FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Author: The Fullerton Shadow
The Fullerton Shadow is a former Miss Central Nevada and holds a doctorate in animal husbandry from Phoenix University. She has lived in and about Fullerton with her husband Joe for 9 years.
Well it happened last night. Joe and I made a quick trip out to Pechanga to blow our lottery winnings and so we missed it.
Wait 'til next year. If there is a next year.
Pam Keller was denied her turn in the Mayoral tether ball court, forgetting that to be Mayor you need three votes. Her posse must be sorely disappointed with the shut out. The Yellowing Fullerton Observer will no doubt be putting out a special edition decrying the end of civilization, and the barbarians at the gate, and whatever other nonsense they can cook up; maybe they can get some delish quotes from the gal with no “political whatevers.”
Anyway, Friends, get ready for a tsunami of self-righteous boohoo outrage.
Those little marshmallows really make the cocoa better...
Don Bankhead, who has been on the City Council since right before The Flood, will be mayor again next year. He voted for himself, as did Dick Jones and Shawn Nelson. We have been told that Ol’ Doc Jones coughed up a supremely sublime HeeHaw Moment that we will be sharing later. Apparently Nelson kept his mouth shut, which shows unusual perspicacity for a politician; we have to wonder if he isn’t still plenty pissed off at Keller for her attacks on him after he stood up for the citizens of Fullerton on the pension spike finagle last year.
As a consolation prize Keller got to stay mayor pro tem, a pretty useless ballot designation, but at least the word mayor is in it.
For dyed-in-the-wool government apologists like Dick Jones, Jan Flory, Dick Ackerman, Sharon Kennedy, Don Bankhead, et al., Redevelopment blunders are conveniently overlooked, when possible; when not possible, some lame defense is mounted, such as: mistakes were made (passive voice obligatory) but we learned and moved on; hindsight is 20/20 (Molly McClanahan’s motto vivendi); the problem was not too much Redevelopment, but too little!
But when any reasonable person contemplates the collection of Redevelopment disasters along Harbor Blvd. between Valencia Drive and the old Union Pacific overpass, the only conclusion he or she could draw is that the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency should have been shuttered years ago, and the perpetrators of the manifest failures crowded onto a small raft and set adrift with the Japanese Current.
We have already described in nauseating detail the “Paseo Park” debacle; and the Allen Hotel fiasco; we haven’t yet had time to talk about the “El Sombrero” pocket park give away (we will).
But instead of wasting too many perfectly good words, we will share with you Friends a Redevelopment pictorial essay with just a little piquant commentary.
First there’s the strip center known as Gregg’s Plaza. Brick veneer, of course. Even the veneer is so disgusted it’s trying to jump off the building.
The standards of the RDRC were established early.Pop goes the brick veneer...
Across the street is the Allen Furniture Store. When they got their rehab loan somebody forgot to tell them that a storefront is a storefront – not a jailhouse. So why are there bars on the dinky little windows? And pink stucco?
Stone walls do not a prison make; nor iron bars a cage...
Jumping back across the street we re-introduce ourselves to the egregious Allen Hotel, perhaps the biggest Redevelopment boondoggle of all, a mess that we have already admirably documented, here. As we noted then, the add-on was unspeakably awful (and expensive). The front is, well, pretty awful, too.
The once and present tenement...
It could have been worse. Well, no, it couldn't...
What was sold, in part, as an “historic preservation” project ended up violating just about every standard in the book. The original windows were ripped out and replaced with vinyl sashes; the transoms were destroyed and replaced with sheets of plastic and surface applied strips supposed to simulate leaded glass.
Just say something. They'll believe anything...
Across Harbor we discover the “El Sombrero Plaza,” another sock in the face to any Fullerton windshield tourist. Forget the stupidity of the sideways orientation and the Mission Revival On Acid stylings (which attain a kind of crazy Mariachi deliciousness); this development included the give away of part the adjacent public green space so they have parking for a restaurant. The owner never did develop a restaurant, of course (more on that story later).
Ay, caramba! The extra parking that was supposed to be for a restaurant is now used for a storage container!
And finally we come to exhausted collapse at another one of the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency’s low points. And by low point we mean the complete, unmitigated disaster of the Union Pacific Park, ably chronicled here; and in a whole series here, here, and here.
Maybe the less said, the better...
The poisoned park: dead as a doornail. An aesthetic, pratical, and policy disaster. And no one has ever stood up to take responsibility for the total waste of millions of dollars.
Embarrassing from the beginning. How many $100,000 pensioners had their fingers in this pie?
Well, there you have it, Friends. Redevelopment in action; Redevelopment creating blight, not eradicating it. No accountability. None. Zero. Zilch. And some people wonder why FFFF has sued to keep Redevelopment from expanding.
Yes. At least based on the abilities of those who have preceded her. People like Dick Jones, Don Bankhead, Mike Clesceri, Leland Wilson, etc., etc. Well, you get the point. To use a Harpoon line: a ling cod could do the job.
Yes. I could do that job.
