Well, here ya go: the last gasp of Fullerton’s Yellowing Observers? Could be. As my old friend Don Carlos Marx once said: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
Once and a while I do a Public Record Act request search, ya know, just to see who’s been digging into Fullerton’s records.
And look what I found:
Some person named Greg Diamond, who lives in Brea, is interested in a report about a domestic dispute incident involving State Assemblyman Chris Norby. This issue is not new and quite some time ago FFFF tagged former police spokeshole and union boss Andrew Goodrich as the most likely leaker of the now discredited insinuation of spousal abuse that was helpfully passed along to the public by a union-sponsored blog.
Good news. Hopefully the City will hand over any internal documents on the topic, and especially the possible external communications sent by a helpful PIO to the Voice of OC(EA). Perhaps our new council will make sure that happens.
I am informed that this drone is working for Sharon Quirk in her cardboard cut-out bid to beat out Norby for the new 65th Assembly District seat in the Assembly.
If she thinks this sort of dumpster diving is going to help her campaign, she’s got another think coming. Instead, I hope in the coming months Quirk will expend her energy articulating her positions on increasing taxes in California, explain why the schools are so screwed up, how JCs and state universities squander billions every year with ridiculous bureaucracies and opine on the idiotic environmental master planning embodied in AB32 and SB 375.
Do I hope in vain?
Get ready for this Friends: Jan Flory has pulled papers to run for city council in November! Yes indeedie, the former councilwoman and unhappy dog owner who supported every crappy Redevelopment staff driven boondoggle, fought every attempt to bring accountability to city government, who gave Patdown Pat McPension an award last year where she bemoaned the mistreatment of “our esteemed council.”
She even orchestrated a mean spirited attack on young kids riding their bikes on their own property.
Will she return the papers and begin to explain publicly why she supported the incompetent and criminal Culture of Corruption under the Three Dessicated Dinosaurs? I sure hope so.
On Sunday various groups, objecting to what looks a lot like an assassination by the cops, and what was a police induced riot later, held a protest at the Anaheim Police Headquarters. My husband and I went down to show some solidarity with our neighbors to the south.
Tony Bushala was there along with some Kelly’s Army folks that I remembered from the Fullerton protests last summer. Even mean, uncaring Republican State Assemblyman Chris Norby was there with his family. But where was our would-be squishy-feely Assembly person for the 65th District, Sharon Quirk? I have no idea.
Most liberals used to stand for things like social justice, fighting cop brutality, especially when applied to minority neighborhoods. And this would have been a good opportunity for Quirk (whose sole chance of beating Norby, according to her drum-beaters, is winning over neighborhoods in the western part of Anaheim) to show she cares about the little people who can’t fight back. Of course after the Kelly Thomas thing I’ve come to realize that establishment liberals are mostly just empty talk on the subject of police malfeasance.
Oops.
Anyway, Ms. Quirk, here are some topics about the Anaheim incident you may contemplate at your leisure:
1) Possible assassination by cops of man in front yard
2) Arrest of innocent bystander for no particular reason, charged with obstruction, etc.,etc.
3) Overreaction by cops, contributing to near riot and assault on innocent men, women, and children by rubber bullets and attack dog.
4) Accusations of cops trying to buy potential evidence.
Yes, Sharon, Anaheim is in the district you wish to represent. Time to get out and meet your constituents.
Oh, yeah, about that PORAC endorsement thing…
Just in case there were any doubt about the state of Mr. Don Bankhead’s mental faculties, I am pleased to report that the recently recalled councilman has pulled papers to run again for the city council, just like he did in 1994 after being recalled. Bankhead is only one of two office holders in the history of the United States to be recalled from the same office twice, and the only man in the 152 year history of California.
This dunderhead snoozed while the FPD sank into a Culture of Corruption, while the water rate payers were ripped off, and as he handed out millions to his campaign contributors; and yet he seems to think himself still worthy of somebody’s trust.
Still, running for the office you were recalled from a mere six weeks ago takes a lot of gall, or disconnect from reality, or both; especially when you got your sorry old ass whipped 2-1.
I have no idea if this doorknob actually plans on running; but I doubt if he has a single friend of family member with the sense or decency to tell him no. But if he does, you can certainly look forward to some fun.
