Freshly arrived back in town from his summer cruise, Chief Sellers gets an e-mail!
Good to see $130,000 per year Sgt. Goodrich is keeping on eye on that dangerous Bushala guy. Smart move, Andrew.
The other day we did a post on how the downtown Fullerton establishment known as the Slidebar had banned OC Weekly reporter Brandon Ferguson, speculatively for the latter’s passing along what had become common knowledge: that the “anonymous” phone call that initiated events culminating in the murder of Kelly Thomas was made by a Slidebar employee.
Here’s a follow up Weekly post in which describing a message Slidebar proprietor, Jeremy Popoff left at the Weekly.
In a Dec. 29 phone message to the Weekly in response to months of seeking an interview, Popoff–who is also a guitarist for the band Lit–addressed the rumor involving the killing of Kelly Thomas.
“I can tell you it’s not true,” he said.
But in the same message, Popoff said he will not accept the paper’s repeated invitations to field questions about the subject.
“I just don’t want to participate,” he said.
There has been considerable speculation that the call in question was actually orchestrated with the cops involved in the Thomas murder themselves, which of course, if true, would constitute a criminal conspiracy. While nobody in authority will discuss this possibility, it would account for the otherwise inexplicably provocative and violent actions of Ramos, Wolfe, and Cicinelli.
Whether Mr. Jeremy will ever have to participate in the Kelly Thomas affair against his wishes remains unclear. FPD documents relating to the phone call and its origin have apparently been redacted to Hell and back, although sooner or later the originals are bound to surface.
Now that the Governor’s decision to put the kibosh on Redevelopment in California has been upheld by the State Supreme Court, our lawsuit to stop the illegal expansion of Fullerton’s Redevelopment project area is becoming something of a moot point.
Too bad, because we really wanted the City to try to defend its ridiculous findings of blight in front of a judge.
Well, we’re not going to forget that the bogus attempt was made, and made hard by Fullerton’s Redevelopment junkies – Bankhead, Jones and McKinley. These guys are absolutely hooked on government creating dimwitted master plans, buying into stupid boondoggles and handing out taxpayer subsidies and freebies to their pals and campaign contributors.
In the coming months we will be sure to remind Fullerton citizens of the City’s history of expensive Redevelopment failures and the part played in these disasters by our “esteemed” City Council.
Remember the assertion by dithering dinosaur Don Bankhead that without Redevelopment, Fullerton would be a ghost town?
Or, to put it another way:
Is Fullerton doomed to become a ghost town? Bankhead thinks so or he wouldn’t have said it, right?
Or could Fullerton become an incubator of interesting and profitable businesses run by people whose ideas are not grounded in government subsidies and write-downs, gifts, and grants? Old big-government liberals like Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley have more faith in central government economic intervention and subsidy than they do in any free market ideals. And that’s how we ended up with a saloon in every other building in downtown Fullerton.
What do you think?
Everybody who goes to church is familiar with the concept of tithing – literally giving one tenth of your income to support the church and its good works. Of course the act is voluntary.
The people who pay for water from the Fullerton Water Works have been paying a tithe, too. You see, since 1970 the Citycrats have decreed that ten percent of the cost of a monopoly supplying you with water will be added to your bill, and then be immediately re-directed to the City’s General Fund.
In the early days, when water was dirt cheap it was a way to help pay for certain indirect costs of employees who were considered overhead support for the water works. It was called an “in-lieu franchise fee” like the ones the City charges other utilities to operate in Fullerton. Still, there was an immediate problem that nobody addressed: it was bad management, and bad accounting, and opened the door for all sorts of abuse. Decades later, in 1997, Proposition 218 was passed that specifically addressed the scam of governments charging “fees” that were nothing more than hidden taxes – just like Fullerton’s 10% in-lieu fee. It was now required that fee amounts be established through objective supportable analysis that was conducted transparently, in the light of public scrutiny. No longer could governments legally charge for more than any service was worth.
But Fullerton did. For 15 years the City continued to charge, then rake off a ten percent tribute from the Water Fund that went to pay for things like pensions and pay raises for all Fullerton city employees, stuff that had nothing to do with providing water to you. Not only did the city councils know about the scam, they heartily approved the slight-of-hand, year after year.
Meantime, the cost of water skyrocketed, increasing nearly 350% between 1997 and now, jacking up the illegal tax from $700,000 a year in 1997 to over $2.5 million a year now. That’s a rate of about 23% a year, just in case you’re inclined to keep track. A staggering total of almost $27 million has been surreptitiously extorted from you since Proposition 218 went into effect.
Those who support this cheapjack end run think it’s right and proper for you to pay this tithe without your knowing it, and without your consent. After all they’ve had plenty of opportunity to insist, at least, that notification of the 10% diversion be made on each water bill. But they never have. And that’s because their first priority is continue funding six-figure pensions, automatic raises for employees, and all the other things that constitute business as usual in their Church of The Almighty Bureaucrat. It’s their church, and as far as the High Priests and pharisees are concerned, you taxpayers can just sit in the back pew, way, way back there in the dark, and keep your mouths shut.
The City of Fullerton bookkeepers have provided us with a summary of the money illegally added to our water bills over the last 15 years, and boy does it add up. You see, 10% has been added on to our water rates, then immediately siphoned off to pay for non-water related expenses.
Where does the money go, you ask? Well, among other things it goes to pay for Pat McKinley’s bloated pension, stays at four-star hotels for Don Bankhead and Dick Jones, etc., etc., etc. Feel violated by the scam? You should.
