The LA Times is after poor Curt Pringle again. It seems he represents all sorts of people up and down the state who have major interest, one way or another, in the California High Speed Rail boondoggle.
Check out the Boy Scout response: Gosh, gee whiz, I didn’t know. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!
You are becoming very sleazy...
For a while now we have shared stories about the manifest sleazes of Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, Pringle, the worst repuglican in the County, who has his dipstick stuck into just about every conceivable honey pot, and a man whose only political principles come with a price tag affixed.
We finally got sick of watching Herr Pay to Play shove his bogus pork and kickback laden High Speed Rail project into California. When our boss discovered a legislative opinion that both HSR Boardmembers Pringle and Richard Katz held “incompatible offices” he reported this fact to the Attorney General.
Knee pads optional...
Only last week tales of unreported foreign trips by Pringle emerged once again. Although we had already shared that story, here, it seems that nobody in the HSR enterprise was keeping track of who was going where. The idea of shipping jobs overseas didn’t seem to bother Der Pringler. Well,what the Hell, France and Germany have unemployment problems, too, right? Even worse, it slipped out that the HSR’s army of consultants and camp followers were getting gifts, too. Lots of them, apparently.
'Tam. Smell that smell...
Well, as they say, the fish rots from the head.
And now that the election is upon us and Pringle’s rancid days as an elected official and an OCTA board member are coming to an end, it’s time to do whatever we can to kick this creep off the HSR board and then to kill the greatest boondoggle in the history of California.
The only reason FFFF sprang into existence was because the people who pretended to be professional reporters stubbornly and steadfastly refused to do their jobs.
Their jobs. The jobs to which they accrete a professional aura, a sanctimony, self-righteousness, and institutional importance that demands as a concomitant an objectivity that is exercised in the public interest.
Of course all that stuff is pure bullshit. Oh, yeah, these people want to be treated as if they actually performed a function that allows them to claim an official title: “Fourth Estate.” But in reality their work is almost never objective, never diligent, and often downright incompetent. And the closer you get to tour own community the worse it gets.
The Great Unwind.
But back to FFFF. We started in the fall of 2008 because F. Richard Jones, the Braying Donkey of Raymond Hills, the man for whom no issue could not be used to spin off, dervish-like, on an insane rant, was getting a free pass. Twelve years of insulting people from the dais, weird, barnyard rantings and raving, backtracking on key issues, and generally insulting the collective intelligence of the City was ignored.
And this being Fullerton very little has changed. Consider 2010.
The chicken was ready for plucking.
Does “the press” inquire into how candidate Roland Chi got rung up on criminal charges by the DA for serially ignoring health inspection failures? Or ask why he is using a 501(c)(3) to prmote his political ambitions? Or even ask this miscreant how long he has actually lived in Fullerton?
Hey, that vest was not designed on company time.
Does “the press” ask Pat McKinley about his $215,000 pension payout – far more than he ever made actually working – and his ability to make rational pension decisions?
Aw, Hell. Close enough.
Does “the press” ask Aaron Gregg why a guy who skipped out on $75,000 in back taxes and stiffed local creditors though bankruptcy is qualified to manage the city’s $100,000,000+ budget?
The Mayor's Prayer Breakfast took longer than anticipated...
Does “the press” inquire into what appears to be Don Bankhead’s increasingly diminished capacity to participate in, let alone conduct, a public hearing?
Of course our local reporters never said boo about the carpetbaggery of Hirsute Sidho or Linda Ackerman, either.
For some reason people who work for the Times and the Register would rather look the other way than admit that the emperors have no clothes on. What are they afraid of?
Three days in the monkey cage left lingering damage...
Yesterday, OC Register homunculus and repuglican lackey-chronicler Frank Mickadeit wrote up a story about possible contenders to a Todd Spitzer 3rd District Supervisorial run in 2012 – as a prelude to a Spitzer DA run in 2014.
The big names – outgoing assemblyman Chuck DeVore and Dick Ackerman deserve special attention, and we’ll get back to that in a bit.
But first let’s relish Mickadeit’s effort to stir up anti-Spitzer sentiment for the benefit of our Do Nothing DA who is actually endorsing serial law breaker Roland Chi in Fullerton’s city council race. As is well known, Mickadeit dances to the tunes fifed out by GOP bigwig Michael Schroeder and his wife, DAs spokeshole Susan Kang. In return for providing this entertainment Frank gets to smoke cigars and sip brandy with the Schroeders.
It seems not unlikely that besides the congenital name-dropping instinct, Frank is throwing out these big names as a counter to Spitzer’s own vaulting ambition, as in: not so fast Todd, boy.
Will nail down the Eagle Scout vote.
DeVore wouldn’t be a bad supervisor and might actually bring some refreshing relief to a County operation dedicated to doling out medical and social services compliments of the federal government. But he needs a job. Now.
Dick Ackerman? Well he does live in a “top secret, gated community” in the 3rd District which s a far cry from his claim to have moved to Fullerton last year so his old lady could run for the State Assembly. Apart from that he’s got some explaining to do. Such as the Pacific Policy Research Foundation scam we reported about here, years of RINO accommodating votes, his dubious behavior vis-a-vis the OC Fair sale. He’s also 70 and we sure have seen enough geriatric retirees at the County over the years.