Our new city council members recently received this unsolicited e-mail from former City Manager Chris Meyer:
Council Members, you might want to consider the attached article from Oakland on police commissions/ oversight, before you decide how you want to proceed. It is very instructive on the challenges you may face. Since the procedures for disciplinary action for police officers are embodied in their labor contract (which is subject the collective bargaining process under MMB, PERB; and other State laws, as well as long established city policy), and since the current contract with the optional extension, doesn’t expire until 2014, an oversight commission would be a ineffective, and generally useless until a new contract was mutually agreed upon, or imposed unilaterally on the POA.
Instead, you may want to focus on appointing a permanent Chief of Police for the time being, and see if the problems can be resolved that way. As to the Council appointing a Chief of Police, go ahead and give it a try. It will be interesting to see how the Chief interfaces with the Council, and implements both your individual, and collective agendas. You might want to ask Shawn, Sharon, or Pam what the closed session discussion was like when the most recent Chief was selected. You will note that in the City Manager Ordinance, that the CM is required to consult with the Council on the selection of the Chief. That means that at least three Council Members need to concur with the CM’s recommendation in order for it to happen, unless of course the CM is planning on looking for a new job. For all practical purposes at least four members of the Council need to concur, as no Chief candidate will take a job on a 3/2 vote.The Council also interviews the final three candidates for the job, and can direct the appointment. Generally the CM can work with any of the top three, so the selection is responsive to the Councils direction, and desires. Finally, ask yourself this question? Do you want to be responsible for the Chief’s actions. Remember that will require you to fall on your collective swords, as well as the Chief, if something like Kelly happens again. And, just a reminder, the Chief gets POBAR protection, and presumptive clause protection for medical conditions related to the incident, or the job, so you would be gone long before he, or she would, as you would bear the ultimate responsibility.
Chris Meyer
City Manager, Retired
The part I love is the former City Manager trying to scare the new council members into the same craven cowardliness that tanked the last crew. Do you want to be responsible for the Chief’s actions?
Well, hell yes!!
Leaders lead. The poor, brainless bastards that just got recalled failed to lead. They let “the system” take charge; the result was a disaster. Comically, the otiose Meyer derives his entire screed on the premise that “things just happen.” But Meyer fails to grasp one basic truth: things just happen when nobody is in charge.
Typically, Meyer omits to remind the new council that he was in charge as the Fullerton Police Department slid down the greasy slope of corruption. Typical? Yes, indeed. The old, corrupt regime never took responsibility for its actions. And a bloated pustule like Meyer could make $200,000 a year coaching his three sawdust-brained puppets to dodge the accountability they were elected to assume.
As a dyed-in-the wool Democrat, Sharon Quirk, the liberal candidate for the 65th State Assembly can be relied upon to do the right thing: the right thing for our Democrat Governor Jerry Brown and the public employee unions that put him in power. And the right thing to do is to pass a budget in June that relies on billions of dollars in new taxes to be voted on by the electorate in November.
Now, Ms. Quirk has a website that is just about the sort of thing you’d expect from a typical say-nothing politician – long on platitudes and lefty endorsements and zero on actual issues. And when I say zero, I mean zero. Scour it. You’ll read vacant nonsense about policies hurting hard-working families, schools and infrastructure, and all about the evils of partisan bickering (code for I am not a total, complete liberal loon), but not a single specific issue or even one useful fact. I have to give her credit for some transparency, though; she doesn’t really even pretend she is saying anything – there isn’t even an issues tab with the fraudulent “coming soon” scam.
Still, it would be nice if she would take a position on perhaps the biggest issue facing the State today. Does she support Governor Brown’s budget and tax proposal? After all, her support of this proposal would certainly be indicative of her own tax and spend propensity on down the road. Most of her endorsers endorse it. If A=B and B=C, then A=C.
So I’d like to know. I’m pretty sure the people of Fullerton would like to know. And all those blue collar, blue dog Dems who live south of the I-5? I bet they would like to know if Quirk is just another one of those incompetent Democrats who long to go to Sacramento where their foolishness and crazy spendthrift ways have buried California under an ossified government and a crushing public employee pension liability.
