A Tale Told By An Idiot

Ed Bargas speaks. Sort of.

Last week the Voice of OC published an opinion piece by a gentleman named Ed Bargas. Mr. Bargas is head of the civilian employee union in Fullerton, and if he wrote this drivel, then I’m the Pope.

You can read about how Bargas believes Fullerton is at a crossroads – meaning that the City leaders must choose between the welfare of his union members and the citizenry at large. Of course he doesn’t put it like that. He complains that the City Council is embracing the conservatism of the ’80s in which government is viewed with suspicion, even hostility. To this all I can suggest to Mr. Bargas is to read the pages of this blog, and after reviewing the litany of incompetence, corruption and cover-ups, reconsider whether or not suspicion, even hostility is justified.

Bargas makes the mistake of starting of his long list of threatened city functions with public safety, forgetting to remind his readers that it is the very public safety pensions laid out by supine politicians like Ahmad Zahra and Jesus Silva & Co. that have brought financial crisis to Fullerton.

Of course the Big Problem is lack of revenue, and Mr. Bargas was no doubt a cheerleader for the ill-fated Measure S on last November’s ballot that went down in flames, falling victim to honesty and common sense. Maybe he thinks that somehow the new majority of responsible councilmembers can be persuaded to try that scam again. Well good luck with that.

53 Replies to “A Tale Told By An Idiot”

  1. Mr. Sipowicz, thank you for responding to the city employee unions bonehead blather!

    He steps in it (crap) pretty good!

    It makes perfect sense why the city should subcontract all the city’s landscape maintenance to a private company.

    1. Dan Lancaster is a piece of shit. Typical greedy “fire hero.”

      Dan, perhaps the reason we can’t afford nice things is because cunts like you are pilfering our treasury. We could follow the Placentia model a d kick scumbags like you to the curb forever. The millions we would save each year is enormous.

      Maybe we could fix some potholes if we didn’t have overpaid and over pensioned goons like you on the dole:

      https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2019/fullerton/daniel-l-lancaster/

        1. He even said “100 percent” after Whitaker explained that Hero Pensions are the biggest driver behind the problem. Clearly Mr. Lancaster is not the sharpest tool in the shed but he likes to play with fire.

          1. No, Captain Dan Lancaster is a fucking imbecile – and if he’s the leader of the fire union good squad imagine how fucking stupid the rest of them are. Lancaster is ostensibly the smartest one among them and if that’s the high-water mark of Fullerton’s finest then we are in deep deep shit.

            This is why the firewhiners want the City to contract with OCFA so badly. It’s an instant pay raise for them at the expense of the rest of us.

    2. Fullerton public employee safety unions used Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir. That’s all we need to know. Their goal has always been to extract maximum pay and benefits for minimum effort through any means necessary including blackmail, extortion, coercive force, stalking, threats and lawsuits.

      Captain Lancaster needs to 1) shave off the porn mustache and 2) pick better friends and associates if you want to be known as honest, dependable and hard-working.

  2. Maybe Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo can donate some of her time (pension $80K/year) to help her brethren out. Better than sitting around throwing stones at anyone who talks about pension reform. Or any kind of reform. She doesn’t appear to be disabled or old enough to “retire”. With the money she receives from the city and the marijuana special interest groups, Maintenance Dept., or Code enforcement could use a hand or two. Come on Kitty, put yourself money where you mouth is.

    Don’t believe me? Check it out here: https://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/search/?q=Vivian+Jaramillo+

  3. Voice of OC is a mouthpiece for union gasbags. Why do they keep printing this trash completely unchecked?

    1. B’Cause the Voice of OC is virtually completely funded by the OCEA aka Orange County Employees Association. The largest public employee union in Orange County.

    2. No, this was an “opinion piece” not written by, although submitted by Ed Bargas. They will accept these from anybody although I presume there is a required level of grammar and spelling.

