fundraiser for their old boys at the Villa Del Sol the other night. We will be sharing our own video later if our boys in the White Van ever recover from their serial ingestion of raw opium poppies that admin now grows in his backyard.
In the meantime, here’s a story on the event from Marisa Gerber of the OC Weekly. She mordantly describes the anti-recall attendees:
a rather homogeneous crew of sexagenarians and older — gathered at a pricey fundraiser tonight to support three beleaguered city leaders.
As usual the best quote of the night come from high school graduate and architect of the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department, Pat McKinley:
He can handle it, he said, adding that what frustrated him most was hearing people “who probably never graduated high school” bad-mouth the mayor, who used to be a doctor.
Oh, oh. The literary She Bear who gets $215,000 a year courtesy of the taxpayer for doing nothing is taking shots at the academic accomplishments of the recallers. Bad idea Chief. Some folks might start asking about the scholastic level of your police force!
Remember the useless OC Register tool David Whiting, who just couldn’t bend his moth ball size brain around the concept of a killer cop? And remember this pathetic load of road apples in which Whiting firmly attached his eagerly quivering lips to Doc HeeHaw’s withered undercarriage?
Now enjoy The OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley (a real reporter, by the way) as he tunes up the OC Register’s hackling, here. There seems to be a long tradition of pro-cop stoogery at the the rag, er, I mean the Reg, and Whiting is the latest wearer of the crown.
The central theme of Moxley’s piece is the notion that members of the Fourth Estate have a moral obligation to challenge those in authority, not lick their, um, boots. Poor Lou Ponsi is forced by his boss to write fluff pieces. Whiting has no such excuse; he seems perfectly content to pet and pamper those in authority, no matter how little he actually knows about what’s really going on.
If the Register can’t do its job a journalistic endeavor, I say it’s time to pull the plug. Who will join me in a boycott?
IMPORTANT UPDATE: This post was published a little over a year ago. The title, “Just A Matter of Time” was spot on; another example of what happens when city funding for things like trees and such get diverted to things like public employee pensions and the obscene debts that they cause:
Original Post, September 8, 2010:
In allegedly tree-friendly Fullerton, trees are more a liability than an asset when the city has no funds, or no inclination to prune the trees. Let’s consider the case of Valencia Dr. (Redevelopment area, of course) between Harbor Blvd. and Highland Ave., where the residents of this block, which features 70 year old jacaranda trees have recently witnessed a near fatal accident when a huge limb broke off and almost squashed an innocent woman and her two kids while she was driving down the street.
Unfortunately for barrio residents and motorists, there’s no money in the Redevelopment budget to trim the trees after the Agency blew its wad buying up all the low income apartments just 2 blocks to the west. And similarly, the City blew its wad on its public employee retirement plan that pays guys like Fullerton City Council candidate Pat McKinley and former disastrous Planning Director, F. Paul Dudley, over a hundred thousand bucks per year just to stay at home and watch “As the World Turns” and “ALF” reruns.
It’s only a matter of time before both the jacaranda trees along Valencia and the public employee’s retirement fund comes smashing down causing loss of life, liberty and the of pursuit happiness.
It’s been a year since the election of 2010. But let’s take a moment to reflect upon those who were endorsed by the public safety unions in Fullerton:
Right. Bankhead, McKinley and Roland Chi. What a crew!
Bankhead, the brain shift-slip octogenarian; McKinkley, the bad cop who littered the Fullerton Police Department with thugs, goons, pickpockets, pill-popping con men, sexual predators, perjurers, and of course murderers; and Roland Chi, the food poisoner from Garden Grove who only escaped prosecution by handing over his DNA to the DA.
Like the unionistas themselves, huge pension recipients Bankhead and McKinley could be safely counted on to curry favor with labor; and oh, they tried so hard after the brazen Kelly Thomas murder at the hands of six Fullerton cops to protect their campaign benefactors. Roland Chi was just a contemptible scofflaw who never should have come out from behind the rancid squid display in the first place.
And all three were safe bets to impose the annual and illegal 10% tax on your water, a tax that goes to pay their own pensions!
And folks this is why we need a recall!
Word on the street is that the Three Desiccated Dinosaurs are arranging a little theater for tonight’s Council meeting.
