In FFFF’s early days, this blog noted how the Fullerton Observer and its “editor” Sharon Kennedy would bend over backwards to avoid printing anything that might embarrass City officialdom. In the years after that blog post, the Observer remained true to form. It continually went to bat for the bureaucrats in increasingly shameful ways, even when it […]
A Step in the Right Direction
Enough Excuses, this Recall is Newman’s Own Fault
Here’s a thought experiment for you. Let’s say you bought a house in Fullerton at the peak of the housing market. The market has mostly recovered but the house is only worth what you originally paid. However, when you receive your tax bill, the Franchise Tax Board assesses it higher, so there is more than […]
Can We Get A Refund For The Stairs?
It happened pretty quickly, just like a UFO sighting, and just as rare: a Fullerton councilperson suggesting accountability. But here you see Greg Sebourn raising the embarrassing subject of the lamentable Hillcrest Park “stairs to nowhere.” If you’ve been paying attention, you know very well by now that these rickety looking wooden “exercise” stairs are […]
How the Newman Recall Could Kill the Gas Tax
Take a second and watch recall leader Carl DeMaio explain how recalling Josh Newman is the first step in a three stage plan to rescind the new car tax and fix California’s roads without new taxes. To sum up his plan: Recall Newman and eliminate the 2/3rds Democratic majority in the state senate. Give legislature 30 […]
Stack n Pack Haluza’s Had Enough
There’s a new rumor out of city hall today. Community Development Director Karen Haluza is leaving Fullerton for good, having taken some sort of job all the way up in Redmond, Washington. Adios.
The Dan Hughes Sense of Entitlement
City Hall did something really helpful this week. The Clerk’s Office worked with Administrative Services to post very detailed budget documents online in advance of next Tuesday’s City Council budget workshop. I asked if this could be done and they made it happen 24 hours later. Thank you! Budget detail of this depth has never […]
Chaffee Relieves Self on SCAG
This fun clip has it all, drama, comedy and an anti-climactic bathos that can only come when plumbing the depths of political axle greasing. The topic? The Fullerton City Council choosing a delegate to attend the SCAG annual conference at a posh desert resort. Right out of the gate, Councilman Doug “Bud” Chaffee assertively announces […]
The Rip Off
We have been asked by one of our Friends to publish the following post: Now that our Legislature has passed the obscene Gas Tax, the usual liberal Democrat suspects have popped up to add their voices in high hosanna to the deed. Their script, as usual, is the old, tired mantra of affiliating more taxes […]
FFFF Fights City Hall for Release of Wild Ride Felz Communications
For several months FFFF has been stymied in our attempts to find out who talked to whom in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016 when former City Manager Joe Felz drove off Glenwood Avenue, ran over a tree, and tried to motor off. Although he was stopped by the cops and smelled of […]
Behind the Bullshit Goes Bye-Bye
Of all the money that former City Manager Wild Ride Joe Felz wasted during his shaky tenure, nothing was quite as egregious as the annual fifty grand Stumblejoe blew on Behind the Badge, a silly, pointless PR outlet that passed along empty feel-good tales involving Fullerton cops. No one knows if anyone even bothered reading […]
Behind the Badge on the Chopping Block?
Next Tuesday’s Council meeting brings us another Budget Show, one more in a line of footling meetings strung out like faux pearls on a cheap necklace. This one is particularly entertaining since it acknowledges a big structural deficit that the suggested cost savings will do almost nothing to correct: “modest” revenue increases are broadly suggested, […]
Our Police Force Could be Second to None. An Essay
No, seriously. I mean it. And not like Doug “Bud” Chaffee means it when he says our fire department is “second to none.” The unintentional irony of Chaffee’s words escapes the Hero worshipers. He’s right. Our fire department is second to none because they are all virtually the same. Same standards, same recruiting pool, same […]
Don’t Just Complain – Do Something
We’ve covered the Red Oak development before – a four story, 295 unit development at 600 Commonwealth which does not have adequate parking and would create serious traffic concerns as residents block traffic on the West side of Commonwealth to turn into the project during rush hour. On January 16, the City Council on a […]
Behind the Badge: The No-Bid No No and An Email to the Council
FFFF has tracked the obscene waste of taxpayer money – $200,000 so far – on a vacuous, pro-cop PR outlet run by Cornerstone Communication called “Back the Badge.” We have noted a supremely fuzzy contract, approved only by a bureaucrat and managed in the most slip-shod fashion. On February 2nd, Mr. Travis Kiger sent a communication […]
Whitaker Wants to Hear More From You; Bored, Tired, Cranky Fitzgerald Wants to Hear Less
Watch as Mayor Bruce Whitaker restores the public’s full speaking time. Following in Jan Flory’s footsteps, Jennifer Fitzgerald puts her disdain for the public on full display. Councilman Silva shows a healthy attitude about hearing from the public and staying up late from time to time: “It’s what we do.” When lobbyist Fitzgerald began her […]
Sappy McTree Jr.
A tree grows on Glenwood.
Nobody Reads The Blog…
Our uninformed (and often uniformed) critics are always saying nobody reads our humble blog. Well, somebody in City Hall does. Please note the “after” images of two construction sites we identified that had illegally blocked public sidewalks. And not a whimper from anybody in authority. Now that’s better.
Getting to the Bottom of It
We may have bid a fond adios to former City Manager, Joe Felz, but the mess he leaves behind still needs to be attended to. The most timely issue is Fullerton Police Department personnel conduct in the Case of the Missing City Manager. The police on the scene of Joe’s Big Crash drove him home sans Breathalyzer […]
FJC Hornets Take Top Spot in Final National Football Poll
The Fullerton Junior College Hornet football team have been named the number one JC team in the country per JCFootball.com. The team went 12-1 in 2016 and was one aggressively lousy call away from beating Saddleback, and running the table. So congrats you Hornets and die-hard Hornet fans. And maybe somebody in the FJC administration will wake […]
Make It One For My Baby, And One More For The Road
How fitting. Soon to be former councilwoman Ms. Jan Flory, one of the principal architects and mother hen of downtown Fullerton’s out-of-control culture of vodka. vomit and vehicular mayhem, is tossing herself a going away party. And naturally it’s at one of Fullerton’s fine dining establishments bars. Here’s the outreach: ———- Forwarded message ———- From: […]
