Scott Martindale of the Register has posted this shocking revelation that two-thirds of JC students in OC fail to get any sort of diploma or certification after six years.
That’s a pretty damning indictment of a system that sucks in billions of tax dollars in this State every year and that is opaquely run by local boards of trustees composed of educrats, geriatric featherheads, and assorted big-government apologists.
Apparently, our community colleges are largely acting as baby sitters for late teens and early twenty-somethings who seem to be more interested in putting off a serious confrontation with the working life than with education. Harsh? Yes. Oversimplistic? Maybe. But consider that through the JCs in OC we are subsidizing the educational infrastructure for over a hundred thousand people at any given time who will never graduate.
And then contemplate the vast, breathtakingly compensated hierarchy of admninstrators that administer this Empire of Failure and tell me the system ain’t broken.
Every now and then we like to remind our Friends about Fullerton’s recent history. We did it here, in a post on the arrogant mismanagement of Fullerton by former City Manager, James L. Armstrong. We noted that in 2001, after seven years’ worth of failure in Fullerton, he failed all the way to the top job in tony Santa Barbara.
But, alas, Poor Jim has run afoul of the cops up there, and, recently was taken to task by a blog for his efforts to stall the release of information about a city program that subsidized houses for – city employees! Too bad Armstrong mistakenly cc’d his sentiments to the very people who were making the public records request!
Jim Armstrong hard at work shoveling...well, you know what he's shovelling.
Here’s an article from Tim Cavanaugh at Reason, having some fun with Rob Reiner’s big government First Five Program.
The best part is the reference to our old friend Matthew J. Cunningham. Follow the links all the way back to a 2006 Flash Report blog post Cunningham did on the program – before he got hooked up with all that Children and Families green!
And here is a tale in The Voice of OC(EA) about how our local branch is suing the State to keep their stash from going to help support MediCal! It seems these people are really, really desperate to keep their gravy train rolling along. After all, the Executive Director of the OC branch makes $327,000 a year in salary and benefits. His job? Handing out cash. Nice work if you can get it.
Right now the First Five superstructure is tottering and about to collapse. Let’s help give it a push.
The other day we re-ran a post from last year questioning how repuglican yakmouth Hugh Hewitt was qualified to be on OC’s version of Rob Reiner’s tax and redistribute Children and Families Commission. See, we didn’t believe he could possibly meet the requirements for membership defined in the County ordinance.
Watching yesterday’s Board meeting provided some enlightenment and showed how much Supervisor BillCampbell, who chairs this ultra-liberal commission, wants Hewitt on there. Badly.
Yes. It's a Do Tank.
As Campbell explained, Hewitt does indeed qualify in the education category. How? Because he is a director of the local branch of something called Young Life. I googled the name and found this. Not much to go on. No list of directors, so we’ll just have to take Hugh’s word for it. But check it out. It’s a Christian-based program for adolescents. This has zero to do with 0-5 child development and nothing to do with any professional qualifications for anything, so at least now we can be completely satisfied that Hewitt’s appointment was always bogus.
But as they say on TV infomercials: wait, there’s more!
According to Supervisor Shawn Nelson, who objected to Hewitt’s appointment, the latter missed seven meetings in a twelve moth period, and, per the code, was automatically removed from the Commission. Of course the Commission staff never notified the Board of Supervisors as the law requires. Hewitt was simply permitted to keep participating in the few meetings he was able to make, and was casually “re-appointed” along with the rest of the incumbents. And on that subject Nelson demonstrated that no solicitation for new members had ever been made – also required by the law.
So there you have it. A packed, opaque Commission doing whatever the hell it damn well pleases, and answerable to nobody, except presumably, its grossly overpaid Executive Director and his protector Bill Campbell.
On the eve of my departure for Sacramento to the repuglican convention, I was just about to enter Steamer’s to visit with city councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva at her annual St. Patty’s day party and listen to my Friend OJ blogger and entertainer extraordinaire Vern Nelson play the piano (and trust me Vern is quite the entertainer) and who did I see? None other than Fullerton’s biggest sissy – city councilman (by 91 votes) Pat McPension.