My top-secret gated estate is in the right district. Now if only that white van would quit following me around.
Worst of all, is Ackerman’s perpetual backing of the worst kind of liberal, staff-stooge candidates here in Fullerton.Pro-Redevelopment, big government chuckleheads like Don Bankhead, Doc HeeHaw Jones, Pat McKinley, Aaron Gregg, and a long list of similar tools, simply selected to keep the scary Dems out – Democrats whose political philosophy is practically indistinguishable from Ackerman’s RINO herd.
The fun part of this is that either one of these worthies running would put a serious crimp in Der Pringle’s master plan of putting Orange’s dreary RINO Carolyn Cavecche into that seat.
Hide and Seek Hairball Sidhu keeps telling us he’s all about the jobs, jobs, jobs. But rather than just brush it off as campaign nonsense, let’s look at the reality of Sidhu in Anaheim as he danced for the nickels that Curt Pringle’s developer buddies tossed at him.
Those weren't nickels. Those were dimes!
First, let’s take an airborne look at a representative portion of the Platinum Triangle – where once existed a bustling industrial zone south of Katella Avenue, in Anaheim.
Here’s a photo from 2005. Take a look at all those cars, belonging to a bunch of once-employed members of Anaheim’s workforce.
Jobs, jobs, jobs, all over the place, right? Enter the so-called “Freedom Friendly” repuglican land use policies of Pringle and Sidhu:
Man, don't forget to put your green goggles on...
Today? A jobless hole in the ground surrounded by empty condos and chain link fences and faded signs asking our forgiveness for their construction dust.
Thanks Harry. How about an apology to all those businesses and employees you eradicated?
Mistakes were made, but there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on unfortunate nuclear incidents of the past...
A cynical person said the other day that when he was born, OC District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’ mom pushed him out along with a can of white paint and a four inch bristle brush.
It’s common knowledge around town that T-Rack, as he is fondly known, rarely, if ever, pursues political miscreants, but in the case of the OC Fair Board and its odd behavior in the summer of 2009 he had no choice. See, the State AG refused to handle the issue due to a conflict of interest and dumped the investigation back to OC, where Rackauckas was waiting with paint and brush to work on his next masterpiece.
Don't look at that guy over there. He says he didn't do anything wrong.
After almost a year the DA coughed up a 50 page recitation of the facts. Or to be more precise he regurgitated what was told to him by the individuals involved and subsequently passed it along as Gospel. Of course there were no depositions, no testimony under oath, or any other annoying and time consuming probative truth-getting-at devices.
According to OC’s own Picasso, the Create-Your-Own Board crew exercised poor judgment, but, since they obviously had nothing to gain from the sale except for a few miserable tix, no harm done, get it? After all, the fact that the real estate could be worth nobody-knows-how-many millions to people behind the scenes was not an issue to the DA because the new Board was to have served without compensation. And after all the DA isn’t a mind-reader, right?
So nobody did anything wrong – even though the Fair Board members clandestinely created their own non-profit to buy the Fair with the help of former State Senator Dick Ackerman, paid for The Flack with public money (later reimbursed after the fact) and also hired Ackerman, not to lobby the Legislature, oh, no for that would be illegal, but rather as a mere “consultant” to go up to Sacramento to feel out the Governor on his seriousness to sell the OC Fair property. Just talking to the Guv’s crew ain’t lobbying per the Government Code, and the Dickster is home and dry, right?
Here is the DA’s report, on page 15, quoting The Dickster:
Mr. Ackerman stated that he and the OCFEC “had absolutely no input into the language [of the bill] whatsoever.”
Um, yeah, right, T-Rack. But then there’s the problem of some acutely embarrassing words right out of Ackerman’s own mouth. Here he is in an October 23, 2009 article in the Daily Pilot in which Mr. Consultant tries to explain away his activities:
“In order for the fair to be sold, it would require budget language to authorize the state to sell it,” he said. “I did some preliminary work to get the language in the budget.”
Well that’s just swell, Dick. That language sure wasn’t going to write itself and then jump into the bill on its own, now was it? Working to get language into legislation is exactly what lobbyists do. In fact, that behavior may well serve as the very definition of lobbying. And it certainly doesn’t square with what the DA says Ackerman later claimed was his job.
And finally, note that in the report Ackerman says he had “no input.” Strike as non-responsive, Dickie-boy.
The issue isn’t whether you are a failed lobbyist, but rather that you were doing it in the first place!
I love it. Everybody keeps calling me "Honorable."
I also wonder if the DA’s investigators even bothered to ask OC legislators like Assemblyman Jim Silva, just who it was was lobbying him heavily, as he indicated to OJ Blogger Vern Nelson, last year. Did he talk to Mike Duvall, who also opposed the sale? Naw, why bother.
Aw, Hell, who really cares anymore? It’s not like anybody expected Rackauckas to actually look into a case where the principals didn’t sport gang tats.
