We’re Number 30!
And last year we were number 29, among Orange County’s 34 cities based on per capita unrestricted net positions (UNP).
FFFF’s Bureau of Data & Statistics (FFFFBDS) was presented the following chart produced by the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank who tracks such things.
Ouch. Fullerton is way down there at the bottom – each citizen being in the red for $1050 – based on 2023 numbers from the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. We are better off than Orange, Costa Mesa, Anaheim and Santa Ana.
Pretty soon Fullerton is going to have to pay the piper and we will be presented, once again, with a Measure S-type sales tax increase in the 13% range. The question is whether such a tax can pass at an election. A General Tax only needs 50%+1 but may be a tough sell; a special tax – for infrastructure, say – requires 67% a harder nut, but one where people can see what they’re getting.
An infrastructures tax does noting to alleviate Fullerton’s chronic financial mismanagement under Fitzgerald, Flory, Zahra, Quirk-Silva and Charles. It’s very clear that the liberals on the Council want the tax that eluded them in 2020.
But what about Jung and Dunlap? They are no longer able to distance themselves from Fullerton’s fiscal cliff having now been around for over four years. What have they done to ameliorate the chronic shortfall? The answer is nothing. For years the sleepy Bruce Whitaker voted no on annual budgets and he never bothered to put much thought into solving the problem.
Then there’s newcomer Jamie Valencia who’s not responsible for any part of the problem – yet. Will she go for a tax on the ballot? Her public safety union supporters will push her. Does she even understand the magnitude of Fullerton’s mismanagement? I wonder.
Of course we may be grateful that Valencia’s opponent didn’t win. Then a sales tax would have been inevitable.
Here are some thoughts:
Get rid of the FPD and hire the Sheriff. Huge savings.
Create a Downtown Business Improvement District to pay off the deficit the area creates for the budget.
Get paramedics (and drivers) off the public payroll.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. First of all, have you seen OCSD salaries? They make more money than Fullerton cops and have better benefits. They get sued just as often, if not more. Second, DTF businesses are already struggling and now you want raise their costs? How many of them will go for that? And lastly, how much would you even save by cutting the ambulance drivers? Last I checked, they don’t make a lot.
Then you wouldn’t have any objection to accepting an OCSD proposal, would you, champ?
We just ADDED ambulance drivers thanks to an incompetent, unsolicited proposal from the FFD. We should have got all city employee paramedics out of the ambulances altogether. Except that would be smart.
Poor, downtown saloons and dance clubs. Of course they can pay their way. It’s just that nobody ever demanded that they do so.
Downtown Fullerton nightlife is dead now.
According to whom?
There are many cities who have done studies on switching to OCSD and decided it’s cheaper to stick with their own PD. Having their own PD also gives them more control. Lawsuits won’t stop or be reduced by switching.
As for a downtown business district, so you want to tax the clothing stores, hair salons, barbers, etc., whose businesses don’t contribute to the increased policing and other costs associated with the bars? What about food vendors like Jaxon’s who, while they serve beer, is really a food vendor who does not contribute to the problems? A lot of those businesses are barely hanging on and putting a tax on all downtown businesses is punitive towards businesses who don’t contribute to the problems.
Oh, we have sooooo much control over our cops.
Tax the saloons. You serve alcohol after 9pm you get to pay to clean up the mess. Your open air booze free-for-all has been going on for 25 years.
Sample conversations:
City to OCSD: We’d like you to give us 4 more officers at night for downtown.
OCSD: You contracted with us to provide police services. You do not get to dictate staffing or anything else for that matter.
City: But we really need this.
OCSD: Fuck off. We’re fulfilling the contract as it is. Also, you’re stuck with us, because you disbanded your PD, and there’s no going back.
City to Chief Radus: We’d like you to give us 4 more officers at night for downtown.
Radus: I’ll get right on it because I want to keep my job.
OCSD: sure, we’ll redeploy our resources if that’s what you want.
Chief Radus: Not without another $600K a year. Or go fuck yourselves (in nice language).
No, I agree with you. The businesses that are not causing the issue should not be taxed. Instead, a “nightclub” tax should be implemented, targeting the specific businesses that are responsible for the increased police presence, such as those that led to the creation of the “Ecco” unit. These establishments, typically nightclubs, should bear the cost, rather than the other businesses or the taxpayers of Fullerton.
Damn straight. But that would never fly with the bureaucrats and politicians who have become addicted to describing DTF as an unalloyed success. Instead of what is is – an annual $1.5 million sinkhole.
Fullerton in the bottom five…sounds about right. What do all those cities in the bottom five all have in common? Massive legacy costs in the form of unfunded pension debt and post employment medical benefits mostly from massively pensioned and benefitted public safety “heroes.” Don’t forget, one of those pensioned heroes is Jay “One-Eyed Ninja” Cincinelli.
Sorry, but Valencia can share in this blame now too…she just voted to add another 18 pensioned employees to the City’s payroll in perpetuity.
Sheriff is worse than your own po-lice department. The problem with the public safety “heroes” is how much they spend corrupting local elections and politicians. Always, always vote the opposite of what cops and fire whiners tell you to vote. Always vote opposite of what they endorse and you’ll stop digging yourselves into deeper holes.
Honest point about Valencia, however those 18 drivers may or may not get a pension based on what we know – which is a short term contract. But I have zero confidence when all is said and done the thing won’t cost more – probably a lot more.