At first I thought about going up to him to ask how the Hell he had the nerve to show up at Quirk’s party. After all, this is the same puppet that followed his repuglican string pullers and stuck a proverbial knife in Quirk-Silva’s back on that old Mayor pro-tem stuff. Remember? But then I thought: it’s not that big a deal – he’s probably use to sticking knives in people’s backs.
Quite recently Dan Chiemlewski of the deadly boring LiberalOC blog put up a post about censorship and civility or something. I noted this pearl from the self-righteous and sanctimonious Dan C., who styles himself a real reporter:
Comments on FFFF are a free for all and so is sock puppetry (thanks guys for that visit to my home by the Anaheim Police Department on the day of my son’s graduation for a comment by a “Dan Chimichanga-Cub Reporter” who threatened to cut Harry Sidhu’s brake lines. I’m sure you found it hysterical),
Well, here’s what the commenter actually said.
#9 by Dan Chimichanga, Cub Reporter on June 16, 2010
Sidhu better check his brake lines every time he gets into a car between now and November. That’s all I’m saying.
Now the context of the post (and others like it at about the same time) were all about how Dan Cs carpetbagging darling Lorri Galloway had vaulted back into third place in the 2010 4th District Supe’s race. Mr. Cub Reporter got the message and commented: if Hairbag Sidhu were to pull out of the race, then Anaheim Hills’ Precious Princess might assume the second position in the fall run off against Shawn Nelson. Hence the warning about brake linings was a snide shot at Galloway’s vaulting ambition perhaps playing out by disabling one of Hairball’s BMWs. That’s perfectly obvious to anyone who put the comment in context. It was joke.
Okay it wasn’t very funny, but it sure wasn’t a threat. And anybody who tried to make it into one was either disingenuous or a damn fool. And anybody who keeps persisting in this nonsense is deliberately lying. Not the sort of behavior you’d expect from a proud member of the OC journalism corps. Come to think of it I wonder what part Dan C. might have played in reporting that alleged “threat” to the Anaheim PD in the first place.
Yesterday Norberto Santana of the Voice of OC (EA) did a post on a report by a group called OCCORD that accused the cities of Santa Ana and Anaheim of “rubber stamp” planning. Among other things the planning commissions in these towns were identified as living preponderantly in small enclaves and it notes the undue influence of out-of-town developers.
I’m having a little trouble separating the message from the messenger. See, the troubles are real all right. We’ve seen the same operation in Fullerton, as with the creeps who are trying to ram Amerige Court and the hideous Jefferson Commons down our throats. Our electeds got their drinkies, and their boat rides and their thirty pieces of silver from slimers like Steve Sheldon; and we got the shaft. Yet while I can’t disagree with thing the obvious OCCORD conclusion that development in Anaheim and Santa Ana is all tied up by goons with financial ties to people like Kurt Pringle and Miguel Pulido, I have to wonder what it is OCCORD is really promoting.
A quick trip to OCCORD’s website rewards visitors with a list of boardmembers and contributors that reads like a veritable who’s who of leftist, labor, and low-income housing advocates. Here’s what they say they are about:
In Orange County, California, top-down economic development policy and institutionalized anti-immigrant sentiment have served to exclude low income, immigrant communities from government decisionmaking processes, and in many cities, rapid demographic changes have created a political environment in which people are increasingly disconnected from their elected representatives. As a result, income inequality is growing faster in our region than in the nation as a whole, and our sense of community is declining.
I notice with satisfaction the name of Lorri Galloway who not only has approved just about every developer-wet-dream megaplex put in front of her in Anaheim, but also supported SunCal’s mammoth project on Anaheim Boulevard with its sham veneer of “affordable housing.” And that may be a telling.
What else will she pull out of her cookie?
So what’s the real deal? OCCORD seems to be promoting authentic, popular participation in land use decision, of the sort promised by Pam Keller when she first ran for Fullerton City Council in 2006. Pam ended up voting for a bunch of megaprojects, herself, so maybe the whole thing is just some sort of make-people- feel-good-about-looking-like-they’re-trying-to-do-something-anything, scam. Or maybe they actually want “immigrant communities” to have input into decision making land use processes – especially the development of subsidized housing projects.