It seems that they are jes’ goldarn sick and tired of being told what horses’ asses they are. Well, I say if the horseshoe fits, wear it.
Anyhow it looks like the old boys are organizing a display of affection directed to themselves by their cronies in the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, etc., in order to suck up the 30 minutes now allocated for public comment by Mayor HeeHaw.
Well, alrightee, then. Since the Three Blind Mice need to gin up a claque to shower praise on the indefensible this is really sort of pathetic. They must be alarmed by the fact that nobody in Fullerton under 65 years old supports their miserable misrule.
So get there early and get your speaker’s forms turned in. And get ready for some real fun!
The history of Redevelopment failures should weigh heavily in the upcoming recall campaign. The disasters and boondoggles are many, but none so painful, perhaps, than the Poisoned Park. This is a saga of utter incompetence with zero accountability; in other words, business as usual for our illustrious City Councilmen Bankhead and Jones. McPension gets off this hook because he wasn’t part of this calamity, although you could bet your bottom dollar he would have gone along with it, too.
This post was originally published 27 months ago. The public is still fenced off from the contamination.
– Joe Sipowicz
It was supposed to be a park. That’s how they pitched it over at City Hall. The only problem was that nobody asked for a park. And nobody outside City Hall wanted a park. Commonsense could have predicted the future of a park.
We are referring, of course, to the Union Pacific Park on West Truslow Avenue, the sad history of which has been well documented on these pages; and one of many in a conga line of Redevelopment disasters perpetrated by Terry Galvin and Gary Chalupsky of the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency- in this case aided and abetted by Susan Hunt the lady dragon of the Community Services Department, and former City Manager Jim Armstrong, mastermind of a million Fullerton failures. We have also stressed the fact that so far nobody has been held accountable for this miserable failure and waste of millions of tax dollars. No one.
Last Tuesday, during the public comments portion of the City Council Show, a longtime resident who lives on Truslow Avenue, across from The Great Disaster spoke about the problems the City had created when they decided to bestow a park upon unwilling residents. Below we share the video of the residents statement, as well as the response by City Manager Chris Myers. The video is a bit long, but well worth the watch. Borrachos, meth-heads, gang members. Who else did the City think was going to frequent this park?
In the end Myers admits that the park is being shut down – toilets closed, tables removed, fences going up, etc. You can decide for yourselves if can detect any contrition in his voice for the complete and unarguable waste of the millions spent on acquiring, designing, and building this park THAT IS ONLY FIVE YEARS OLD.
Now the city wants to create a “reuse committee,” ostensibly to figure out how to clean up the mess they created.
Here’s a free bit of advice from FFFF: SELL THE PROPERTY ASAP! And let’s not forget a complete investigation into this entire disaster with accountability for the people who created this mess. Perhaps the three councilperson who don’t have their fingerprints all over this debacle, Quirk, Keller, and Nelson, will be willing to demand accountability.
Another disastrous decision maker, City Manager James L. Armstrong, that’s who.
From a 1993 LA Times article, here.
Seems as if the mass exodus of LAPD cops gave McKinley the opportunity to take his pick of his former colleagues and put them on the streets of Fullerton.
Fullerton: a veritable jobs program for ex-LAPD cops. And it’s interesting to connect the dots in this Bilblical succession of miscreants: Armstrong hires McKinley; McKinly hires Cicinelli; the cop who never should have been on the street bashes in Kelly Thomas’ face like a piñata.
We’ve written about the control freak Armstrong before, perched as he was, atop an incompetent pyramid of his own construction. When Shakespeare said, “the evil that men do lives after them” he said a mouthful.
Here’s a copy of a letter to The Fullerton Observer by our State Assemblyman, Chris Norby, who puts the lie to the notion that Tony Bushala got some oct of subsidy in his lease deal with the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency. It’s funny how those who have routinely handed out millions in corporate welfare to their pals and cronies have chosen to attack Tony for actually paying to renovate the City-owned building!