They get a PEPRA pension.
I don’t know if their contracts will permit vesting.
You can bet their next contracts in 2 years or so will have them completely absorbed by FFD, full contracts and all.
It’ll be some sob story of retention and how they can’t hire enough hose pullets so the training is just funding other departments. Just wait.
It’s state law.
If those employees hit the service credit minimum somewhere else, they’re good to go.
Either way, Fullerton pays Calpers based on regular hours while they’re working for Fullerton.
That’s true, of course. In my original post I wondered about drivers who moved on from Fullerton.
Fullerton is on the hook for every wannabe firewhiner they hire to work as ambulance taxi drivers. Regardless if they work for Fullerton for 6 months or 30 years, Fullerton will own a piece of the pensions of every ambulance taxi driver they give birth to in perpetuity. Fat chance that idiot and dishonest fire chief Adam Loeser bothered to calculate that cost.
Vesting in PERS is 5 years. So even if these ambulance driving kids only work for Fullerton for 2 years once they move on to another fire department and get another 3 years under their belt and are vested, Fullerton will be responsible for a portion of that person’s pension for their entire career. So if that person ends up working a 30 year career and at the end of that career they’re making $200k in base salary, Fullerton will be on the hook for 2 years of that $200k salary. Now imagine that scenario repeated over and over again. They plan to hire and maintain on the payroll 18 taxi drivers at all times. How many new PERS pensioned employees will Fullerton create with this program over the next 10-20 years? How many additional pensions will Fullerton be responsible for covering? How much is that unfunded liability, which is carried on Fullerton’s books and is one of the chief reasons why it’s in the bottom 5, amount to? Why aren’t any councilmembers asking this basic question? Why was a dopey fire chief allowed to run the financial model for this new program? Teaching a fireman finance is like watching a monkey fuck a football. How could management allow this program to go through without bothering to consider the long term costs? Fullerton being Fullerton, that’s why.
That sounds right. And that’s the kind of question no one except Dunlap even talked about.
Only a fool would accept an unsolicited proposal at face value, where the proposer had nothing to lose by being wrong.
The Fiscal Sustainability Committee will solve all our problems!
Funny you should mention that. I’m doing a post on its activities and members right now.
Why are Dunlap & Jung put in the same category? They can’t both distance themselves from the fiscal issues that Jung voted every chance to make worse?
Dunlap votes for cop giveaways but Jung is indistinguishable from Zahra when voting for every hero giveaway.
Fire pay that sank the budget? Jung voted yes just like Zahra.
Heroes taking over the ambulances? Jung voted yes with the entire liberal bench.
Why does Jung get a pass for the same votes that Zahra/Charles get rung up for and Dunlap gets lumped in with Jung as if their votes are the same?
Jung is just a Korean Fitzgerald throwing crumbs to his supporters while he builds his brand on the backs of taxpayers. There isn’t a single hero votes worth of difference between them since they even have the came bully demeanor from the dais.
Read the post again.
You read it again.
“An infrastructures tax does noting to alleviate Fullerton’s chronic financial mismanagement under Fitzgerald, Flory, Zahra, Quirk-Silva and Charles”
Jung voted with Zahra/Charles etc on every major piece of “financial mismanagement” which put your budget in the red but somehow he always get a pass.
Read the post again:
But what about Jung and Dunlap? They are no longer able to distance themselves from Fullerton’s fiscal cliff having now been around for over four years. What have they done to ameliorate the chronic shortfall? The answer is nothing.
Now you read it again because the implication is the problem.
Jung voted, 3-2, against Dunlap & Whitaker, for most of the mismanagement.
So while Dunlap hasn’t been able to do anything to ameliorate the fiscal damage, that’s because he’s in a minority vote position against and opposite Jung who is hand in hand with Zahra on every issue that matters long term financially.
Pretending that Dunlap and Jung are somehow in the same category separate and apart from Zahra and crew is the lie.
I can’t wait until you find a way to blame Dunlap when Valencia and Jung vote with Zahra and Charles to place a sales tax on the ballot next year.
So what’s Dunlap’s solution to the fiscal cliff? “You guys figure it out, I just vote no.”
Dunlap’s record is one of appeasement to the boohoos.
Better the boohoos than the unions I suppose.
“Jung is just a Korean Fitzgerald…”
Sort of mean, but I get where you’re going. Control the transactions.
None of you need to worry too much about Jung. He’ll be supervising next year and you will need to find another puppet to vote against Zahra for mayor. Valencia will be lost without Jung and Dunlap will vote for Dr. Charles for Mayor. The Fullerton Observer will be back at city hall and Wilshire will close again for our community.
If Nick didn’t recuse himself from WoW, he would have voted to keep it. He isn’t bought and paid for like Jamie and Jung. Next Tuesday, we will bring more people to change his vote on newspaper ban.
Valencia will do whatever the public safety apparatus tells her to.
Jeez Christ Friends. The California Policy Center is a right wing group that counts John Moorlach, a facial by trade, as a listed director. You can do better than post their partisan memos.
Moorlach is not many things, including smart and effective and a fascist.
Are you saying the numbers are fascist, too?
Fascist not facial.
Valencia already sold her soul and all her votes to the Public Hero Organized Crime Syndicate.