It’s been almost one year since former Fullerton City manager, Joe Felz, embarked on his infamous Wild Ride after an evening of drinking at election night parties in the Downtown Fullerton gin mills he worked so tirelessly to protect.
We all know how the drive home went wrong: Felz lost control of his vehicle on Glenwood Drive, drove over a tree, and tried to get away – in violation of the law. We also know that the Fullerton cops gave Joe a free pass and a ride home, many believe on the instructions of outgoing Cop-in-Charge, Danny “Gallahad” Hughes. That would be a crime, too – obstruction of justice, which is exactly what is asserted by District Attorney investigator, Abraham Santos.
Anyway, Felz has been charged with drunk driving by the DA, but the collusion to protect the City Manager has not been addressed and it never will be. That would set a very bad precedent, wouldn’t it?
On January 16, 2018 it looks like Wild Ride Felz is going to get his day in court as he has pleaded innocent to the charges. And since there is no evidence of his inebriation we all reckon the deal will be “dry reckless” driving, and case closed.
Rest assured, FFFF will be present to record and report the court proceedings.
New procurement card policies are being implemented at City Hall this week. That’s a good start and something to be cautiously optimistic about.
Until such changes extend to the merits of things like conferences and travel, any such reform will be of limited value because it’s all interrelated. Employees from all departments have had a reputation of being sent to conferences, staying for a couple hours, then skipping out on the rest to play tourist, play golf, or be entertained. Some have joked about these trips being “paycations” — as in the City pays them to go on vacation.
CalNENA is the California chapter of the National Emergency Number Association, a trade organization for 911 dispatchers. Without any consideration for the City’s bleak financial outlook, or the value of such a trip, the Police Department sent two dispatchers to the annual conference in San Diego. That shouldn’t be too expensive, right?
$1,467 for hotel rooms and parking, $1,200 for conference registration, $93.84 for mileage reimbursement, and probably $4,000 to 6,000 in wages, benefits, and potential overtime paid out to other employees to cover their absences. Their union agreement has a provision that considers it a full workweek if they attend training for 3+ consecutive days. I assume that provision applies here.
Ballpark cost of attending = $6,500 to 8,500. So what did the City of Fullerton gain from this trip? You tell me…
Another day, and another reason to question the fiscal insanity at the City of Fullerton. The Police Department paid over $3900 for this freezer which is a mere 3.9 cubic feet in size. The typical residential refrigerator-freezer holds anywhere from 18 to 25 cubic feet, so this unit is far smaller than it appears.
The police will be quick to say how essential this is to preserve forensic evidence like DNA. I can’t fault them for buying a unit with temperature alarms, but you know what’s funny? Medical grade freezers used by pharmacies, similar in size and features, cost anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 the price, maybe even less.
Wasteful spending is nothing new around here, but this serves as a great opportunity to look at the City’s flawed procurement policies.
The freezer was not purchased by the City’s Purchasing Agent. The Police Department doesn’t think the City’s procurement rules apply to them, so they bypass City Hall in most cases, and order whatever they want themselves.
“Reasonable effort shall be made to obtain three or more competitive bids for procurement of goods or services.” This sounds like a good policy except that it allows a City employee to solicit bids for their preferred piece of equipment, and preferred manufacturer, no matter how unnecessary or overpriced.
They didn’t get bids for a small freezer sufficient to store forensic evidence. They got bids for this specific Follett FZR4P-00-00 freezer, which was already leaps and bounds more expensive than comparable options from other manufacturers. Basically, we acquired the Mercedes-Benz of freezers, but that’s all fine and dandy because the Police Department got three bids as specified in the procurement policy.
There’s no excuse to overpay because somebody is too lazy to research alternatives perfectly acceptable in a similar work environment, and yet, the City of Fullerton does this over and over and over again.
Axon, formerly known as Taser International, is the manufacturer of tasers and body cameras worn by officers of the Fullerton Police Department.
In 2014, Felz and Hughes went before the City Council to beg for $650,534 over a five-year period to pay for body cameras from Taser International. The actual cost will far exceed that amount, but that’s unfortunately typical of the false assurances made by those two. You can read the agenda letter here where Dan Hughes did his best impression of a salesman for Taser International. There was never any competitive bidding process for those body cameras, which is obscene given the large price tag.
Fast forward to this past June. Gary Sirin of the Fullerton Police Department was sent to the Axon Accelerate Conference Fleece-A-Thon in Scottsdale, AZ. We paid $899 for him to attend the conference, $580.87 for lodging at the Westin, and it appears another $363.19 for travel expenses. I presume he was also on the clock and being paid for his time.
