Word has got out that disgraced former city manager Joe Felz is working with Crittenton Services on a new “mixed-use” development on Harbor Boulevard. It’s hard to imagine Crittenden – that takes care of wayward and abused girls – being in the land development business so that doesn’t quite make sense – unless maybe it’s to build themselves a new corporate complex.
Is Felz working for a fee so he can profit from all those inside contacts he continues to cultivate after his (and our) municipal humiliation? Maybe he is donating his valuable time for the sake of the charity. Either way, it hard to see why Crittenden would think the services of Felz, who quit after getting popped driving off the road and trying to make a quick getaway, would be anything other than an embarrassment to them.
I’ll drink to that!
A little research shows that Crittenden has assembled quite a bit of real estate over the years. And curiously (or not) it is directly adjacent to the “Fox Block” monstrosity that never seems to go away.
If the city made a deal to get rid of the “useless” triangle parking lot, the rest of Crittendon’s property along with the covering of a flood control channel and the elimination of an alleyway would make a great apartment block.
And finally, I note that the Fullerton Redevelopment Successor Agency is holding on to $6 million for the Fox Block – vestigial redevelopment Monopoly money that will end up in some developer’s pocket.
An unhappy customer left a comment yesterday on Facebook about a post FFFF ran regarding new signs at the depot that are not only physically obtrusive, but are also based on erroneous or outright fraudulent Municipal Code citations. These facts would bother a normal citizen, but not a gentleman named Wayne Elms who perceived something “outstanding” about these signs and something wrong with “lifeless losers” who would take exception to being lied to by their own government. Here’s a snapshot:
Naturally, a little investigation reveals that Wayne Elms may not be a normal citizen at all, but rather a highly compensated City employee whose function could be easily contracted out if the City were really interested in a balanced budget. Here’s what the eloquent Stanley Wayne costs us every year:
When FFFF asked the slippery Elms if he had anything to do with the installation of the fraudulent signs, he decided to delete his own comment.
In the last week or so Fullerton P.D. has been making it extremely clear that they take D.U.I.s very, very seriously.
This isn’t really news as the City Council regularly helps present M.A.D.D. awards to officers with the most D.U.I. arrests.
Fullerton Mayor Greg Sebourn, third from left, with Fullerton PD officers being honored for their contribution in getting drunk drivers off the road. Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
There is very little sympathy for people who make the stupid decision to drink or do drugs and then drive. This makes sense as when you do so you’re putting not just your own life on the line but are risking the lives of anybody in your potential path.
The however, of course, is if you make such a colossally stupid decision and happen to work for the city.
Were drinking or drugs involved in the January accident and circumstances around the rolled Parks and Rec vehicle? To this day we have no information.
Better yet is if you happen to be one of the high priests of local government. City Manager perhaps. Then you can “take a wide turn” while smelling of alcohol with near impunity.
Dearly Departed Sappy McTree
For those who may have forgotten, back in March Joe Felz was charged with one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of alcohol and one misdemeanor count of hit and run with property damage. He was charged in relation to his 09 November 2016 accident where he “smelled of alcohol” after running over a tree. Instead of being cited or arrested he was given a chance to talk to the Chief of Police, Danny Hughes, before being given a ride home. Hughes also spoke to then Mayor Fitzgerald.
Thanks to denied Public Records Requests and the burden of suing to get information the city won’t legally hand over we don’t know who called whom that night or who ordered the cover-up and obstruction of justice. We don’t know who arranged to let the City Manager escape the crimes that Fullerton P.D. and City Hall are ever so eager to wield against the commoners. What we do know is the following:
We find out on Monday if former City Manager Joe Felz will actually be prosecuted for the crimes with which he’s been charged. We’ll be watching to see if the District Attorney has any interest in actually prosecuting one of the aristocrats in our midst. More likely they plan to keep continuing the case in the hopes that anger subsides and the status quo of corruption can settle back into place. The worst thing that could happen to the Fullerton Police Department, and the sycophantic City Council, is for the truth to come out so the smart money is on a plea deal or a dropping of charges.
