FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Author: Mr. Peabody
Mr. Peabody is a Child of Aquarius, a former hard drug user, and a devotee of lawn bowling. He abandoned a profitable career as an curb address number painter to fulfill a lifetime dream of mastering the zither.
Repuglican Jon Fleischman’s “Flash Report” blog unleashed a poll recently about potential 3rd District Supervisorial candidates.
It addresses a possible Third District candidacy of Chuck Devore, the over-aged boyscout from Irvine and his chances against Todd Spitzer.
But that is of little interest to us. What’s really interesting is that the poll includes Hairbag Sidhu, who as we all know lives in the 4th District. At least he left a long, shiny trail of voter registrations in the 4th District last year.
Our friends over at the the Voice of OC(EA) are reporting on yesterday’s California High Speed Rail Authority meeting. And if you’re one of the repuglicans or make-work junkies supporting the unsupportable, the news ain’t good.
Everybody now admits that the LA-Anaheim link is the most impractical and least effective segment of HSR. In fact, if it is ever built, it may not be “high speed” at all! Hiding behind euphemisms like “phase-in” the reality is that this segment has been pushed all the way to the back of the CHSR bus.
Hilariously the HSR-ocrats are paying lip service to the Will O’ The People who voted a multi-billion dollar bond to support this extravagant boondoggle. Oh, that’s right. The People. The ones who were given false information at every step of the way and who were never presented with a business plan as required by the initiative. And the People, these miscreants are quick to remind us, voted for a system that would come all the way to Anaheim! No prize for guessing who got the Anaheim language into the initiative.
"A" is for...
And speaking of Der Pringle, he provides the best quote of the article when he cautioned not to use the word “splippage” since it might undermine confidence in the whole gig. Hooboy!
Meanwhile Pringle’s glassy monument to himself, the egregious ARTIC 200 mil bus barn continues to loom in our collective psyche, promising to suck up $100,000,000 of Measure M revenue that is supposed to bring HSR to an expanded Metrolink station. Of course ARTIC does neither, but as we have already noted, that means nothing to the small-town drones on the OCTA board. And this reminds me of a poem:
One of the benefits of writing for the Best Blog OC 2010 is that they let you write anything you want.
Yes, I know what a slide rule is for...
And so I present this: the final moments of my alma mater Cal Tech’s great victory over the sad geeks at Occidental College. It’s been 25 years since we won a league basketball game. In that time we have produced 9 Nobel laureates.
Oxy. Part-time school of Barry Obama and intellectual womb of Chris Norby.
Well, it’ll probably be another 25 years ’til my homies win another conference game, so please indulge my enjoyment.
In a follow-up post today The Voice of OC(EA) Norberto Santana describes the (lack of) investigation by our do-nothing DA Tony Rackauckas into the evident illegal lobbying of fellow repuglican Dick Ackerman. Of course the DA could find no wrondoing. Not looking for evidence is an excellent way of not finding any.
Now that Ackerman’s actual invoices have surfaced, revealing what we have know for over a year, and what was based on the Dickster’s own words, the DA seems to be a little nervous. Here’s what his spokesholess Susan Kang Schroeder had to say:
“The evidence we had supports the findings we made,” she said. “If anyone has further evidence that is contrary to the evidence we have, we’ll be glad to look at it. And it may bring us to a different result.”
Further evidence. Of course she means all that embarrassing stuff that would have actually been part of any sincere investigation in the first place, and that would have freed the DA from having to rely entirely on Ackerman’s say-so for the truth. But the important thing here is that the DA is apparently welcoming new evidence. And since that evidence has already been published on a blog and is in the public domain, may we assume a new and this time an honest investigation is in the offing?
The smile turned to painful grimmace as the appendage was pulled ever farther into the wringer.
Over at the Voice of OC(EA) Norberto Santana reports that his uncovering of Dick Ackerman’s billing logs from his days as a lobbyist for the rogue Fair Board has spurred a formal investigation by the State Fair Political Practices Commission.
