On Tuesday night good ol’ Larry all but admitted that there was indeed a 10% tax on your water. Of course he tried to diffuse the ugly truth by saying that 1) he likes paying the tax (could be true – he’s a damned fool); and, 2) the tax helps keep his grass green and his flowers happy because he’s a water hog (the first part is a falsehood; the second, yes, I believe he likes to waste water). Naturally, he was just parroting the nonsense of his hero Doc HeeHaw who also claimed some part of the 10% went to water delivery – an outright lie.
Anyway, I think that if he had a shred of honor, Bennett would now make good on his promise to pay your monthly water bill. But if you want to ask him you’d better hurry up. Larry will only pay the first person to e-mail him!
UPDATE: I just re-read this wonderful post from my good friend Joe Sipowicz that he published last November. Damn. Read it. Savor it.
When you are done ask yourself whether or not, in good conscience, anyone can fail to endorse, help and vote to recall the Three Dim Bulbs.
– Grover Cleveland
There is a good essay in today’s Wall Street Journal by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. about the sort of trouble individuals can get into when they act, or fail to act, to shield and protect the institution they represent. And, conversely, the institutions that invest too much credence in the all too fallible figurehead run the risk of failing to employ objective and rationale controls on the latter. As decades of affiliation pass, the problems becomes more acute. Age becomes the enemy.
Of course the writer is talking about Joe Paterno and the disastrous and disgusting pedophilic events at Penn State University. But he may as well have been talking about Fullerton, and about how, after the Kelly Thomas murder, when the public demanded clear, honest, and forthright leadership, their long-term elected officials gave them silence, obfuscation, falsehood, and comfortable retreat behind legal advice they were all too eager to embrace.
Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, and Pat McKinley signally failed their constituents by placing the protection of City Hall and the FPD ahead of their responsibility to do what they were elected to do: lead. Did they ever even attempt to fathom any particle of the truth? Would they recognize it if they saw it? It hardly matters now.
At first it probably seemed easier to simply ignore the Kelly Thomas killing; a whacked out homeless guy versus Fullerton’s Finest? Strictly no contest. After all there was a fight; bones were broken; the bum was a thief; probably a drug addict; an internal investigation would reveal all. Sure, Chief, take your two-week cruise.
Indifference to the victim and the victim’s family, although demonstrating a fundamental callousness, was the least of their dereliction.
Later as the pressure mounted and the glare of the media spotlight became intense, McKinley and Jones began to utter incompetent and ignorant remarks for consumption by the nation and the world: facial injuries are not life threatening; far worse injuries were survivable; the Coroner cannot determine the cause of death.
As public meetings became rancorous they relied upon the monotonous drone of their attorney to explain to an outraged public why they were weak as kittens and powerless to control any part of their own police department.
And they refused to display any concern about why the FPD brass had permitted the cops to review and re-review the evidence that the public is not permitted to see; why their superiors made them re-write their reports of the killing; and why the culprits were permitted to return to duty as if nothing had happened. They ignored the fact that the police department spokesman had lied about cops’ injuries and had deliberately mischaracterized the killing to the public and to the City Council. They never addressed the fact that the “internal investigation” hadn’t even started.
The police chief, freshly returned from his cruise soon wilted like an old lettuce leaf. His replacement was a 30 year veteran of the same department about which a string of criminal behavior had recently been exposed. Bankhead, Jones and McKinley refused to accept what had become obvious to almost every one else: something was fundamentally wrong in the FPD.
As the weeks passed, Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley seemed to hope that temporizing and protracted investigations by the DA and Coroner would cause the situation to just wither away. It didn’t. The protests for justice got louder. Their answer? Characterize the protesters as a lynch mob.
The most telling gestures of all were the damage control employment of an outside investigator, and the appointment of a hand-picked committee to address homeless problems, hilariously suggesting that the real problem was that the poor cops just weren’t properly educated about how to deal with the homeless. The concept that Kelly Thomas was deliberately killed seems not to have been seriously entertained by Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley. No. The Fullerton Police Department doesn’t do that. Fullerton doesn’t do that. We don’t do that.
When the DA finally brought charges of Murder and Manslaughter against two of the cops Jones expressed elation and McKinley befuddlement as to how two of his boys could stray so far from their training. But it was clear that the damage control script was written to write off the two and then retreat back into their insulated bunker.
And yet, by now the public now knew all about what the Three still refused to acknowledge: the embarrassing string of stories of drug addiction, theft, fraud, brutality, false arrest, perjury, and sexual assault by members of the police force. This serial criminality has been met with a stony silence from Bankhead, Jones and McKinley. Why?
Asleep. Fried chicken. Hey, where'd my halo go?