Something to keep in mind here is that our City Council has been silent on this whole fiasco. While it is true that the Felz case is still pending, 9 months after the accident, there is no such investigation going on with F.P.D. and the alleged cover-up. Nary a word has come from Council or the City Manager’s office. This council, all 5 of them, are perfectly fine with police corruption and a total lack of oversight. They could have demanded oversight before hiring a new chief. Or before hiring a new City Manager. They didn’t even bother to address the issue. These 5 are more worried about angering the F.P.O.A. campaign monster than doing the right thing. To add insult to injury the thin blue line would rather wallow in their own corruption than oust their “bad apples” once again proving that the whole bushel has rotted.
Nothing changed after Kelly Thomas died and nothing has changed after Joe Felz’s wild ride.
We’ve been waiting to be proven wrong on this issue. We’ve been waiting for council to demand accountability. We’ve been waiting for the council to demand oversight. We’ve been waiting for the brothers and sisters in blue to step out of the shadows and tell the truth. For 9 months we’ve been waiting and it looks like we’ll be waiting forevermore. For all of the pomp and circumstance about public service and the public good it is once again clear that our government institutions and those inside it are interested in anything but.
Everyday the people who run the County of Orange blow through so much dough that the amount of waste is incomprehensible to the layman. It’s incomprehensible to the County Board of Supervisors too, because of course, it’s not their money.
Funny plastic handcuffs graphic borrowed from Voice of OC
But then there are the examples, though relatively small, that truly give us cause to doubt the reason and the integrity of our County government. Thus the Todd Spitzer Wahoo’s Fish Taco incident that brought about a lawsuit that the County lost, putting us taxpayers on the hook for the legal fees of the other side. Fees of $121,396 to be precise. Here’s the payout as reported by Voice of OC, who just happens to be the other party in the lawsuit.
Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Todd Spitzer gets emotional while reflecting on an incident more than 5 months ago at Wahoo’s Fish Tacos in Lake Forest. He handcuffed Jeobay Castellano and called police when the man would not stop trying to proselytize even when Spitzer told him he was a Christian. ///ADDITIONAL INFO: – Photo by MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER –
Here’s the backstory: In April, 2015, 3rd District Supervisor (and now DA candidate) Todd Spitzer,took a loaded gun into the aforementioned restaurant and slapped handcuffs on a harmless proselytizer who was annoying him. A few moths later, word leaked out about this bizarre behavior and Spitzer, trying to put a positive spin on his weird behavior engaged the services of the County’s PR person, Jean Pasco to help craft a press release that would make Spitzer look good and (ironically) cast the offending evangelist as mentally unstable. The memos and the PR draft never saw the light of day.
Nelson wears his game face, but the game was already over…
The Voice of OC got wind of the e-mails between Spitzer and Pasco and made a public records act request to get them. Request denied. Then The Voice sued to get the documents and the Supervisors, including our own Shawn Nelson, endorsed the ludicrous idea that these documents could somehow be legitimately withheld from public scrutiny. Voice won in court, got their documents and ran their story. And then this week the taxpayers of Orange County got stuck with Voice’s legal tab – over $120,000. Again the Supervisors, including Nelson, voted to make us pay for their idiotic decision to protect one of their own club from…us.
The politicians are always telling us about their dedication to public service. But if anybody ever needed a perfect example of how they will use our money to protect themselves and their employees, he need look no farther than the Todd Spitzer Wahoo’s Fish Taco Tale.
When you can’t win, just keep changing the rules until you do. That’s the mantra of the California Democrat party and bag men in the State legislature.
Let’s take the case of the recall against State Senator Josh Newman, who within his first few months in office caved in to the party bosses and voted to raise $50,000,000,000 innewtaxes, the majority of which will be paid by the people who can least afford it – the working poor, old people on fixed incomes, students, etc.
The consequent recall effort proved so popular that 85,000 signatureswere submitted in barely two months, and that caused a veritable panic among the Democrat elitists who run Taxifornia. What’s a limousine liberal to do?
Cheat, that’s what.
Exhibit A for the prosecution: Democrats’ use of the budget process to change the state’s recall process that was already well-underway in the case of Newman, making the recall process longer and more onerous – a violation of due process and civil rights if ever there was one.
Exhibit B for the prosecution: Democrats use of political operatives on the California Fair Political Practices Commission to relax the rules regarding campaign contributions to the target of the recall, paving the way for wealthy left-wing donors to prop up Newman.