See, former legislators are prohibited from lobbying their former colleagues for one year after their departure. Ackerman left the State Senate at the end of 2008 and started making those embarrassing calls in the summer of 2009 – in order to facilitate the sale of the Orange County Fair to a secret cabal made up of its own Boardmembers. We first wrote about that a-way back here in the fall of 2009 passing along the excellent work of the OC Progressive and Vern Nelson at the Orange Juice blog.
See that guy over there? He didn't do anything wrong. He told me to say that.
Of course the most embarrassing part of this slimy episode was the way one year later our do-nothing DA Tony Rackauckas tried to whitewash the whole stinking affair in order to protect his ‘puglet pals. See, T-Rack has plenty of time to harass Toyota and Muslim students at UCI, but apprently he has a lot less taste for going after political miscreants of either party.
But the truth will out, as they say. And the Ackerman deal just keeps resurfacing. Of course the FPPPC has no real authority except to levy fines and it looks to me like a real prosecutor is really what’s called for here.
It looks like our City Council is all set to discuss the topic of outside dining on Tuesday. Again.
It seems like only yesterday that the council handed over a public sidewalk to the Florentine Mob under the guise of an outdoor dining lease. The ink wasn’t even dry when Florentine started erecting a permanent, enclosed structure on our sidewalk! The Fullerton Shadow wrote all about it, here.
Sit down and grab some sidewalk, brother...
In 2007 the City gave the whole idea of outdoor dining permits second thought. But now with this gosh darn recession a-lingering the subject is cropping up again.
Well, somebody better go to this meeting to make sure no more public property is given away. After all “Dick” Jones and Don Bankhead chose to look the other way before, just to protect their incompetent staff. And Pat McKinley’s got lots of friends downtown, right?
Yesterday Norberto Santana of the Voice of OC (EA) did a post on a report by a group called OCCORD that accused the cities of Santa Ana and Anaheim of “rubber stamp” planning. Among other things the planning commissions in these towns were identified as living preponderantly in small enclaves and it notes the undue influence of out-of-town developers.
I’m having a little trouble separating the message from the messenger. See, the troubles are real all right. We’ve seen the same operation in Fullerton, as with the creeps who are trying to ram Amerige Court and the hideous Jefferson Commons down our throats. Our electeds got their drinkies, and their boat rides and their thirty pieces of silver from slimers like Steve Sheldon; and we got the shaft. Yet while I can’t disagree with thing the obvious OCCORD conclusion that development in Anaheim and Santa Ana is all tied up by goons with financial ties to people like Kurt Pringle and Miguel Pulido, I have to wonder what it is OCCORD is really promoting.
A quick trip to OCCORD’s website rewards visitors with a list of boardmembers and contributors that reads like a veritable who’s who of leftist, labor, and low-income housing advocates. Here’s what they say they are about:
In Orange County, California, top-down economic development policy and institutionalized anti-immigrant sentiment have served to exclude low income, immigrant communities from government decisionmaking processes, and in many cities, rapid demographic changes have created a political environment in which people are increasingly disconnected from their elected representatives. As a result, income inequality is growing faster in our region than in the nation as a whole, and our sense of community is declining.
I notice with satisfaction the name of Lorri Galloway who not only has approved just about every developer-wet-dream megaplex put in front of her in Anaheim, but also supported SunCal’s mammoth project on Anaheim Boulevard with its sham veneer of “affordable housing.” And that may be a telling.
What else will she pull out of her cookie?
So what’s the real deal? OCCORD seems to be promoting authentic, popular participation in land use decision, of the sort promised by Pam Keller when she first ran for Fullerton City Council in 2006. Pam ended up voting for a bunch of megaprojects, herself, so maybe the whole thing is just some sort of make-people- feel-good-about-looking-like-they’re-trying-to-do-something-anything, scam. Or maybe they actually want “immigrant communities” to have input into decision making land use processes – especially the development of subsidized housing projects.