So what actually took place at this conference? Axon did a write up themselves that talks about demonstrating new products and strategies to prevent disclosure of body camera footage to the public. Once again, an insulting waste of City funds.
The Police Department apparently never got the memo about Fullerton having a fiscal crisis, or else they just don’t care.
I think it’s the latter, but in any event, these ridiculous conferences all over the United States and Canada on the City dime need to stop.
Today’s ethical lapse comes to us courtesy of the Fullerton Fire Department. See those shirts pictured above? Fire Captain Brian Seymour ordered nine of them for some kind of “Peer Support”.
Once the use tax is factored in, we paid about $40 per shirt.
Check out the reconciliation report. One can clearly see the purchaser was Brian Seymour.
Below, we see the invoice from the vendor, Linksoul, where the salesperson was Mary Seymour. Wait a minute, that must be a coincidence. No City employee would be foolish enough to use taxpayer money to purchase unnecessary clothing from a relative’s clothing business, right?
Mary Seymour is the Fire Captain’s wife. Linksoul is a clothing company started by her brother. A couple minutes with Google was enough to locate this article from Carlsbad Magazine with a quote about nepotism that couldn’t be more ironic under the circumstances.
Hinman, W. (2014, March & April). The Man Makes The Clothes. Carlsbad Magazine, 38-43.
So while the City of Fullerton prepares to be crushed under the weight of CalPERS pension obligations, we have people like Brian Seymour not just wasting our money — he’s sending cash to his wife’s family business.
Brian Seymour made $294,761 last year in pay and benefits. Why didn’t he pay for these shirts with his own money?
Did anyone make him reimburse the City? Whose idea were these shirts, anyway? Perhaps most important is why didn’t it occur to Brian Seymour that sending money to the family business was improper, and likely a violation of City policy and/or State Law?
Thanks to a certain FFD employee for bringing this to our attention. You know who you are.
Would you give neighbors access to your bank account?
No? That would probably come as a shock to some at City Hall where (at least) three City of Brea employees have been issued VISA procurement cards belonging to the City of Fullerton.
Fullerton and Brea have a shared Fire Department command staff. The Fire Chief, Deputy Chiefs, Division Chiefs, Battalion Chiefs, and an EMS manager perform services for both cities, even though they remain employees of the City where they came from. Those from Brea have been given the Fullerton VISA cards. Now, I can hear some people uttering phrases like “so what,” and “who cares,” and “what’s the problem?” I can help you with that.
Fullerton Fire Station 3 on Acacia Ave was the recipient of five La-Z-Boy recliners, on the City VISA card. The purchaser? Chris Guerrero, a Brea employee. The supervisor approving the purchase? Kathy Schaefer, another Brea employee. And where did the money come from? Fullerton.
The receipt raises another question because Engine 3, based at this fire station, only has a crew of three. So why purchase five recliners?
I’d bet money the extra recliners are for the CARE Ambulance employees based at Station 3. Nothing in the housing agreement between the City and CARE Ambulance talks about furnishings, so the recliners appear to be a gift.
A gift from Brea employees using Fullerton’s money.
Dan Hughes’ career as police chief came to a pretty embarrassing end in November 2016. OCDA investigator Abraham Santos opined that Hughes criminally obstructed justice when he ordered Joe Felz be driven home without an arrest after the now infamous DUI collision. As a result, Santos is now fighting for his career, the result of him blowing the whistle on the OCDA’s refusal to press charges.
Like any politician who lacks integrity, Hughes always tried to portray himself as an upstanding citizen. How ironic because this past July, the Fullerton Police Department learned that a toll was never paid on SR-73 all the way back in December 2015.
You guessed correctly — the vehicle involved was the unmarked City-owned sedan assigned to Dan Hughes.
I haven’t included all of the e-mails back and forth, but suffice it to say, several City employees wasted numerous hours trying to pin down whose car it was, and to ultimately reduce the toll penalties due.
Hughes has a couple of options here:
Own up to his mistake. Reimburse the City for the toll and penalties due. Prove to his old department, his peers, current employees and Disney management that he really is a man of integrity. If this was an error on the part of the toll roads, offer some sort of plausible explanation of what happened that day.
Be a coward. Do and say nothing. Make the residents of Fullerton pay for yet another one of his failures. Hide behind the half a million he rakes in annually between CalPERS and Disneyland.
This will be really interesting because I fully expect him to choose the second option. I hope he proves me wrong.
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.
Another day, and another reason to question the fiscal insanity at the City of Fullerton. The Police Department paid over $3900 for this freezer which is a mere 3.9 cubic feet in size. The typical residential refrigerator-freezer holds anywhere from 18 to 25 cubic feet, so this unit is far smaller than it appears.
