Travis, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 16, 2011February 16, 2011The Crime Beat

A Fig Tree and the Suppression of Evidence of Harassment

Should the city actively seek to suppress any evidence of harassment by city staff from the court record when prosecuting code violations? That’s exactly what’s happening in the strange case of an allegedly overgrown fig tree in south Fullerton.

A few weeks ago this woman, henceforth known as “The Fig Tree Lady,” came before council to tell her side of the story in a code enforcement case against her fig tree, which was allegedly hanging over a public sidewalk last year. The Fig Lady accused city staff of singling her out for criminal prosecution as retribution for her embarrassing victory over the city attorney (Jones & Mayer) several years prior.

That same day, the city attorney had filed a motion in court to suppress any evidence of harassment by City employees.

The fig lady’s guilt or innocence will be decided in court, and is not really the point here. But why is the city using it’s legal muscle to suppress any evidence that it’s code enforcement officers might be harassing citizens?

What if this woman did have evidence that the city attorney and staff were giving her case “special treatment”? Shouldn’t she be able to make her case to the judge? Is someone using the city’s expensive legal resources to bully and silence this outspoken critic in some sort of personal vendetta as the Fig Lady claims?

Fullerton Fig Tree — Exhibit A: The overgrown fig tree

If the motion is granted, the woman would not even be allowed to submit this current photo of her tree (courtesy of Greg Sebourn) as evidence that the situation has been corrected.

Obviously the tree is not a threat anymore. Why is the city attorney still spending our money to silence and prosecute this woman? And are they really worried that she could prove her claims of harassment?

February 12, 2011Local Media

Fire Heroes Strike Back at Steven Greenhut

by Travis69 Comments

Tonight’s Martha Montelongo radio show will feature author and editorialist Steven Greenhut, who was attacked this week by the International Association of Firefighters and painted as an evil front man in the battle to rein in ridiculous public employee pensions.

Here is the new IAFF commercial, which was also featured on a segment of some left wing thing called “The ED Show.” The ad replays truthful statements of Steven Greenhut along with John Stossel and Glen Beck interlaced with video of fire heroes falling down and putting people on stretchers.

The underlying theme of conflict between logic and emotion is believed to be intentional.

Tune in to KRLA AM 870 or KRLA870.com tonight at 11 pm to catch Greenhut and a few others on the Martha Montelongo Show.

February 10, 2011February 10, 2011Statewide Stuff

Boo Hoo: Chief Fire Hero Decries ‘Vicious Attacks’ Against Union Gluttony

by Travis57 Comments

Here’s a new message from Harold A. Schaitberger (yes that’s the head of the International Firefighter’s union’s real name) where he warns firefighters that “attacks on your pension plans are like a tsunami rolling across the country.”

A pension tsunami? Chief, I think you’re a little mixed up. Pension Tsunami is a famous little website that was cooked up right here in Fullerton, CA, and you probably don’t want to be spreading THAT message any further. Oh well, too late.

Our response?

I am hero and deserve.

February 9, 2011February 10, 2011Local Media

Myth Buster’s Myth Busted

by Travis20 Comments

Over the years we’ve learned that boldfaced spin and self-serving regurgitation of misinformation is a regular indulgence for those union mouthpieces over at the Liberal OC. Like most, we quickly grew tired trying to make sense of the noise emerging from the OCEA’s propaganda machine and so we’ve learned to ignore it. But every once in a while someone new comes along and gets sucked right into the blue vortex.

A few weeks ago, Chris Prevatt wrote this blurb supposedly “Busting the Myths” about how public employee pensions don’t cost us hardly anything and the real problem is… well something somewhere else. He backed that up with the audacious claim that public employee compensation only sucks up about 10% of California’s budget, a dubious statement which was then re-quoted by OCEA booster Nick Berardino in this letter to the OC Register.

Well somehow our perplexed new Friends over at UnionWatch.com stumbled upon Prevatt’s steaming pile and decided to break down this mythbuster’s logic. In a lengthy post based on conservative figures and some elementary math, the unnamed blogger discovered that the LiberalOC was off the mark by a factor of six. In fact, conservative calculations pinned public employee compensation at about 67% of California’s budget, far more than Prevatt’s 10%, putting public employees right back at the top of the lineup as a primary suspects in the case of California’s budget woes.

So nobody really knows if it was Prevatt or Berardino who initiated the transmission of this blatant error, but it doesn’t really matter. It served their purposes for a few moments and a couple of union adherents probably sucked it up and will continue to pass the falsehoods along. At least now the rest of us know better.

February 9, 2011February 19, 2011Fullerton School Board

Finally, Fullerton’s First School Board Broadcast

by Travis14 Comments

The Fullerton School Board doesn’t show its meetings on cable or the Internet. In fact, they don’t even post the audio recordings online. The only way to find out what really happened is to drive over to the district headquarters and ask for a CD.

Well that’s pretty sad, especially given the board’s constant bloviating about their total technological immersion programs for little kids. Shouldn’t the self-appointed exhibitors of the next YouTube generation be a little more eager to put themselves online?