  4. Using Transparent California for Fullerton employees salaries and pensions, I am shocked to see they earn six figure salaries and many get 80% of their salaries as pension. A few years ago city of Fullerton mixed public monies and private developers’ dollars to build affordable housing so it’s teachers, fire fighters and police could afford to buy their homes in Fullerton. A low income apartment building was torn down displacing 140 working poor residents to make room for this affordable housing. Why should people earning $100,000 or more a year get a great deal on buying a house because they are public servants? Now Mr. Bargas whines his services deserve higher compensation. What unique skills or education is required to become a civilian employee of Fullerton? This is not about 1980’s economic conservatism and distrust of government. It is about a minor, union leader using his union dues to get pay raises for himself and his clique by backing any politician running for or remaining on city of Fullerton’s city council.

  5. This slob has a real issue with people who say “government is the problem” yet he offers no rebuttal. Instead, he lists all the problems that were caused by Fullerton’s government. If there were ever an example of gaslighting, this is it.

    Get this clown off the stage.

  6. FMEF union membership has been decimated by police and fire union largess. Why is Bargas defending the safety goons who suck all of Fullerton’s budget away from parks, maintenance and engineering?

    If I was a FMEF member, I’d be voting to kick this guy to the curb just for being so goddam stupid.

    1. Exactly! Police and Fire are the CALPERS culprits. Call it like it is. If you care about Public Works stop protecting Police and Fire!

  7. Mr. Bargas argument for pay raises to him and his union members is not ashamed to use slippery slope and broad stroke fallacies to convince others to give him and his clique more money. Bargas says his work force is demoralized due to lack of resources. He doesn’t say it is due to salaries of same workers. Outsourcing unskilled and semi-skilled labor force to the less costly private sector “ means cutting our [everyone] quality of life.” How so? “fictitious narratives” that “government is the problem” is not the problem. Fullerton’s city council first priority is fiscal responsibility to all constituents, not to its public sector employees.

  8. I’m glad Mr. Bargas has been able to keep his caloric intake up despite his demanding job and low pay.

  9. Because you’re all mostly retarded, let me break it down for you:

    1. Police and Fire cost a shit load of money.
    2. Water, Sewer, Parks, Finance, Streets, Engineering are a fraction of that cost
    3. Police and Fire Union employees are paid amazingly with some OT higher than base pay.
    4. Everyones else gets shit compared to ALL other cities.
    5. You tards think they are the same.
    6. You CUT this group to pay for Fire and Police.
    7. You are out of shit to cut.
    8. Most will not work for you much longer because you have OVERCUT.
    9. There is no more staff to take from.
    10. You can’t keep people anymore and wonder why you get shitty people…

    Is that simple enough?

    1. Regardless off the Union though, they are all underpaid compared to every other government agency, so now you’re left with the ones that are loyal, close to retirement anyway, or can’t leave.

      #truth

          1. No, but the former Community Service Director, the City Manager and Planning idiot are movin’ on out. And pretty soon the Engineering Department head who is a PR person will be going back to Pomona. Then the mid-level slugs will be seeking employment elsewhere – where the grass is so much greener. These people need to know that the Mark of Fullerton is not a medal of honor. it means being associated with over-priced, unaccountable boobery.

      1. Underpaid? LOL! Even at 20% less than actual cost, employees (especially public safety) are robbing Fullerton Taxpayers blind!

    2. Wow, you’re a fucking moron.

      You think this group defends the budget allocation to police and fire?That we treat all employees the same way?

      There is no new sales tax. Quit your bitching and get back to work. That paper won’t push itself.

      1. Most of you hate all government workers. Probably because you suck, have a shitty job, and could never get a good paying job. Pretty soon no one will be left to push the papers, making it harder for your city to ever recover. You can save all the money you want by cutting pay, but eventually no one will ever want to come work for Fullerton.

