Grover Cleveland, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 19, 2010May 19, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies: Ventriloquism For Uncle Bill and The Little Kids

billcampbell-240x300 — There's a little stick in back that makes my head swivel.

Sometimes its hard to tell whether certain people are stupid or lazy. Or maybe a little of both. Take, for instance, County Supervisor Bill Campbell who is currently the Chairman of the OC Children and Families Commission.

As a commissioner he has approved big PR contracts to his political pal Matthew J. Cunningham whom he also appointed to the County Parks Commission. And I mean really big contracts. And apparently free of either competition or real scrutiny.

Part of Cunningham’s job is to ghost write pro-commission “op-ed” pieces for politicians across the political spectrum who either can’t be bothered, or who are too illiterate to do it themselves. The topic of these scribblings is always the same: protect the tax revenue!

Here’s an invoice where Mr. Conservative Republican Wordsmith is wordsmithing hard for – Bill Campbell!

And looky here, we’ve uncovered the fruits of Mr. Cunningham’s labors in the OC Register.

There are some fun quotes about rigorous audits and Grand Jury approbation that come a-tumblin’ out of the old mannequin’s mouth, but these are my faves:

“I can say unequivocally that if state government emulated the prudent, sensible and farsighted operations and budgeting practices of the Children and Families Commission, there would be no state budget crisis.”

Uh, yeah, like handing out a $200K per year PR contract that enables your pal to put semi-intelligent words in your mouth for $200 an hour.

“…while our commission contracts out as many functions as possible so more dollars go toward funding services rather than bureaucracy.”

See comment above. Contracting out unnecessary PR crap for $200 an hour services like facebook updates, going to lunch with Steve Greenhut, and passing out toothbrushes. Newsflash Bill – that robs funding. Contracting out for unnecessary services is incompetent. Directing that largess to a political crony is despicable.

“Taxpayers should cast a critical eye on the idea of abolishing such county Children and Families commissions, which are locally accountable and manage their budgets responsibly…”

Uh huh. Yeah. Sure, Bill. You pass out hundreds of thousands annually for lobbying and PR most of which seems to be mysteriously directed outside Orange County. Well, Campbell also seems to be one of the masterminds behind the unintentionally hilarious Harry Sidhu for Supervisor campaign. And that, in a nutshell, really tells you all you need to know about that sawdust head.

And finally a free wordsmithing tip to the Wordsmith: when you’re going to put words in the mouth of numbskull try to avoid words like “panoply” and “unequivocally.”

May 18, 2010May 19, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies – $3,200 for One Op-ed

by Grover Cleveland12 Comments

Was a ghost written “op-ed” worth the $3,200 that Cunningham charged the OC Children and Family Commission? You be the judge. Here is the article that found it’s way into some obscure journal. Notice how the supposed writer, Shawn Steel, starts off by announcing his opposition to prop 10. Sound familiar? Then begins the fight to save Rob Reiner’s legacy.

But really. How could this have taken the better part of 20 hours to produce? That’s two and a half freakin’ days! The Declaration of Independence was written faster.

The irony of the “we know the value of a buck” schtick written by somebody billing the taxpayers $200 an hour to hand out toothbrushes is profound.

And why can’t Shawn Steel write his own op-eds if he actually cares about this issue instead of wasting the CFCOC money? Of course he may not be very bright. For some reason he is a supporter of Hide and Seek Sidhu.

Anyway, here’s the Pacific Strategies billing that reflects the effort on that masterpiece. So what does that work out to, ten bucks a word?

More scary ghost(writer) stories to follow…

May 17, 2010May 19, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies – My Lunch With Greenhut

by Grover Cleveland20 Comments

This tidbit harvested from the Pacific Strategies billings to Rob Reiner’s OC Children and Families Commission was way too good to pass up.

Here we see Mr. Conservative Pundit Matthew Cunningham hard at work setting up and then eating lunch with former OC Register editorial writer Steve Greenhut back in 2008. Looks like Executive Director Micahel Ruane went along. Maybe Cunningham acted as interpreter between the libertarian Greenhut and the social services bureaucrat Ruane. I guess that’s what they call a business lunch.

I wonder if the suffocating welfare statists persuaded Greenhut of the need for their commission.

May 10, 2010May 10, 2010Behind Closed Doors

MORE MONKEY BUSINESS AT THE CLERK-RECORDER’S OFFICE; TOM DALY AND HIS PAY-TO-PLAY CONTRACTS.

by Grover Cleveland7 Comments

Daly Really2 — Hey, everyone is good at something!