I think the mistake of swapping “top-down” development policy driven by developers, and that driven by the professional houseacrats and do-gooders, and social conscience hand wringers is a distinction without much of a difference. Overbuilt, overbearing, subsidized, architectural monstrosities built on public debt are bound to follow either way. Will OCCORD ever come out against the idiotic Redevelopment housing policies and ethnic cleansing pogroms? Not likely if there’s a jaw-droppingly expensive “affordable” project of some kind, any kind, at the end of the bureaucratic rainbow.
Some day we will all have a cup of coffee and laugh about it...
Last year we posted a magisterial, five-part history about one of Fullerton’s greatest Redevelopment boondoggles, the so-called “City Lights” single-room occupancy project. Our series started here.
Fort Mithaiwala
As we related, here, in October 2010, questions were being raised about the financial dealings and records of the developer, Ajit Mithaiwala, and the federal government was investigating.
Once again, according to a recent article in LA Times, here, Mithaiwala and his company ADI, are accused of sticking it to the City of Glendale, but good. More evidence is presented suggesting that ADI defrauded the Glendale housing agency out of millions, possibly building substandard po’ folks housing while receiving millions in public subsidy. To top it off, ADI was greasing the axles of local government real well, too, as demonstrated by contributions and favors to city councilmembers in Glendale.
According to the articles ADI has been involved in 40-50 projects across the Southland, so the enormity of the problem is, well, potentially enormous, if in fact, the Glendale experience proves typical.
Which brings us back to Fullerton. When the SRO was built in the late 90s, peculiar construction techniques and prolonged inspection difficulties had some scratching their heads. And now with stories of possible substandard work in Glendale circulating, we are well within the bounds of reason asking our city officials if, in fact, the building is really safe for occupancy.
Where is Mithaiwala? These articles do not say. Maybe the FBI is looking.
And just for fun backwards salute, here’s a timely quote from our current mayor, Ol’ Doc Heehaw who, when the SRO was being proposed in 1997, shot off his big yapper, got threatened with a personal lawsuit by Mithaiwala’s henchmen, and then cowardly changed his vote:
“The city would be at great, I underline great, financial risk if it did not proceed with this project,” Jones said before casting his vote for the settlement. The threatened lawsuit was “a loaded gun against the head,” Jones said.
Back in September, the OC Board of Supervisors approved yet another feel-good layer of government – something called the End Homelessness by 2020 Commission. They even allocated $75,000 towards one (1) executive director; another $75,000 was supposed to come from the “private sector.” The thing was trumpeted as a “public/private partnership” and all the do-gooders were feeling pretty good. Lucy Dunn, head of something called the OC Business Council was there to make sure everybody knew that the business community was on board and meant business.
We were this close to raising a nickle!
Flash forward to December14. On their agenda, the BOS had a agreement with the Children and Families Commission to front the other $75,000, and not only that, but to “recruit, hire and house” the executive director.What was sold a s a public/private deal was now wholly public; and the supes were asked to let another agency recruit and hire a contractor who is supposed to report to them!
Of course Ms. Dunn was there again to shamelessly blather on about her “time and treasure” even though there was none of her treasure, or that of her members, in evidence.
Supervisor Shawn Nelson would have none of it. He had the strange idea that words in a staff report should actually mean something; “show me the money” was what he had to say, indicating his acknowledgment that in almost a year the private sector hadn’t coughed up so much as a nickle and everybody on the inside knew it.
Led by John Moorlach, the crew approved this arrangement 4-1, and provided yet another example of how supposed conservatives in OC can’t throw away your money fast enough. And the Children and Families Commission has new roles – employment agency and homelessness advocates.Wanna bet to whom the executive director will answer? That’s right, Mr. $327K a year Mike Ruane, who runs the OCC&FC “do tank” and who will probably ask for a raise.
And what will happen in 1n 2020 when homelessness is not ended and the Commission has a staff of 23? Well, Hell, that’s easy! Just rename the commission. 2030 will be right around the corner!
