The date is July 19, 2011 and Fullerton Chief of Police Mike Sellers has just returned from his cruise and is still on vacation. FPD murder victim Kelly Thomas has been off life support for one week. Clouds are gathering, alright.
“Chief” seems interested in sharing his knowledge of some newfangled strategy called “predictive policing,” which, presumably, would not predict crimes perpetrated by the cops themselves. His correspondent, Dennis Kies, then Interim Police Chief of Costa Mesa, is suitably unimpressed.
Then discussion of a new job at Seal Beach comes up, and apparently Kies name had popped up. “Chief” shares the bennies package.
I don’t know what a “medical retiree clause” is, but it probably has something to do with Chief’s Disease. Ironic that in less than a month Sellers himself would be rollerskating out of Fullerton with a bad case of it.
Brandon Ferguson of the OC Weeklyis suggesting that downtown Fullerton bar owner Jeremy Popoff appears to be talking out of both sides of his mouth considering his recent voicemail left at the Weekly, and assertions made subsequently on-line.
On Facebook, Mr. Pop denies dodging requests to talk to the Weekly about his establishment’s role in the Kelly Thomas murder. And he seems to be accusing Ferguson of somehow twisting the words of his voice message.
You can be the judge since Ferguson has thoughtfully posted a link to the audio and shares a screenshot of the facebook page.
True, enough, the actual word of the voice mail message are non-specific – but the topic is clear enough – Kelly Thomas – and Popoff clearly says the stories are “not true.” Since the only issue involving his establishment and the murder are the questions of who made the call to the cops, and why, we know exactly what he is talking about.
The only thing I can think of is that perhaps Slidebro is getting nervous about his denial that the call to FPD on the night of 7 /5/11 did in fact come from the Slidebar. But as Mr. Jeremy acknowledges himself, the preliminary hearing is only six weeks off and all sorts of things may start coming to light.
Here’s a couple of interesting e-mails from the final day of July, 2011, between Acting City Manager Joe Felz and soon to be MIA Police Chief Sellers.
The options were running out...
On the surface it seems that Acting City Manager Joe Felz is unhappy with Lou Ponsi for writing “Very Old” news. But maybe he is really upset that the public gets to hear (again) that the cops who killed Kelly Thomas had been out on the streets for over three weeks like nothing had happened; or that maybe Sharon Quirk looks like she is actually in charge. Sellers seems to be concerned with the latter, and he can already see the writing on the wall.
“Hopefully the remaining three council members don’t feel left out” is code for: “Make sure the Three Dead Tree Sumps get lined up, fast!”
“Lou is Not a bad guy from what I understand,” means that Sylvia Palmer and Andrew Goodrich have previously informed Felz that Ponsi is a reliable regurgitator of their crap.
By the way, is anybody else appalled by the weird punctuation and capitalization deployed by these $200,000+ per year bureaucrats?
Oh, oh! The truth almost escaped her mouth! (Image generously borrowed from Fullerton Stories)
It is July 22, 2011 and now-MIA Chief Sellers gets an e-mail from City Hall’s version of Andrew Goodrich, city publicist, Syliva Palmer.
She’s subsequently fled the the scene of the crime, and won’t have to answer embarrassing questions about this correspondence – like her insinuation that Councilman Bruce Whitaker leaked inside information to FFFF in a post. Apparently the otiose Palmer was too lazy to actually read the post, and too stupid to follow the link to The Fullertonian – the ones who actually caught Goodrich in the broken bones lie.
But so what if Whitaker had actually had a hand in disseminating the truth? The outright lie about Fullerton cops suffering broken bones was propagated by Goodrich, clearly with the blessing of Sellers and Plamer, and now we may safely assume, Palmer’s boss City Manager, Joe Felz. Perhaps with the blessing of the Three Dead Tree Stumps, too. That would certainly fit the truth-challenged profile of Pat McKinley.
Note also that Palmer laments the fact that the media didn’t talk to other reliable councilmen who, presumably were only too happy to toe the party line.
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.
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.
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.