It looks like we can add another skill to Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly’s public money squandering resume. As previously reported here, not only does Daly excel at wasting public money and doling out jobs to his contributor’s relatives, it appears that he also hands out no-bid contracts to campaign contributors as well. It turns out that the contracts are more of what we’re used to: highly questionable and unaudited relationships, and of course, ultimate failure.

Get a load of this one.

Between 2002 and 2007, Christopher Townsend, who is the president of Townsend Public Affairs, contributed a total of $2600 to Tom Daly’s campaigns. During this period, Townsend was awarded two $60,000 no-bid contracts for “consulting services.” Townsend was awarded these contracts without bidding because of their supposed know-how in obtaining grants from the California Cultural Historical Endowment. What for, you ask?

In late 2005/2006 the grant application was for $150,000 to go to “planning” the archives expansion in the old Courthouse building in Santa Ana. Apparently the contract and the grant application were approved solely on the authority of Daly himself – that’s right, no Board of Supervisor’s oversight.

The big problem was that the grant application was for a building over which the “Manager of the Year” Daly had no authority. Apparently it is controlled by the Harbors Parks and Beaches Department that lets the Clerk-Recorder use it for some of his functions. And seemingly they had no clue what Daly was up to.

Even though Daly got the grant he wanted, the County had to turn the money back in April, 2006 because of the inability of Daly to communicate what he was doing with the other County bureaucrats. The official excuse was “unanticipated space and stakeholder concerns.” Translated from Bureaucratese into English: Big Daly F-up.

Well, there’s $60,000 down the toilet.

Undaunted by failure, late in 2006 the indefatigable Daly was before the Board of Supervisors asking for another $60,000 no-bid contract with Townsend. The motive was the same, but by now Daly’s covetous eye likely rested on the wretched building at 433 West Civic Center, a $2.1 million liability that he would talk the Board into acquiring in 2007. We shared that mess with you, here. The second grant application ended up with a big goose egg, however the purchase of the money pit on Civic Center Drive proceeded headlong, full speed ahead.

Dark-Clouds-looming-500x375 — A river of red ink runs through it...

Another $60,000 chunked into the water hazard.

Oh, dear me. Another Tom Daly fiasco; another example of incompetence and cronyism his pals in the media won’t touch; yet another mauve feather in the dismal repuglican headdress of Daly’s admirer, John Lewis (& Co.) who keeps insisting that the egregious Daly is some sort of “fiscal conservative.”

And good grief, we’ve only just scratched the surface. Be sure to stay tuned.

May 10, 2010May 10, 2010About Us

Another “Grover Cleveland?”

by Grover Cleveland5 Comments

Apparently some Sidhu-supporting John Lewis tool calling himself “Grover Cleveland” has misappropriated my name and is making anti-Nelson squawkings over at the Mauve County blog that seems to have become a haven for the semi-literate backers and hackers of Hide and Seek Sidhu.

This is an imposter, make no mistake about it. Grover Cleveland was tough, smart, and honest – three adjectives that will never be applied to either Harry Sidhu or his leech-like campaign handlers who are only in it ’til Mother’s Milk runs dry.

Piglets — Better score some while you can...

Lying, carpetbagging, union stoogery? Guess again! Not Grover Cleveland. Plus, he would never support an assclown.

Geez, these dunces are too dumb and lazy to come up with their own blog handles.

May 9, 2010May 19, 2010Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – Propagandist for Suffocating Statism

by Grover Cleveland10 Comments

fartboy — I would humbly like to thank the Academy for this recognition...

The other day Orange County’s Most Hypocritical Repuglican (yes, that is one Hell of an achievement) Matthew J. Cunningham coughed up this Red County hairball in criticism of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez:

How very congressional. And also ironic to listen to Loretta Sanchez speaking to a crowd of immigrants who came here seeking the American Dream,, even as she has been voting to make American more suffocatingly statist like the countries they left.

Is he really that breathtakingly unaware of the irony of the mouthpiece for the OC Children and Families Commission dumping on “statism.” Or could it be that he figures that whoever reads his post won’t know about his real day job; and if they do any comments revealing that fact will be deleted.

Aw c’mon Mr. C from Suite C, ‘fess up. You really, really dig suffocating statism; you profit from it and you shill for it. In fact, it’s just about your only real source of income.

Own it.

P.S. Wordsmiths “at the top of their profession” proofread their copy for embarrassing typos.