It’s because if they ever could, they can no longer distinguish right from wrong when it comes to protecting the institution that they have come to completely identify themselves with. Those Fullerton lapel pins that they so proudly wear have become a symbol of inertia, dereliction, and blind dedication to an abstraction of their own creation: their own delusional view of themselves and their City. It is a perfect representation of the bunker mentality.
As with a sick patient, denial and inaction will only cause the illness to get worse. The patient is the City of Fullerton, and in the now-ironic words of Dick Jones, it is having a grand mal seizure; we don’t want to let go of the patient, but we need to get it under control. Damn straight. The patient needs medicine, all right.
The more things change the more they stay the same...
When FPD Acting Chief Dan Hughes was handed the keys to the front door, wishful thinkers proclaimed the dawn of a new day for a department reeling from humiliating self-inflicted wounds.
His supporters claimed that Dan, for some mysterious reason, was going to bring decency and reform to a department whose members had, within the short space of seven months been exposed as thugs, perjurers, thieves, con men, sex perverts, destroyers of evidence, thieves (again and again), etc., etc. Despite a 30-year FPD career and various job titles that closely tied him to this band of miscreants, Dan is Different, his defenders said. Somehow. A veritable Galahad, in fact.
Even when Dan denied a Culture of Corruption in the FPD and said such an idea was disseminated by liars or ignoramuses, his supporters clung to the idea that Dan is Different.
But Dan’s latest decision may provide cause for pause. According to the folks at FullertonStories Hughes has replaced the otiose Andrew Goodrich with yet another union member, Sergeant Jeff Stuart, to be an official department spokeshole and Face of Fullerton. Really? Has Hughes learned nothing from the misinformation peddler, Goodrich. Maybe not. Or maybe he likes the idea of the FPOA getting the first, and often the last shot at misleading the public.
Smiling. So far.
Haven’t we had enough of public information officers whose loyalty to their own tribe is far greater than that to their employers? To me this just looks like more of the same ‘ol same ‘ol: another opportunity to do the right thing has been passed over by Acting Chief Hughes, who is acting more and more like Chief Sellers all the time.
FFFF’s anonymous news clipping service just forwarded this announcement from the Quirk for State Assembly campaign that Loretta Sanchez is hosting a fundraiser for her.
Since it’s at Sanchez “home” I can understand the need for secrecy. Still, given the fact that Loretta’s home used to be in high-toned Palos Verdes as she represented the barrios of Anaheim, Santa Ana and Fullerton, we may be forgiven for wondering where she actually sleeps.
Anyhow, if you’ve got $250 or more and are inclined to drop by let us know how it went and please send pictures!
Lou Ponsi of The OC Register authored this article on how the Fullerton Ad Hoc Water Rate Committee has unanimously decided to tell our esteemed City Council that the illegal 10% tax on our water bills should be stopped. Brave? Well, yes – for Fullerton.
To his credit, Ponsi omits the usual obligatory counter-argument floated by the Fullerton Establishment to defend the indefensible – whatever it may be. This could be because he even can’t find anyone to defend the unsupportable tax on a utility that goes to pay for the very pensions and perks of the City Councilmembers and staff themselves.
But of course Lou does not delve into the blatant stalling tactics of City Manager Joe Felz who has temporized, stalled, and delayed doing the right thing in order to wring yet another year’s $2,500,000 ill-gotten gain out of the Water Fund and the water rate payers.
According to Tracy Woods of the Voice of OC(EA), here, a bit of a dust up is occurring at Fullerton High School over a student constestant who was yanked offstage during something called a “Mr. Fullerton” competition by Assistant Principal, Joe Abell. The kid’s offense? Apparently he told the audience that he hoped he could find Mr. Right, and that he hoped in ten years gay marriage would be legal in California. From the Voice of OC(EA):
According the the district’s statement, “an Assistant Principal removed a male student from the stage during the Mr. Fullerton competition for making what the Assistant Principal believed to be a statement that was off script and not pre-approved.”
It’s good to know that the justification for this errant behavior was that a student had deviated from a script pre-approved by one of our esteemed educrats. We wouldn’t want anybody being able to think on his feet, now would we?
FHSD Superintendant George Giokaris has sent out a letter of apology for the inappropriate behavior of Mr. Abell, given that the kid broke no school rules. That’s great, but the damage has been done. Meanwhile, I congratulate the unnamed kid for standing up for his Constitutional rights.
Teri Sforza of the OC Register has done another piece on Fullerton’s fraudulent 10% water tax and the equally fraudulent study commissioned by the City Council to justify keeping as much of the tax as they can. Naturally the consultant ginned up some phony rent value for City owned property that water reservoirs sit on! In fact the bogus rent topped $1.3 million, a figure so absurd that even Mayor Sharon Quirk took offense. It’s a good thing Ms. Quirk is running for the State Assembly or she might not be so concerned about the wear ratepayers getting ripped off in an illegal scam. Whatever. At least she finally seems to have somebody who knows what’s going on advising her.
