The Fringies Advance Apace: Worst Vote 2009

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UPDATE: WE HAVE NOW INCLUDED LAST NIGHT’S (12/15/09) CITY COUNCIL VOTE TO APPROVE THE RICHMAN HOUSING PROJECT (SEE #6). SINCE THE COUNCIL IS DONE VOTING IN 2009 WE CAN NOW CLOSE THE NOMINATIONS.

The Worst Vote 2009 category is reserved for politicians who really stepped in it big time. This is one of the biggies, so you won’t want to miss this award. Here are the five nominees:

1. Councilman Don Bankhead deserves recognition, all right. In a 22-year council career jam-packed with horrible decisions this year he truly distinguished himself. His “until death” support of the completely horrendous $6 million McDonald’s relocation move was just breathtaking. Even Doc Heehaw opposed that one, and that’s saying a lot.

2. A joint nomination: Don Bankhead (again!), Pam Keller, and our old pal Dick Jones for their brainless devotion to the Redevelopment expansion founded on a fraudulent finding of blight. We have catalogued all the idiotic things said in defense of the indefensible, and its an impressive catalogue of confused thinking, indeed. And FFFF has sued the Agency to help it get it’s collective mind right.

3. Another joint nomination. FSD Trustees Hilda Sugarman and Ellen Ballard for voting to hire (for up to $100,000) a consultant to “study” the feasibility of a parcel tax. Minard Duncan is also included in this nomination since he abstained, too cowardly to even make a decision one way or the other. Say why does Ed Royce keep endorsing Ballard and Sugarman? (Rhetorical question only – no response necessary).

4. The Fullerton Planning Commission for actually granting Jack Franklyn a bogus “special events” permit covering numerous events  for several months so that he could continue to offend his neighbors with outdoor amplified music at Roscoe’s Famous Nuisance. We also note that one of his neighbors subsequently went out of business and another Franklyn enterprise is moving into the empty space.

5. The entire City Council for mindlessly jacking up the commodity rates on water and in doing so increasing the in-lieu franchise payment to the General Fund. Not a single council person even bothered to ask why. Shame, shame, shame.

6. Don Bankhead, Pam Keller, and Dick Jones. Again. And Again. For their vote to approve the utterly ill-conceived, staff-created Richaman Avenue subsidized condo project. Shawn Nelson recused himself.

The Fringies Continue: Least Distinguished “Journalist”

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As you Friends may well imagine, this category is chock-full of worthy nominees. In fact, choosing them was a real challenge. 2009 was an excellent year for journalistic incompetence, and our nominees each qualified for slightly different reasons. The nominees for Least Distinguished “Journalist” are:

1. Sharon Kennedy. She is nominated for her reprehensible tactic of forwarding Chris Norby’s anti-Redevelopment essays on to City Hall, where a staffer wrote responses and Don Bankhead, between pudding breaks, signed them. Hardly the actions of a responsible journalist. Which is why we put the word in quotation marks in our title.

2. Barbara Giasone. Barbara distinguished herself last year by snagging the coveted Wurlitzer Prize. This year she earns a Fringie nomination by an entire year’s worth of vapid vacuity. Just think of it. The Earth has accomplished a full orbit of the Sun and Babs has not made a single journalist contribution to the folks of Fullerton. An accomplishment crying out for recognition.

3. Frank Mickadeit. This homunculus receives his nomination for outstanding and relentless ass-kissing of the Repuglican elite – formerly people like Mike Carona, but this year Ackerman, Inc., as he slavishly passed along all of Dick Ackerman’s bullshit to the dwindling number of OC Register readers.

4. Lastly, lets not forget Mickadeit’s Register colleague Martin Wisckol, who seems to suffer from the same sick infatuation with the Repuglican clique’s collective posterior that infects Mickadeit. This year Wisckol distinguished himself by acting as Ackerman, Inc. press agent, doing so from the very beginning of the Ackerwoman scampaign. Our intrepid reporter even contacted the Ackerwoman in France as soon as the Duvall deal went down. Later he passed along her lame “businesswoman” resume as a matter of fact, not invention. Suspicious minds smelled collusion. Suspicious minds were right.

The Fringies: Nominations Begin

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Yes, Friends, it’s time to recognize the outstanding among us Fullertonians. And by outstanding I mean the brain-dead, the lethargic, the incredibly stupid, the greedy, the shifty, and, every so often, the actual achievers. So let’s start. 