Here’s the shameful tally. Read. Weep.
| Year | Illegal Franchise Tax |
| 1997 | $704,480.50 |
| 1998 | $1,281,107.00 |
| 1999 | $1,364,716.00 |
| 2000 | $1,456,399.00 |
| 2001 | $1,435,202.00 |
| 2002 | $1,558,578.00 |
| 2003 | $1,576,091.00 |
| 2004 | $1,775,133.00 |
| 2005 | $1,771,294.00 |
| 2006 | $2,065,417.00 |
| 2007 | $2,287,693.00 |
| 2008 | $2,278,041.00 |
| 2009 | $2,388,515.00 |
| 2010 | $2,479,930.00 |
| 2011 | $2,532,595.00 |
| Total | $26,955,191.50 |
Last night my compadre the Harpoon penned an angry response to words attributed to outgoing “Acting” Chief Kevin Hamilton that Fullerton was “a town under attack.”
It was a good try, but Harpoon missed the point. Fullerton is under attack!
Fullerton is under attack by a rogue police force that couldn’t control its own uniformed hoodlums, even if it wanted to. And apparently it doesn’t.
Fullerton is under attack by a sclerotic trio of antiquated imbeciles who will never take responsibility for their own failure of leadership.
Fullerton is under attack by a bureaucracy that has fraudulently duped the water rate payers for at least 15 years by tacking on a 10% tax on their water bills without a single effort to inform them about it. Every step of the way in this squalid scam the City Council nodded agreement, and said nothing.
Fullerton is under attack from the Redevelopment Army of jobbers, fixers, bag, men, whores, and other assorted camp followers who want to divert funds from necessary public use into the pockets of favored “developers,” consultants, and lobbyists. And our Three Sclerotic Tree Sloths? Bamboozled? Of course not. These supposedly staunch conservatives are hooked on the smack of Central Government Economic Planning like a street hype is to his junk.Jones even referred to Redevelopment money as candy to be handed out to deserving kids.
Think the threat is false? Even now the Three Dry Wells are pursuing a legal battle to illegally broaden Fullerton’s Redevelopment zone into areas where there is no blight, a basic legal requirement.
Fullerton is under attack by an ignorant, somnolent, rude, self-righteous Turgid Trio that has left the city’s infrastructure a mess, the citizens in fear of their safety, and budget reserves depleted.
Yes Fullerton is under attack. Harpoon got one thing right. We are Fullerton. And we’re fighting back
The old one lasted four months and the one before that hightailed it for the tall grass when the going got tough. Boy did he get going.
Anyway, the new man is 28 year FPD veteran Captain Dan Hughes, who was the boss of all those rogue cops we’ve been telling you about lately, so that’s a real bad sign right there. Was he part of the report write-and-rewrite perpetrated by the killers of Kelly Thomas? Such things are not for the public to know, and you can bet your last nickel City Manager Joe Felz hasn’t got the huevos to find out. Hughes also got kudos from folks for tearing up the “excessive horning” tickets of which he was seen orchestrating the issuance. ¡No bueno, numero dos!
Anyway II, the OC Weekly’s Brandon Ferguson tells about it here. Follow his link to the vapid Fullerton Chamber of Commerce website where its writer manages to scribble twelve paragraphs on Fullerton’s police chief carousel without a single word or even oblique reference to murders, perjury, assaults, sexual battery, theft, fraud, etc., etc. Too bad the Fringies® are over, or else we’d wave a real winner there in the stoogery category.
In our previous article about Fullerton’s MWD rep-almost-for-life Jim Blake we received an interesting comment from havegunwilltravel, one of our frequent semi-coherent trolls describing Jim Blake as some sort of wealthy philanthropist who has been slaving away for free on the MWD Board of Directors. Here is his/her comment:
Jim Blake, as the City’s MWD representitive gets no pay, and no pension, and no benefits. And doesn’t even ask for mileage reimbursements. He could by and sell Tony Bushala, 100 times over, and still have a pile of gold. So get your facts straight.
But check out this OC Watchdog article by Teri Sforza about the massive amount of expenses racked up by MWD directors. Oh, oh. There’s Mr. Moneybags Blake piling up over $10,000 in “travel” in less than two year’s worth of toiling in the MWD salt mines. I’d love to see those receipts!
Living high on the public hog is par for the course to certain self-entitled folks who seem to think their “service” justifies all kinds of self-indulgence – reflected in behavior like parking in handicapped spaces when you’re not supposed to.
Remind you of anyone?
According to our Friend Scott Moxley over at the OC Weekly, the mother of Kelly Thomas, Cathy Thomas has sued our illustrious District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas. It seems she wants to gain access to materials collected by the DA about the murder of her son by officers of the Fullerton Police Department.
Naturally, the DA said no, forcing Ms. Thomas to sue.
It sure would be nice for someone outside of law enforcement to takle a look at just how the DA came up with the dubious theory that only two cops were implicated in criminal activity; that Officer Joe Wolfe had no idea what was going on just 15 feet from where he was standing; or why he exculpated Hampton and Blatney who not only made made no effort to stop Cicinelli’s tasering and beatdown on Kelly, but seemed to have piled on; his take on the role of Sergeant Craig who seems to have coordinated mop-up operations while the dying man was waiting for hospital transportation; his reasoning behind not charging superiors in a blatant criminal conspiracy to cover up the misdeeds of the McKinley Six.
Well, good luck, Cathy.