May 7, 2010May 10, 2011Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – Monitoring John & Ken for Fun and Profit

by Grover Cleveland25 Comments

In our series documenting the PR/lobbyist hungry OC Children and Families Commission we have shown how they have employed local political operative and Red County blog bloviator Matthew Cunningham to propagandize their myriad big-government good works.

We have seen how the preachy Mr. Conservative Republican was paid $200 an hour to do such things as update facebook pages, ghost write articles for liberal Democrats, and perhaps, funniest of all (in a sick sort of way) – coordinate toothbrush distribution to the Diocese. While he was at it, he amassed some mammoth paydays for his “Pacific Strategies” wordsmithing operation.

Jerb2 — The toughest part of the job is thinking up new ways to spend all that gummint dough.

Of course you can’t really propagandize effectively unless you know what the opposition is saying. So enjoy this.

In January, 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger called for First 5 California to be eliminated in his 2009-10 budget. Regional commissions would have taken a 60% cut in funding.

KFI radio broadcasters John and Ken went on the offensive, and Cunningham was right there listening in at $200 an hour to formulate his defense of the Welfare State. Here’s the invoice entry:

Full invoice – January 2009

As I said yesterday, it’s way past time to put this Commission under the control of the Board of Supervisors so that at least contracts and policy can be authorized by elected officials in a much more public forum. And maybe instead of fixating on PR the kiducrats can concentrate more resources on actually helping poor children instead of well-off, hypocritical Republicans.

May 6, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Time to End the Children and Families Commission’s Autonomy

by Grover Cleveland24 Comments

The public relations and tax revenue fixated OC Children and Families Commission needs oversight. How do I know? Because of the amount of money these people pay to PR types and lobbyists – who just happen to be pals of Commission members. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in fact.

Last year the Riverside County Board of Supervisors addressed the same issue when their “First 5” Commission members were busted for distributing grants to their own organizations. Here’s a 2009 article from The Riverside Press-Telegram that talks about the problem. The solution proposed by the Riverside BOS was to subsume their “First Five” Commission into the County government structure.

Whether or not this sort of thing has been going on in OC is not known without a complete shakeout. But what is known is that the Commission has been paying for things like toothbrush distribution and facebook editing at a rate of $200 per hour – to a Matthew Cunningham, a pal of the current Commission Chairman, and a running board occupant of the John Lewis political machine.

Then there’s the small matter of the hundreds of thousands contracted for lobbying services to Phil Isenberg as well as our own local big-government gold digger – Anaheim Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.

PringlePower — When you awake you will feel completely refreshed...

It’s high time to place this Commission in a chain of command that puts ultimate responsibility in the hands of elected representatives – people who will have to account for grants and contracts awarded to political operatives, and to decide what sort of political lobbying, if any, is appropriate. And that would be the County Board of Supervisors.

May 5, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies: January, 2010 – The Kiducrat Bonanza

by Grover Cleveland6 Comments

The largest monthly tax-payer funded haul for local Kiducrat spokesman Matthew Cunningham seems to be January 2010, when he racked up an impressive $10,840 to wordsmith and social network as a PR shill for the big-government OC Children and Families Commission. Click on the document below to see what a “conservative” Republican wordsmith does for a living – apart from writing op-ed pieces for liberal Democrats.

My favorite line item is the last one – a blanket $800 charged for “account management” for the month, whatever that may entail. Say what? You mean the folks in charge bought into that baloney? Oh that’s right – nobody seems to be in charge at all.

But hey! It’s all about the kids, right?

With every passing second it become more and more obvious that the Children and Families Commission is in dire need of some outside oversight to stop this exorbitant waste of money on overpriced PR efforts doled out to political operatives.

May 4, 2010May 6, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies – The Facebook Gold Mine

by Grover Cleveland11 Comments

More fun stuff from one of OCs repuglican welfare state spongers, Matthew J. Cunningham. $4,200 in 8 days, to be precise. And ten references to Facebook updates.

Link to full invoice

Funny how stuff kids do for free can be mined by a well-connected political operative for big bucks. Well it’s big bucks when you charge 200 clams per hour and have no competition.

What’s really startling is that the Children and Families Commission kiducrats are willing to pay somebody that exorbitant rate for a “social network” medium “work” that will have a completely negligible effect. Not negligible, you say? Prove it says I.

Oh, yeah. Be sure to reflect upon Mr. Conservative Republican’s daily billing totals and note the inevitable “account management,” whatever the hell that is. Who knew being a kiducrat payed so well?