Personally, I think you have admire the certain peculiar of skill set required to be able to define something by describing all the negative space around it, and coming to the conclusion that there was really never anything there in the first place.
Last December we posted about a character named Ajit Mithaiwala who had built a heavily subsidized low income housing fustercluck project in Fullerton in the 1990s that epitomized the futility and incompetence of Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.
Remember? His name popped up on a host committee list for a fund raiser thrown by high speed rail impresario and con man Curt Pringle, in honor of his boy, Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu. Since the name appeared to be mispelled we had fun with the notion that it might be somebody else.
Oh, no, no, no! That is another guy, I tell you. There are hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
In the post we wondered aloud what had become of Mithaiwala, and what he had been up to the past ten years.
It turns out we weren’t alone. Federal government auditors, prosecutors, and the FBI have been wondering too, according to an L.A. Times article forwarded to us by an alert Friend.
All sorts of misbehavin’ have been attributed to this guy and his development company that found a niche building subsidized, low-income housing projects, including fraud, failure to report income, and building shoddy, unsafe buildings. His politcal contributions have been scrutinized, too.
Here are a few choice morsels in the article from the Federal investigator:
“virtually no financial records,” no general ledger, no balance sheet and no bank reconciliations. Working with forensic accountants, he said he had discovered “potential fraud and criminal activity.”
On Tuesday, he told the court he was still trying to gain control of company assets and had identified 400 bank accounts, as well as $600,000 in gold bullion and three cars, including a Bentley.
It transpires that besides Fullerton, Mithaiwala has left a trail of tears behind him in cities across Southern California, including our neighbor to the south, Anaheim, where the Mayor Pro Tem is none other than Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu.
I know nothing. Nothing!
Yikes. You don’t mess with the Treasury Department, boys. Even Al Capone could tell you that.
A senior CalPERS attorney just told me that the annual pension liability reports for local agencies, which are normally distributed every October, have now been delayed until after the November elections. The delays are allegedly due to furloughs, but conveniently prevent local pension watchdogs from using the data to promote fiscally conservative candidates and pension reform leading up to the November 2nd.
I bury'd it.
This year’s reports would be the first to calculate pension liabilities after the disastrous market crash of 2008/2009 which caused CalPERS to loose a large portion of its holdings, which in turn has caused cities’ unfunded liability and annual contributions to skyrocket. But the damage to each city is unknown until the individual reports are released.
How bad will it be? Here’s one example: rough calculations show Fullerton’s “non-smoothed” unfunded liability for itspublic safety plan will soar past $100,000,000 this year, nearly three times the amount presented last year. Throughout the state, the debts shown in these report are likely to be shocking compared to previous filings.
The data would have undoubtedly been used to draw more attention to the dire pension situation in cities throughout California. The reports would have come just in time for local elections, which makes CalPERS’ stated cause for the delay extremely suspect.
Ouch
The annual “Actuarial Valuation” reports are prepared by CalPERS actuaries for each participating agency to justify annual increases in required contributions. Here is a example of Fullerton’s public safety report for 2008, which is the most recent year available.
In politics somebody is always presenting explanations for things that may or may not be going on beneath the surface. And so we present to the Friends something to think about:
I was just informed that in a Red County post my old punching bag Matthew J. Cunningham wrote a post about some jackoffs down in Mission Viejo. Why he cares about that is his own business, but in this post he threw out this precious and completely gratuitous nugget:
I realize that sounds juvenile and stupid, but that’s how these types think (kind of like how a Fullerton council candidate disliked by a gadfly faction there had a hole punched in his truck’s gas tank).
Okay, we gotta cut this piece of shit some slack. After all, we were the ones that pulled back the rancid curtain and exposed to OC Republicans the fact that their wordsmith was wordsmithing hard for $200 an hour on behalf of meathead Rob Reiner’s tax-and-redistribute, whole-village rearing Children and Families Commission.
And of course we nailed him for supporting the stillborn supervisorial campaign of Democrat and serial miscreant, Tom Daly.
Still, insinuating that FFFF had something to do with Kevlar Cueball’s gas tank puncture is pure chickenshit. And of course it is couched in all the craven wordsmithing words that will keep you out of court and maybe even avoid serious physical rebuke.
It transpires that the police union in the beautiful and high-toned town of Santa Barbra are unhappy with their city manager. “Joe” sez you, “so what?”
A man discovers his true vocation...
Well, it turns out that the City Manager of Santa Barbara is none other than James L. Armstrong, who used to occupy that job description here in Fullerton. The union has discovered our humble blog and shared some of our history lessons.
Although this stuff occurred a few years before my time, this blog has had some great fun recounting the myriad disasters that occurred during the reign of King James I. Things like Redevelopment boondoggles, general unaccountability, high-handed behavior, and the sort of arrogant bullshit that is normally reserved for those who can pull of the Divine Right of Kings gig.
Nice trousers...
Here’s the post on the website, just in case you’re interested in enjoying the SBPD union’s take on their beloved leader.
Well, we got rid of him, at least.
Update – the link is broken. Here is a back up copy.
