Behind the Badge on the Chopping Block?

We are notoriously bad at getting our story out…

Next Tuesday’s Council meeting brings us another Budget Show, one more in a line of footling meetings strung out like faux pearls on a cheap necklace.  This one is particularly entertaining since it acknowledges a big structural deficit that the suggested cost savings will do almost nothing to correct: “modest” revenue increases are broadly suggested, but apart from some fee increases and one-time sale of “surplus” property nothing meaningful is proposed. Obviously the recommendation for a utility tax or a sales tax increase will be sprung like a rabbit out of the magician’s hat at the last moment.  

One entertaining bit of the agenda memo is the inclusion of a small table identifying some of City Manager Allan Roeder’s “loose sofa change,” giving the impression that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Roeder regrets his previous offhand dismissal of a $50,000 per year contract that accomplishes nothing as not worthy of councilmanic attention. Of course I am referring to the ridiculously conceived and suspiciously ill-managed “Behind the Badge” agreement that was improperly contracted by Wild Ride Joe Felz in the first place.

Well, good for Roeder, even though desperate times call for desperate measures And it takes a lot of desperation for a City bureaucrat to even tacitly acknowledge the expendability of a contract. The irony here is thick. It is the exploding pension cost of the Fullerton police Department that is breaking our bank. Even as we pay for the cops to peddle their dopey PR right back at us. 

16 Replies to “Behind the Badge on the Chopping Block?”

  1. Thanks to FFFF for bringing the Behind the Bullshit rip-off to light and sticking with it. We may get this monster killed yet. Then watch other cities follow suit.

      1. Try $50,000. A year. For over four years. I know math isn’t your strong suit and the GED only requires rudimentary multiplication, so I will help: that’s over $200,000 – completely wasted.

        You may now put the dunce cap back on and retreat to your little corner chair.

  2. I wonder if Ms. Fitzgerald will just happen to have a “prior commitment so she can again avoid having to explain herself?

  3. Put Lieutenant Goodrich back in charge of PD propaganda. He’s got a way with words. And nothing else to do.

  4. This is a start. Looking at the website “Transparent California”, I was shocked to see how many people worked for Fullerton Parks and Recreation, where the median salary is $50,000 a year. Joe Felz stepped from director/ coordinator/head bottle washer of Fullerton Parks and Recreation to Fullerton city manager and it seems he must have had many good friends who wanted promotions to what? jobs with accompanying salaries and good friends/relatives in need of same jobs. As a Fullerton lifer, maybe I benefited from Fullerton’s park and recs service about 5 times, and I usually had to pay a fee to get these benefits. What exactly are the services rendered by this department that directly impacts the quality of life for the people whose tax dollars support it?

    1. True. If it was, who did it? Not the Council. And that would be wrong, too. It’s a policy issue – just like it was when Felz did it on his own – behind closed doors.

    1. “I support former Fullerton Police Chief Michael Sellers” – can you imagine a more asinine page/title that doesn’t involve people dressing up as furry animals?

        1. But what are they supporting? His sick-leave turned into disability bonanza? His taking a vacation when the Kelly Thomas crisis was occurring? His presiding over the FPD Culture of Corruption? What, I wonder.

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