We are used to the nonsensical rhetoric about the “appropriate” way in which recalls should be used (only when it suits the agenda of those who make such ridiculous arguments), but the use of government power to muzzle the electorate has to be seen as a much more sinister trend. If ever the politicians in Sacramento get away with using their legislative power to get rid of political opponents you can bet it won’t be the last time they do it.
Most government projects have three things in common: they are bad ideas promoted by bureaucrats, they are obscenely expensive, and there is no accountability attached to them.
In Fullerton we have lots of examples over the years that touch all three bases. But if ever one needed a veritable poster child for government fiascoes, the ill-conceived “Downtown Core and Corridors” Specific Plan would be it.
Back in 2010, the City of Fullerton put in an application for a “project” to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Strategic Growth Council” an assemblage of bureaucrats and political appointees selected by the governor to promote sustainability and responsibility in urban (and suburban planning). On the face of it, the idea was to promote development that would be eco-friendly – somehow, someway. Lo and Behold! Fullerton received a $1,000,000 grant to create the Downtown Core and Corridors Specific Plan, a massive overlay zone. In 2013 a committee was appointed to make this look like a community driven enterprise, but as so often happens the committee was led along by the consultants and staff who were being paid, and paid well, out of the grant money. Some members of this committee only went to one meeting, the last one, in May 2014, a meeting consumed by passing out certificates of participation to committee members for all their hard work.
In the meantime, the intent of the creators of the specific plan became crystal clear: opportunity for massive new housing projects along Fullerton’s busiest streets, development that would not even have to undergo the scrutiny facing normal projects so long as the permissive guidelines of the specific plan were met. Naturally, lots of people objected to the continued over-development of Fullerton, and the utter disconnect with what the Strategic Growth Council was ostensibly promoting. Perhaps the most obnoxious thing about the specific plan proposal was the way it was being used, unapproved by any policy maker, to promote other massive apartment projects already in the entitlement process.
And then a funny thing happened. The Downtown Core and Corridors Specific Plan vanished into thin air. Although recommended by the Planning Commission in August of 2014, the plan and its Environmental Impact Report never went to the city council for approval. 2015 passed; and so did 2016 without the plan being approved. Even modifications rumored to have been proposed by the now-departed Planning Director Karen Haluza never materialized for council review or approval.
I’ll drink to that!
Some cynical people believe the plan was postponed in 2014 because of the council election, an election that returned development uber alles councilmembers Greg Sebourn and Bud Chaffee. And they believe that the subsequent attempt to erase the plan from the municipal memory was perpetrated by none other than the hapless city manager, Joe Felz and lobbyist councilperson Jennifer Fitzgerald, (so the story goes) two individuals who had every incentive to shake down potential developers one by one, rather than granting a broad entitlement for new and gargantuan development. Felz had a massive budget deficit to fill, and Fitzgerald had massive lobbying opportunities from potential Pringle and Associate clients.
A chemical bond
What is undeniable is that three long years have passed and no action has been taken to either approve or deny the specific plan. The grant money approved by the State has been a complete waste – a travesty so embarrassing to everybody concerned that no one seems to want to demand an explanation for this fiasco. Neither the city bureaucrats or council, nor the State has any incentive to advertise this disaster, and you can bet there never will be an accounting.
The Schulz Factor: happy-looking but not believable
A while back, Fullerton junior College president Greg Schulz held an open house to share information with the constituents of the North Orange College Community College District. If anyone expected the usual milquetoast tea party, they would have been much mistaken.
One intrepid citizen brought up the matter of Dino Skokos, the FJC security goon who attacked a student last fall. Here is the audio of the interrogation accompanied by a video of the beat down applied to the kid by Skokos.
To his credit, the interrogator will not let Schulz off the hook, and grills him pretty good. Schulz of course will say nothing specific and refuses to pass on the results of the taxpayer funded “investigation” commissioned by him via a law firm that specializes in protecting the people who run government agencies. It’s a “human resources” issue, see, and we poor saps who pay for the salaries of these individuals and the civil claims they cause, are not to know anything about them.
Schulz is happy to remind folks of the investigation; but what it accomplished and how much it cost us will be shrouded in mystery until long after Schulz has taken his massive pension. Schulz won’t even say if the Fullerton Police Department investigated this matter, an issue that has no bearing on personnel confidentiality at all.