So how about it Sharon? How about a statement on your website about where you stand on increasing State revenue to feed the unions that have endorsed you?
There has been a lot of boohooing lately about the future of the County’s Human Relations Commission. As usual, it seems that those doing the biggest drum beating for the continued taxpayer funding of this love fest are the folks who don’t want to chip in for the cost.
Right now the County pays $302,000 a year to the Human Relation Council (a 501(c)(3)) to provide “staff” for its Human Relations Commission. The reason why these folks think we need a Commission at all is that they believe having the County seal on their letterhead confers some sort of governmental prestige and gravitas. That’s how these folks think about government.
The Council employs a fellow by the name of Rusty Kennedy about a hundred grand to be the Commission’s Executive Director, a job he used to hold as a public employee of the County, and a job for which he now pulls down an annual pension of over $120,000 per year. Yowza! $220,000 a year!
Ironically, the very failures of Kennedy and his commission are being touted by him as success stories. The most egregious of these alleged successes are the race tagging of Santa Ana Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez after she made a boneheaded comment about Adolf Hitler; and of course even worse, the diversionary scam known as the Homeless Task Force, at the behest of the cover-up artists on the Fullerton City Council. In the first case, after he played the irrelevant race card, Rusty had a neat interracial controversy to address. Nice. In the second case, a genuine hate crime, perpetrated by his pals in the Fullerton Police Department against Kelly Thomas, was glossed over.
By focusing on the fact that Thomas was mentally ill, and homeless, and that many others are too, the Task Force conveniently ignored the fact that neither his homelessness nor his mental illness were the proximate causes of Thomas’ death. That responsibility lay with the City and its goons, it was a murder – a fact that would necessarily be awkward for Kennedy and his Task Force to address given his cozy relationship with the Establishment and with the police chiefs of Orange County.
Fortunately, the City’s attempted sleight of hand failed; the recall and subsequent legal actions will demonstrate who did what, and when. But this failure should not cause us to forget the craven role of Mr. Kennedy in this shameful episode.
The time has come to defund this useless operation. Let the non-profit Council peddle its race relations mission. It collects charitable contributions from people who believe in its mission and its behavior. Time to get the rest of us off the hook.
Yes, ever sanctimonious, ever self-righteous, Fullerton’s Queen Collaboratrix, Pam Keller issued a statement at the June 5th Swan Song of the the Three Bald Tires in which she really outdid herself.
I like the part where Pam declares herself up for a good sidewalk protest. We know all about that. She doesn’t mind screaming at people when her own self-interest is involved. Did Keller even show up at a sidewalk protest in front of the police station to protest the bludgeoning death of an innocent man at the hands of the FPD? Of course not. When there’s nothing in it for her it’s a lynch type mob.
But really, suggesting that Kelly Thomas was even remotely a factor for divisiveness in Fullerton is stupid even for a dope like Keller. No Pam, any divisiveness you perceive in Fullerton was caused by rogue, murderous cops and a sclerotic, incompetent regime bent on covering it up; a regime that ripped off its citizenry to pay for it’s own exorbitant salaries and benefits; a regime that handed out free land worth millions to campaign (and Fullerton Collaborative) contributors.
But in reality Keller is as wrong as she can be. We now know that the community is, and was not divided. The people of Fullerton demonstrated solidarity spectacularly on June 5th 2012, the very day Keller delivered herself of her idiotic diatribe. Two thirds of the voters delivered a very different sort of message, a message of unity, hope and reform.
The Recall of Jones, Bankhead and McPension succeeded in every precinct in Fullerton, rich and poor, Anglo, Latino, and Asian-American.
Say goodnight Pam, your party’s over.
Okay, get beyond the hilariously portentous music and the dyed hair, and choose your favorite phrases.
“A few changes…”
“If we can ever get there…”
“Right now we’re a little short…”
“Community based policing…”
I was standing in the lobby of City Hall last week as Chaffee went to the table there to fill out a speaker card, went outside to make a phone call, and then vanished. He just couldn’t get up there to say anything. maybe he finally realized that the jig was up.
After waiting 11 months and saying zip about the Kelly Thomas murder we’re supposed to believe this limp noodle wants to reform anything?