I think the mistake of swapping “top-down” development policy driven by developers, and that driven by the professional houseacrats and do-gooders, and social conscience hand wringers is a distinction without much of a difference. Overbuilt, overbearing, subsidized, architectural monstrosities built on public debt are bound to follow either way. Will OCCORD ever come out against the idiotic Redevelopment housing policies and ethnic cleansing pogroms? Not likely if there’s a jaw-droppingly expensive “affordable” project of some kind, any kind, at the end of the bureaucratic rainbow.
There has been some talk hereabouts regarding tonight’s election of officers for the OCGOP. Not being a Republican, I really don’t care much who these idiots elect to be their “leaders,” a funny description of what amounts to little more than a kleptocracy (thanks, nipsey). Scott Baugh, the top dog who is running for another term, has been an overseer on the plantation for years, using his political connections to get a huge lobbying contract from the County of Orange. His official bootlicker, Matthew J. Cunningham, was rewarded for all his lackeydom with a six-figure-a-year deal with the most liberal agency in California proving that the plumbers are right and shit does run downhill.
But this post is about a chap named Jonathan Fleischman who is running for 1st Vice president (or some equally lame title) really sets the the gold standard for repuglicanism. His pals like Cunningham love to tell you about how The Flash has labored in the trenches doing God’s work, blah, blah, blah. What he omits to mention is that Fleischman was crooked Sheriff Carona’s apologist for years – while on the public payroll, and all the while running his real business, an ad factory blog called The Flash Report.
You are called upon by Cunningham to believe that underneath the oleaginous surface Fleischman is true and pure, a real Tea Partier. Examples are shown to demontrate his rock-ribbed conservatism and willingness to go after even bigger crooks than he. But check the dates: Fleischman’s behavior only got tough when he was no longer on the government payroll, the S.S. Carona was sinking fast, and he evidently saw his main chance in burnishing his alleged conservative credentials.
Psst. Fleischman's left the reservation...
But the true ‘pug in Fleischman re-emerged in fine form in the fall of 2009 when he promoted the carpetbagging scampaign of the utterly lame Linda Ackerwoman over Chris Norby. See, that episode was all about the do-re-mi, too. And that’s what repuglicanism is all about: getting government influence through specious claims of conservatism and then peddling it as hard as you can.
According to an article in today’s LA Times here, the cloudy jewel in Anaheim’s ex-mayor-for hire, Kurt Pringle’s tarnished crown, ARTIC, may not be eligible for $99 million in special Measure M funding. The money had strings attached. However those strings seem to have come loose. And by loose I mean really loose. You see, “Project T” Measure M funds can only be used to “expand” existing stations to accommodate high-speed rail, not build new ones that don’t.
So far the OCTA has pitched over $40,000,000 bucks into this glorified bus station and at this point nobody can show that the high-speed rail choo-choos can even get to it; or that high-speed rail will ever even come to Anaheim. Of course the City of Anaheim (that isn’t paying for any of this) is now saying ARTIC is a “stand alone” facility, which is great, but it ain’t what the voters approved back in 2006: a stand alone facility doesn’t qualify for the $100,000,000 (yes, you read that right) Project T funding.
The hot light of public scrutiny is bound to have interesting environmental effects. The great ARTIC melt-down begins this morning at an OCTA Transit Committee meeting, where newly re-elected Supervisor Shawn Nelson is going to ask members to start reflecting upon their complete lack of responsibility in funding this Pringledoggle.
According to an La Times story, here, by ace reporter Sam Quinones, a spate of smash and grab robberies has plagued the Southland recently, including the jewely mart richere in Fullerton’s Metrocenter. Lots of untraceable gold and freeway access are the likely causes. Some of the culprits have been identified as members of various LA County Crips affiliations branching out into the depths of suburbia.
Apparently the resourceful young men’s MO is to attack in numbers, smash cases with hammers, cause confusion, and make off in multiple getaway vehicles.
I certainly hope Fullerton PD is more successful solving this theft than they have been getting to the bottom of the Roland Chi sign theft ring.
And in passing, I note Fullerton’s own Sgt. Mike Chlebowski is quoted at the end of the article. Just knowing we have somebody named Mike Chlebowski on the force makes me feel a whole lot better about today.