We can do better. And so the Friends are going to bring some extra transparency to the Fullerton School Board meetings by broadcasting them and posting the archives online for the benefit of the public. Here is the first recording of last night’s meeting:

View the agenda

Most of the meeting is spent “giving out gold stars” just as commenter Fullerton Rudy predicted, but there are a few interesting items in the video:

Discussion and approval of Board policy on Charter Schools – 1:37:00
Discussion and approval of lawsuit against OC Health Care Agency regarding state funding changes – 1:41:30

Our hope is that the district will ultimately take the reigns and opt to broadcast and record their own meetings, but in the meantime we promise to archive them here at FFFF for all to see (and comment on.)

February 7, 2011February 7, 2011Fullerton School Board

Will the School Board Support Tax Increases?

by Travis9 Comments

One of Chris Thompson’s first challenges on the Fullerton School Board may be to oppose the approval of a resolution by the Fullerton School District to support the extended tax increases in California.

The district typically has supported anti-taxpayer, pro-union resolutions like this forwarded by self-serving organizations like the California School Boards Association. With the highest state taxes and entitlement expenses in the nation, let’s see if this 5 of 5 Republican School Board has nerve to insult our intelligence with this resolution.

View the CSBA measure

February 4, 2011February 4, 2011Fullerton City Council

Levinson Calls for Outsourcing Bids Against All City Employees

by Travis18 Comments

Check out this clip of resident Barry Levinson challenging the city council to tackle our unfunded pension liability problem at the February 2nd council meeting.

Once he gets past the dreary numbers, Barry suggests that the city manager obtain outsourcing bids to create a dollar baseline as a heavy bargaining chip during the next set of negotiations with the unions.

The lumbering Mayor Pro Tem, both a recipient and perpetrator of the ridiculous pension scheme, became agitated and cut Barry off several times, but Barry got his point across in the end.

February 2, 2011February 2, 2011Big Brother

Will Ed Royce Renew the Awful Patriot Act?

by Travis53 Comments

Of course he will. He’s already re-authorized the original bill twice and voted to make it permanent. Why should we think he won’t join the majority of Dems and ‘Pugs to renew some of the law’s more controversial provisions in the coming days?

The Patriot Act was created in the rabid aftermath of 9/11 and passed by a broad coalition of legislators who never even read the bill. It granted federal law enforcement bureaucracies a new range of surveillance powers previously considered unconstitutional by anyone who bothered to read the Fourth Amendment.

Warrantless wiretaps, secret court orders, and immediate access to the Internet history, emails, medical records, public library records and school records of every single American are now available to any agent convinced that terrorism might take place somewhere sometime.

Not a terrorist? The definition of terrorism has been conveniently expanded to include activities previously protected by the 1st amendment, such as protests in inconvenient locations or anything else that fits the vague description of “disruptive activity.”

Ed-Royce-poses-with-Obama-party-crasher-Michaele-Salahi — Nope. No terrorists here.

Lost on every foam-at-the-mouth terrorist hunter who embraces this law is one simple reality: the invasive provisions of the Patriot Act apply not only to them evil terrists, but also to every single law-abiding American citizen of the United States.

Thanks, Ed Royce, for another unchecked expansion of government power.

January 29, 2011Local Media

Tonight on the Radio: Steven Greenhut and Ron Kaye on Redevelopment

by Travis12 Comments

Here’s the details on tonight’s edition of the Martha Montelongo show. Listen live Saturday night on AM870 at 11PM or online at KRLA870.com.

Steven Greenhut, CalWatchDog.com‘s editor in chief and former deputy editor and columnist for the Orange County Register and author of Abuse of Power: How Government Misuses Eminent Domain, joins Ron Kaye, publisher, editor and columnist for RonKayeLA Blog in a discussion on Redevelopment.

And on Education, a Superior Court Judge ruled this month in favor of the ACLU versus The Los Angeles Unified School District over the district’s last hired first fired layoff policy. It is a landmark decision hailed as such by education reformers, but teacher’s unions denounce it as a step toward dismantling tenure policies.

Larry Sand of the California Teacher’s Empowerment Network joins Martha to talk about this ruling, the firestorm it has caused statewide, and you can be sure nationally as well, and what happens next. He’ll also speak with us about a little known law that was passed by the legislature last year, as part of a move to capitalize on the President’s Race to the Top financial incentives for states to adopt certain education reform measures.

January 28, 2011January 30, 2011Harry Sidhu

Rackauckas’ New iPhone App Wants to Track You Down

by Travis11 Comments

With much hullabaloo, the OC District Attorney’s PR machine announced the first mobile application “ever launched by a prosecutorial agency.” A dubious use of taxpayer dollars, sure. But there’s more to this app than just Rackauckas’ duplicitous grin.

An FFFF staffer who installed the T-Rack app immediately discovered an alert indicating that the DA was seeking out his current location via GPS and cell triangulation. Hey, that’s pretty creepy!

Of course, the irony of the DA’s mobile intrusion is not lost on FFFF. Remember when his bumbling prosecutors couldn’t manage to track down Supervisorial hopeful Harry Sidhu after he lied about his residence at the lovely Calabria apartments in Anaheim? We even got real Private Eye to gather the evidence and draw him a map. It was a slam dunk.

But even with the goods sitting right under the prosecutor’s nose, Anaheim’s craftiest carpetbagger still managed to elude justice… at least until the voters finally caught up with him.

Harry'sFriend — I will not be installing this one!

Back to the app: I’m not sure what the DA really had in mind with this little gimmick, but experts generally agree that it’s best to keep The Man as far away from your cell phone as you can.