Yes, Friends it’s that time of year, when the largely brain-dead city council selects one of their own to preside over their meetings as they habitually rubber stamp what’s put in front of them by their staff. And so we pose the question in our title.
But let’s refine the question to address the idiot woman who showed up with Pam’s Pamette posse last week, and who insisted on framing the issue in gender terms: is Pam Keller qualified to be mayor because simple because she is a woman and it’s her turn? Here the whole thing breaks down into a pathetic little skirmish to see who can produce the stupidest reason for doing something.
If a food fish could do it, so could Pam, we think...
The Ed Royce/Dick Ackerman team that recently crashed the Ackerwoman dirigible in a Raymond Hills fireball, will no doubt have been working hard behind the scenes to keep Keller out, using the same, brainless argument they always have: Fullerton is Republican so the mayor shoud be too; forget the fact that every RINO Royce and Ackerman have foisted on us in the past 20 years have virtually identical voting records with the handful of Democrats on the council. They probably will work the very two RINOS they have backed in the past – Bankhead and Jones to keep Keller out.
It wasn't pretty when she went down. Oh! The humanity!
Counter that with the petulant fulminations of The Yellowing Fullerton Observers and the dopey gal at last meeting’s mike whose only recourse is: it’s her turn (hands clasped in fervent prayer, eyes transfixed on acoustical ceiling)! These alleged innocents proclaim their freedom from nasty political interests but never mention the fact that using the title “mayor” in her campaign propaganda will help Keller get re-elected.
We don't know our cloaca from a hole in the ground.
Yech.
Apart from the fact that these cretins generally deserve each other, we will repeat the same thing said elsewhere on these pages: the person who can get two other votes is the one who “deserves” to be mayor.
We got a spam-mail from Harry Sidhu yesterday touting this or that. Attached was this dynamic Harry for Supe ad with Old Glory dissolving into an orange soda pop sea, out of which rises a solar avatar of the County Seal! Priceless!
We Need Experience, all right
The funny thing is if you go to that generic Harry website, there’s a link:
This takes the naive explorer to a basically regurgitated Harry website – right down to the multitude of luminous endorsements – from Abraham Lincoln to the Ghost of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The only problem is that none of these people or organizations have endorsed Harry for his carpetbagging 4th Supervisorial run! And Chris Norby has already endorsed Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson.
Bad boy, Harry, bad boy! Very misleading. If you want to supervise, you’d better start supervising your website!
We just read a very interesting comment by our fellow blogger, The Fullerton Harpoon, who wrote what appears to be a fairly concise essay on the nature of the “fringer.” We have added some fun graphics to the text. Here is what The Harpoon wrote:
I think you guys are confusing unrelated terms. “Fringism” is a state of mind – not a political persuasion. The fringer has been identified as such by those in the gelatinous “center” who have an inherest trust and fondness for, or a personal stake in power structures.
A middling sea yields a bountiful harvest...
The fringer embraces the supposed insult knowing as he does that independence from entrenched interests brings clarity and objectivity. The true fringer is (or should be) a fairly rigorous empiricist (a fringer with a theological or Idealist bent is likely just to be just plain scary); if he has an acerbic personality and is unafraid to deploy perfectly good Anglo Saxon words then the fringer has the weapons to puncture the hot air-filled balloon the aeronauts in the middle like to waft around in. Hopefully now the picture of the fringer starts to come into sharper focus.
An inviting target...
The fringer is an iconoclast by nature or experience, refusing to recognize the graven images idolized by the marshmallowy middle.
The dead center (inertial resistance) is responsible for most of the lack of accountability in local government; the “conservatives” (they’re not) and the “progressives” (they’re not) are actually pretty happy just to share their five little thrones with each other while the real shot-callers keep the apparatus working behind the scenes.
Other definitions are welcome, as usual. Fringers are not dogmatic.
A while back we did a post on the deafening silence in certain quarters about the shenanigans being perpetrated by members of the Orange County Fair Board in their effort to buy their own Fair: you know, sort of embarrassing things like meeting in secret, using public funds for their own gain, employing an illegal lobbyist.
Oops, I did it again.
At the situationally ethical Red County blog not only had nobody said a word about it, their #1 undertherugsweeper, Matthew J. Cunningham was doing weird posts on the motivations of sale opponents. Of course he took umbrage at our disrespectful behavior. More high-pitched, hysterical girly shrieks: Fringe! Fringe!
When Mrs. Cunningham goes into spin mode (we all know now what that means – divert attention, change the subject, etc.) there is usually a self-interested reason. In this case we suspected that he was simply running cover for his repuglican buddies on the Board who had previously hosted him for scrumpdiddlyumtious fair chow and drinkies; and of course it wouldn’t do to talk about the activities of the Fair Foundation “consultant”- one Dick Ackerman. At least not without a script prepared.
Then someone sent us this fun factoid: the URL ocfairfoundation.org is owned by someone named Scott Graves, the same name as Matt J. Cunningham’s former blog publishing boss at – Red County. Hmm. Same guy? Is Cunningham’s old boss designing the website for the “Foundation?” That would figure.