Well, such are politics. The anti-recall crew are incapable of defending the Three Dessicated Dinosaurs so they have to attack the messenger of the Recall. Anyway, here’s Norby’s letter:
Santa Fe Depot Redevelopment Deal the Best We Could Get
I hesitate to get in the middle of your lively give-and-take with Tony Bushala (Mid-Sept Observer page 9 “Redevelopment Foe Also a Recipient,” and the Early October page 2 Rebuttal ).
However, since I was one of five Fullerton City Councilmembers (including Don Bankhead, Molly McClanahan, Buck Catlin, and Richard Ackerman) voting to approve the old Santa Fe Depot lease, allow me to defend our action.
That lease was the only way to save the historic structure from demolition and make an outdated building commercially viable.
In 1987, the Santa Fe Railroad sold the depot to a private developer who then sought a demolition permit. To avert its razing, the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency acquired the depot and sought bids for those who could preserve, restore and operate it. Agency staff recommended that the Bushala Brothers, Inc. (BBI) be awarded the project.
BBI was the only firm not requesting public subsidies. It offered a $41,000 up front payment to the agency plus $340,000 to restore the building to its original condition. As BBI had just completed an award-winning restoration of the old Ice House (just across the tracks from the depot) it was well qualified. When the depot restoration actually cost $540,000, the overruns were covered by BBI.
BBI also applied for and received the depot’s recognition on the National Registration of Historic Buildings and Places.
The monthly lease payment to the agency is $1,326, which is adjusted annually for inflation. While the Observer contends this is below market rate, it was the best offer we had at the time to restore this historic building. In addition, BBI pays $12,000 annually in building maintenance and for all property taxes and insurance.
The agency retained all rental income from Amtrak for the waiting room and ticketing areas. The rest of the depot was largely baggage storage rooms and an abandoned loading dock – areas difficult to lease out.
I have been critical of redevelopment agencies’ abuse of eminent domain, handouts to developers and diversion of property taxes from public schools. However, I have voted for agency-funded public projects (roads, parks, libraries) and for the preservation of historic buildings, such as the Santa Fe Depot.
One could argue that an old depot was not worth the public investment. However, given the council’s commitment to save the structure, I believe this was the best deal we had.
Chris Norby Fullerton Current California Assemblymember and former Fullerton City Council & Redevelopment Agency Member, 1984-2002
Here’s an eye-opening story from last winter by Greg Sebourn about one of the most hare-brained Redevelopment boondoggles ever proposed. The fact that it was suggested by Don Bankhead a mere six weeks after his umpteenth re-election is ample evidence that either 1) his mental gears have slipped completely; or 2) he really never had any judgment in the first place. You decide if you really want this king-sized boob in office any more.
– Joe Sipowicz
Mayor Pro Tem Don Bankhead seeks to use Redevelopment Agency funds, originally set aside for combating blight and providing low-income housing, to prop up the Fullerton Civic Light Opera (FCLO).
In an article penned by Eric Marchese of FullertonStories.com, Bankhead indicated he is “…investigating the use of Redevelopment Agency funding to assist the Duncans and FCLO.”
What would prompt this Republican and self-proclaimed conservative council member with more than 22 years of elected service under his belt to conclude a necessity for a taxpayer bailout of the FCLO?
Bankhead was quoted as saying, “It would be a blow, a terrible loss, to the city if [the Duncans] can’t figure out some way of saving [the company].”
And therefore taxpayers must somehow bailout this private endeavor??
What about the public employees who have taken significant cuts in pay (and service hours) to help shore up the financial debacle created by a city council with their collective heads in the sand? Should the Redevelopment Agency also bail out these other departments and public employees?
The short answer: NO! Before the Redevelopment Agency existed taxpayer funds were meant to go toward all of our public services from engineering and education to public safety. But after the Redevelopment Agency was created and expanded, taxpayer funds were redirected to combat blight and fund low-income housing. Meanwhile, our infrastructure lays in ruin from continuous neglect and habitual misappropriation of public funds.
If we use Redevelopment Agency funds to bail out the FCLO we will have effectively robbed all of our public agencies so that a select few can be entertained.
I cannot think of a more egregious abuse of public funds except perhaps spending $6-million to move a McDonald’s restaurant 200 feet or borrowing $29-million to evict low-income families.
Does the recall effort begin now or do taxpayers wait for further damage to be done at their expense?