        1. I’m a multi-millionaire because I took risks, worked hard, rebounded when I got knocked down and I *earned* every penny. Public employees, their unions and their corrupt labor representatives and lawyers on the other hand have been leeching blood out of their host to the point the host is near death. Who is truly to blame? The corpse or the leeches?

          1. So all public employees are corrupt and none of them work hard? How much money did mommie and Daddie give you to start?

            1. Not all public employees are corrupt but all public employee unions are corrupt. A small fraction of public employees work hard but their unions do everything in their power (coercion, threats, bribes, lawsuits, etc.) to ensure public employees have to do an absolute minimum of work for inflated salaries and benefits which are paid for by taxpayers who don’t receive the level of services they should.

              Zero money but my parents were both blue collar workers who, while they left me no inheritance, they taught me that the world and others don’t owe me anything and that hard work, sacrifice, self-discipline and mutual respect are the keys to success — qualities the vast majority of public employees do not exhibit on a day-to-day basis.

              Do you want to keep playing this game because I can keep knocking down the strawmen you stand up all day!

              p.s. Aren’t you supposed to be working?

      1. I wonder if there is a hashtag for this, I’ll add it.

        #missentirepointofcomment

        Taking mondey from a different department does NOT hurt fire and pd costs…

    3. Finally someone tells the truth!
      FFFF is made up of far left retards who know nothing about what they spew. Do some real research you hate mongering, down syndrome mongoloids!

    1. They will spend it incorrectly and then have to pay DJ more money to cover them during the lawsuits that come.

      1. You don’t mean the 1 million dollaz Open wide Zahra and Jesus Quirk Silva ended up paying for their stupid lawsuit of this blog do you? Know your history before you comment on this blog

  10. The cost of public employee salaries and benefits have grown at 8-10X the rate of public revenue. Math doesn’t lie, politicians do. The reason we have fewer “public servants” is because the ones *we do have* and the ones who’ve recently retired are making double what the same position made two decades ago and the cost of their pension is 3X what is was only 10 years ago.

    The increase in pension contribution costs are effectively “raises”. No city employee (safety or miscellaneous) should receive a pay raise for at least a decade to true the ledger.

    1. Then the city has to figure out better benefits. Who, besides newbies, would take a job with static pay and bad benefits. And the newbies would stay just ling enough to get experience to find another job. So, you will always have staff who don’t know what they are doing.

      1. Another job? Where? So typical of the public employee salary race to the top. And everybody claims to have the best staff anywhere. What a goddam scam.

        1. Shouldn’t public employees want to provide more for their families and to make as much money as they can? Why should they be satisfied with a maximum amount of pay? Their not going to get any kiddos from the likes of you. Have you seen the price of housing lately?

      2. That sounds pretty much like what Fullerton has today. *NOTHING* Fullerton does and *none* of the people who do it are exemplary. Everyone is C- talent or worse.

      3. How is that any worse than what we currently have in Fullerton? If Fullerton city employees don’t like their jobs or the organization they’re free to seek employment opportunities elsewhere. You want a pay raise? Then you and your fellow union goons need to do what the cops and firewhiners do: bribe city council members. Give your favorite council members and council candidates cold hard cash. Give till it hurts. That’s how the cop slobs and fire boobs end up drawing down compensation packages that far exceed what the average Joe paying the taxes for those packages actually earns.

        If half-assed union goons such as yourself had any balls you’d go to war with the cop goons and fire union goons who gobble up all the resources and contribute nothing to the betterment of the community.

  11. The only way out is a council majority that doesn’t believe that it’s primary allegiance is to the unions and a city manager that isn’t running in a popularity contest with the employees as judges. At least we got rid of Jan “I love Staff more than anything else “ Flory.

  12. Those that can, do. Those that can’t work for government.
    I have not met a single public employee who would not get fired if they worked in the private sector. They all have big mouths, small brains and weak backs.

  13. If you don’t know that there’s no such thing as a “civilian employee union” in Fullerton, then you’re not informed enough to write in this blog. Then again, that’s kinda the MO here.

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