In the category of Stupidest Statements Made in Public in 2009 we have four nominees. It’s interesting because three of them center around the person of City Council woman Pam Keller.

1. First is Pam Keller herself with the now legendary “fiscal conservatives as the five of us are” comment. It’s not long but it’s pretty breathtaking. Here’s the link to the post.

2. Second is the loud-mouthed member of Pam’s Posse with no “political whatevers” who made a spectacle out of herself with a long-winded, lame, and ultimately satiro-brilliant string of drivel about why Pam Keller should be mayor. Although not nominated because she didn’t actually say anything,  Saint Joan at the Stake in the background deserves special recognition for wonderfully pious gestures and glances skyward. Enjoy again

3. Third, this wonderful piece of utter nonsense uttered by every one’s favorite hysterical corn pone pontificator, Dick Jones, on why you don’t change horses in mid-stream, and why Don Bankhead should be mayor two years in a row – because (not in spite of the fact!) that the City’s proverbial barrel bobs along in a “raging financial torrent” toward Doc Heehaw’s “symbolic Niagara Falls.” Great fun.

4. Finally, there’s  this pearl  mumbled out by Council aspirant Marty Burbank last summer: “as a lawyer” he doesn’t know if the Redevelopment expansion is legal, but of course he supports it anyway. Well he certainly demonstrates all the requisite qualifications to be on the Fullerton City Council with this gem.

Fringe Alert!

You won't want to miss this...
You won't want to miss this...

Yes, Dear Friends, it is that time of year again. Well, not really “again” because we’ve never done it before. And whether we ever do it again will depend on whether Fullerton’s politicians and decision-makers quit doing and saying hare-brained things. Aw, momma, that’s a lead-pipe cinch.

Whoa, there, you say! What in the world is JFD going off on? Is somebody putting weird stuff in his kibble?

Remarkable qualities deserve recognition. The Fringies are coming!
Remarkable qualities deserve recognition. The Fringies are coming!

No! What I’m going off on is the First Annual FFFF Fringie Awards. That’s right. We will recognize the most recognizable 2009 behavior by our political lords and masters/mistresses by awarding recognition for it. Several categories will be included, as well a special life-time achievement award.

Stay tuned as we announce the nominees! And don’t hesitate to make your feelings known. The Academy will take all views into consideration.

Just A Quick Question to The Fringe

Has anyone other than me wondered why neither of the two main partisan blogs in OC – the Liberal OC and Red County have even mentioned the OC Fair scandal a-brewin’?

Red seems intent to chatter about all sorts of Fair topics – but not the crooked Foundation itself. Blue doesn’t seem to have posted a comment about the Fair at all.

Are these two paragons of “reasoned debate” both so involved in reasoned debate that they have missed one of the biggest stories of the year?

Just asking.

High Culture At Last Comes to Downtown Fullerton

Brains and ambition...
Brains and ambition. The current events quiz approaches.

As the interim FFFF Life and Times Editor, I have been remiss. I guess I missed the event yesterday, but apparently a KROQ radio show turned up at the Slidebar in DTF to put on their regular Miss Double D-cember program, an uplifting show that gives its participants an opportunity to display their manifest talent(s), and the spectators (seemingly of both sexes) a chance to inspect those talents. The program also featured a Gene Simmons look-alike, a dwarf, and a bunch of Marines in dress uniform. I’m pretty sure this event was not subsidized by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.

Here’s a link to the thought provoking (OC Weekly, naturally) photo montage.

For me, one question remains. Why are Marines so short?

FFFF Image of the Month

Here is Fullerton’s own congressman, Ed Royce, taking a rather, er, informal pose with a tall willowy blond woman at a recent White House function. Why this woman’s hand is on his chest is anybody’s guess, but judging by the happy look on Ed’s face he has granted his willing assent for this familiarity by a new friend.

Ed-Royce-poses-with-Obama-party-crasher-Michaele-Salahi
Come back to my place and I'll show you my stamp collection...

Oh, and by the way, this is the female half of the uninvited couple who crashed the White House party, setting off a bit of a storm, security-wise. Since Ed is a super-duper foreign affairs expert, let’s hope she didn’t pump him for any high-level information.