Reflecting on the FPD career of Albert Rincon, the man accused of serially sexually assaulting women in the back of his patrol car, made me think about the creep that hired him, and the standards that were applied to the recruit.
We have seen from the facebook page of “Albey Al” a preening, self-absorbed, utterly shallow weasel. Okay that’s bad enough. What makes Albey Al Rincon’s presence on the Fullerton police force even more revealing is the virtual illiteracy of a grown man who can not spell, let alone write complete or even intelligible sentences. This begs the question of what sort of standards Pat McKinley applied to his recruits. After all, he hired Rincon, just like all the others.
But are there no basic academic qualifications required to be a Fullerton cop? Apparently not.
Narcissism and ignorance are a bad combination, and the complete lack of moral scruples rounds out the McKinley recruit profile. Now give ’em a badge and a gun and let ’em hit the streets of Fullerton! McKinley has yet to disavow Rincon as some sort of “alien;” and why should he? They are kindred spirits.
McKinley set the FPD bar so low that even a morally vacuous, messed up ignoramus like Albert Rincon could slither over it. Despite the pleas from FPD apologists about all the good cops employed by the department, we are justified to question that claim, given the mere presence of Rincon on the force; somebody thought he was not only fit for duty, but that he deserved to stay on duty after all the charges leveled against him.
The really dangerous thing is that the FPD and anti-recall crew don’t want us to talk about Rincon. Or Mater. Or Major, or Mejia, or Hampton, or Thayer, or Tong, or Baughman, or Nguyen, or Solario, or Siliceo, or any of the other police department employees who have given the City a series of black eyes. They want the public to think that a couple cops maybe, just maybe, got a little over-excited one hot night last July, and that Kelly Thomas’ death is a lone example of miscreance being exploited for political purposes.
Well, despite Acting Chief Hughes protestations, there has been and still is a Culture of Corruption in the FPD. The fact is that McKinley’s twisted chickens are finally coming home to roost. The repercussions will be prolonged and painful, emotionally and economically. But after June 5th McKinley will just be an noxious footnote in Fullerton’s history. The clean up will take a while.
Apparently the much-anticipated Joe Felz Water Study is in, and it says that the illegal 10% water tax is…drum roll, please…illegal. But get this: rather than an honest study, the consultants were clearly told to gin up as much plausible reason to keep as much of the 10% as they could. The result? It’s only 6.7%. Yay!
The only problem is that to reach 6.7%, the consultant cooked up the idea that the Water Fund owed the City rent on land where water reservoirs are located! According to Ad Hoc Water Committee member Greg Sebourn, the total annual rent was figured at $1,374,000 – well-over half of the existing tax.
Of course this scam raises all sorts of new issues, as scams generally do. Such as: the reservoir in Hillcrest Park supports a play field on its deck. Does the City rent this back from the Water Fund? Bet not! The reservoir up at the top of Euclid is situated in a cactus patch patrolled by goats. What’s the rental or development value of a nature park? I dunno, but it’s not much. Has the Water Fund been paying for maintenance on these properties that should have been the responsibility of the General Fund? Bet so.
Then of course there’s the issue of whether the waterworks itself paid for fee title to any of these properties in the first place, a way back when. I wonder if the consultant even bothered to check. Bet not.
And there’s the embarrassing fact that there is no arm’s length relationship between the people that impose the rent and the people that pay it. The City Council can demand any amount of rent they want – then agree to pay it. Why not? The proceeds go to pay their own pensions! Now, that’s not very good, is it?
In any case, the public may find it a bit confusing and unseemly that at the eleventh hour the bureaucrats and their hand-picked consultant are burning the near-midnight oil to drum up ways to charge as much for water as they can that they can keep siphoning money into the General Fund.
Will you please shut up.
Will the city Council buy into this load? Well, of course they will. The vote will be 4-1, and it will be up to the citizens and voters to rectify the scam at the ballot box.
Our job is to continue to expose the fraud for what it is.
Poor, put upon Fullerton City Manger Joe Felz is getting frustrated. And so he sighs to a reporter.
He’s frustrated that people are holding him accountable for his promises. Last year he stalled the Howard Jarvis Tax folks by clamming that the illegal 10% water tax would be addressed by March; well, March is here and it ain’t. In the meantime the City has collected $200,000 per month and continues to hide the tax from the water rate payers.
Here is an article in the Register all about how gosh darn tough it is for Felz to : 1) tell the truth; 2) do the right thing; 3) obey the law.
It'll cost you...
The truth is that the illegal tax has nothing to do with with the water rate study; it is a stand alone issue that should have been fixed at least 15 years ago. And the fix is easy. The Water Fund already pays the General Fund for work done other city departments for work done on its behalf. The 10% tax is an outright scam that needs to be killed.