There was a bit of confusion on campus…
Did you notice that at the 1:05 mark the esteemed Schulz says Skokos “is not going to be an employee of the district,” a curious statement given that Skokos is still on administrative leave nine months after the assault . Later he states that he is not permitted to say whether Skokos is coming back or not. It’s all a big secret, see. So which is it? Who knows? Not the public, that’s for certain.
We have a new police chief in Fullerton, and only eight months after his predecessor obstructed justice by giving a DUI city manager a get out of jail card, and retired with a massive pension to become a Disney employee.
The new one is named David Hendrick who was approved unanimously by our city council this week. That includes, of course, self-professed conservatives Bruce Whitaker and Greg Sebourn, who evidently saw nothing wrong paying Mr. Hendricks $230,000 per annum – $5,000 more than his boss, the city manager, and $25,000 more than his predecessor. Of course this gross pension spike will be borne by the taxpayers of Fullerton until Mr. Hendricks and his beneficiaries scoot off to their eternal rewards – in about 30 or 40 years.
It may have been expensive, but it sure was unnecessary…
Ten weeks ago I took a break documenting the disastrous “elevators to nowhere” story, a history of confusion and ineptitude that had its genesis in Jones, Bankhead and McKinley era. This completely unnecessary $4,000,000 boondoggle was five-and-a-half years old and it was dead in the water.
As of May 10, 2017 work on this project had already been halted for quite some time. Now, two-and-a-half months later, work has still not resumed. It is probably useless to inquire to the City about the facts of this latest delay, given the total lack of transparency surrounding this project throughout its death march. The Public Works Department appears to be incapable of presenting an honest staff report about it, and our elected officials could pretty obviously not care less about the waste or the management problems connected to it.
One thing we may safely assume: the delay – if it is the responsibility of the City, as is highly likely – is going to cost us a lot in extended overhead for the contractor, Woodcliff Corporation; and the cost will be accompanied by the usual complete lack of accountability to the taxpayers of Fullerton.
Mr. David Hendricks, currently employed by the Long Beach Police Department was recently tapped to by someone, somewhere, somehow to become our new police chief. Here’s the July 12th press release from the City’s website:
Apart from several obnoxious things about this press release (including the tacit presumption that this recommendation for appointment – that was made by who knows who – will be rubber stamped by the City Council), we will consider the information contained in the final sentence, to wit: a Masters of Public Administration degree from something called “Andrew Jackson University” in Birmingham, Alabama.
The FFFF Academic Accreditation team immediately sprang into action, and what they discovered doesn’t suggest academic accomplishment of any sort. Andrew Jackson University was created by a couple of lawyers in the mid-90s who decided that hardworking folk needed an online opportunity to pursue advanced education. Or so the story went. But those familiar with the for-profit diploma mill industry know the story well: these establishments are created to separate saps from their money, and often to separate taxpayers from unpaid student loans underwritten by the government.
“Knowledge is good” – Emil Faber
Andrew Jackson University – unaccredited by anybody – has now been bought and sold twice since its inception and its “location,” if nothing other than a PO box, has been changed successively from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. It is now called “New Charter University” and is owned by financial investors.
FFFF reached out to knowledgeable experts in this field to learn more about such institutions.
Erasmus Alberus, Professor Emeritus of Academic Ethics at the University of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan told FFFF “these institutions exist merely to give the impression that those who have paid the requisite tuition have attained some sort of academic accomplishment. They haven’t. The purpose is to enhance career and income possibilities through this impression.”
Even more scathing was the assessment of Sabrina Plath, Director of Professional Development at the Thorstein Veblen Center in Valparaiso, Indiana. Says Ms. Plath: It is an ongoing scandal how mail order diplomas are used to leverage career promotion, and salary and benefit enhancement, especially at the expense of the public.”
And so these questions remain to be answered: who was impressed enough by a graduate of Andrew Jackson University that he is recommended for hire as our new police chief with salary and benefits approaching $300,000 a year? Was this laughable non-degree from a phony academic institution a material fact in his selection? Did anybody even care?
Good luck trying to find out. But if you care about this, and if you care about the fact that a press release announced this recommendation before the City Council even decided on a candidate, go to the meeting on the 18th and enjoy the fun.