Suddenly we have to wonder just how many of Orange County’s Repuglicans have their fingers stuck into the Fair Pie, and when, if ever, the centro-sphere motormouths will ever even mention it.
Mimi is the senator representing most of Fullerton in the 33rd State Senate District – so bequeathed by Dick Ackerman who made sure that some (but not all) of Fullerton was kept in his 33rd when redistricting occurred in 2001. Walters lives somewhere down near the beach but is our representative! Ah! Ackermanism, the gift that keeps giving.
In the fun photo above, Mimi Walters is the slender woman in pink, getting crushed by her good pal Mike Duvall’s tub of guts.
Why are we picking on Walters? Because to put it simply, her political presence in Fullerton is a pure expression of the repuglicanism propagated by the Ackermans and their cronies. Walters is a long-time buddy of Ackerman, Inc. and, like Mike Duvall, owes her political success to that gang. Naturally she would endorse a carpetbagging, no-ability zero like Linda Ackerman to represent us. Hell, that’s just par for the course.
But her latest episode is just as bad. Apparently she is the Campaign Co-chair for some creature named Sue Perez who wants to unseat State Senator Lou Correa for the 34th Senate job. Orange Juice blog has done a post on the subject, here. The 34th District includes a good-sized chunk of south-central Fullerton. And that makes it our business.
Well, guess what? Sue Perez doesn’t live in the 34th District!Quel surprise!She also has no political history, no record, no nothing, except that she seems to have some connection to the nut-jobs at the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and is pals with Lorri Galloway – another carpetbagger. Perez has hired Mimi Walter’s campaign consultant as an indication of her seriousness.
We would like to think that Mimi W. would have taken some time to soberly reflect upon the humiliation visited upon Linda Ackerwoman before embarking on another voyage into the same turbulent waters, but apparently such was not the case. Could the Gang find no one with even a shred of plausibility? Guess not. In the end it won’t matter much because Correa will win comfortably. Still, it would be nice to have a real opponent for Lou in the election.
So soon someone may have to festoon central Fullerton with a whole new round of “carpetbagger” signs. There’s just no rest for the weary!
In Puccini’s opera La Boheme, an undernourished Mimi finally succumbs to “consumption” in Act IV. Our Mimi may be a little harder to be rid of. But can we really afford any more of this sort of thing?
Trouble. That starts with "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for Poll!
We noticed the other day that the Ackerwoman has spent a ton of money on polling: over fourteen big ones were paid to a guy named Adam Probolsky (who is supposedly the “boyfriend” of Ackerman, Inc. campaign fundraiser Desiree Mouzoon).
Being the political novices that we are, we really have to wonder what $14K gets you in the world of polling, and why other polling was needed to be done since Ackerwoman also paid an outfit JMJ Associates another $6500 for “polling and survey.” That’s over twenty grand in just a few weeks for polling. And that doesn’t even count the polling done by the Ackerman attack dogs Alliance for California’s Tomorrow – a poll that seemed to have caused their plug to be pulled. Hmm.
According to his own website “Mr. Probolsky is an opinion research expert with a demonstrated record of success.” There is no explanation of how he got to be an “expert” – such as advanced degrees in mathematics or statistics, or the like.
And, for quite some time we have wondered whether these campaign camp followers – pollsters and campaign consultants, etc., didn’t really have an interest in stringing candidates along for their own purposes.
A ling cod
We would feel really badly if poor Linda, who has the business experience of a ling cod, were being taken advantage of by unscrupulous campaign hucksters.
Gee, I guess I'd better not venture north of the 91
A Friend has alerted us that over at the Red County blog, Ackerman, Inc. apologist Matt Cunningham has come up with a new argument to mitigate the obvious truth that Linda Ackerman is a merely an Irvine carpetbagger who doesn’t live in the district.
He claims that Ackerwoman’s larger number of Fullerton contributors (compared to Norby) belies the the claim that she has no support in her adopted district. Hence, the carpetbagger label doesn’t stick quite so well. Apart from the obvious problem of arguing points that nobody has ever contested (typical) his post betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of Fullerton politics.
Let’s just dispense with the real issue first: LINDA ACKERMAN LIVES IN IRVINE.
Of course Ackerman, Inc. has some support in Fullerton – but among a pretty narrow and shallow tribe, that includes a few Repuglican Women, Dick’s old Rotary buddies, and some fading Chamber of Commerce types. These people participate in politics and they are the people whom Ackerman, Inc. has hit up for campaign contributions. These folks are like the insects that skim across the top of the pond – and are not indicative of much of anything going on below. Due to the influence of Ackerman they have never really supported Norby at all. Their support of Ackerwoman, far from being unusual, is in fact, perfectly predictable.
So to get a few dozen contributions from these people really indicates very little. The election will be decided by tens of thousands of voters, many of whom have already indicated their disgust at the attempt of Dick Ackerman to hang on to power through the conduit of his wife.
