Detective Barry Coffman, former president of the Fullerton police union, is the latest victim of housecleaning at the Fullerton Police Department.
The Original Tommy Burger
Two weeks ago management kicked Coffman out of his comfy detective chair and forced him onto patrol duty with the working stiffs. Coffman must have been unhappy because he started calling in with tummy aches. When Coffman saw that his pitiful work stoppage had no effect on management, he gave his two week notice. If I were a betting man, I’d say he stopped coming into work altogether.
For those who don’t remember, Coffman was responsible for defending the indefensible behavior of his union and its members after they murdered Kelly Thomas, repeatedly denying the existence of any corruption inside the FPD despite all of the evidence to the contrary. In addition to handing out ridiculous “excessive horning” tickets during a public protest, Coffman was also responsible for this sad tale where his lazy police work helped land an innocent couple in county jail.
Coffman’s early retirement means he left a few years of weighty pension gains on the table. Farewell and good riddance.
Numerous officers within the Fullerton Police Department are receiving Grand Jury Subpoenas like the one pictured below.
Probably not a coincidence that the lucky recipients are, reportedly, the same officers on scene when former City Manager Joe Felz ran over the tree in November 2016.
You know what, I’d really hate to be former police chief Dan Hughes, or former Sergeant Jeff Corbett, right now!
There isn’t much worse in this world than a sad clown.
I feel for this clown. Something bad happened to him. He’s a clown! He’s supposed to be happy. He’s not. Clearly this is wrong. This is not his natural state.
One could say the same thing about a man. A man who’s not in his natural state is a sad thing to behold. He’s supposed to be something. He’s supposed to exude something. For some men it’s confidence. For others, it’s strength. For a few men, it’s hope or inspiration. Whatever it is, a man’s natural state is something good.
Some of you might remember Fullerton’s previous attempt to deal with homeless persons at the train station. Those signs were removed not long after my blog post went live. Fast forward to this week, the City has tried once again with a different strategy — declare the train station a “Paid Fare Zone” with threats of citation and arrest.
This attempt isn’t any better, taking the form of a metal scarecrow decorated with words.
Neither Penal Code 602.1(a) or Fullerton Municipal Code 7.105.010 require a fare to be paid. The Penal Code section has to do with obstructing or intimidating a business and then refusing to leave when asked. The Fullerton Municipal Code wording is clumsy and ambiguous in its own way:
7.105.010 Trespassing unlawful.
It is unlawful for any person to be upon any publicly or privately owned property at any time, except upon lawful business, or with permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession of such property. (Ord. 2799, 1992).
I doubt that ordinance was intended to declare public property off limits merely on the basis of convenience, as they seem to be doing here. So it’s more than likely any attempt to enforce a “paid fare zone” under the guise of Trespassing would be decimated by a good, and maybe even a bad(!) attorney in court.
Nevertheless, this whole thing demonstrates an embarrassing amount of ignorance on the part of City Hall and the Police Department.
1. The “Paid Fare Zone” Must be Violated to Buy a Ticket.
A person wishing to buy an Amtrak or Metrolink ticket must access the platform — and violate the “paid fare zone” — before they’ve had an opportunity to look at the schedule board or buy a ticket.
Same story on the south platform, take five steps off this OCTA bus, and you’re immediately in violation.
2. Good Reasons Not to Have a Ticket.
Metrolink tickets have a 3-hour time limit on One Way, and the first segment of a Round Trip ticket. Say you’re traveling somewhere like Ventura or Palmdale with a necessary layover in Los Angeles. A ticket purchased too early will expire before reaching your destination, and subject you to a possible citation. People in this situation often wait until the very last minute to buy a ticket.
Note the ticket expires at 6:43pm, three hours after purchase.
Amtrak tickets can be purchased on-board the train, meaning you won’t have evidence of a paid fare while on the platform. This is not the usual way of doing things as you would normally visit the ticket office. Nevertheless, they allow it.
Both Amtrak and Metrolink have e-ticketing options that allow purchase up to the last minute using a smart phone.
Any strategy that bullies passengers into buying tickets a certain way to comply with a “paid fare zone” is no good.
3. Passenger Safety.
Amtrak has two or three employees who remain indoors most of the time, and Metrolink has zero employees on site. There is no dedicated security or police force.
Until this week, a person traveling alone could be accompanied by a friend or family member dropping them off until their train departs. But now, fewer people allowed on the platform makes everybody less safe. Who’s going to call the police, or intervene in a bad situation, if a lone passenger is being attacked and nobody else is around?
Elderly or disabled passengers will have added difficulty getting around and hauling their luggage to the train. That’s because nobody is available to help. There are no luggage carts like at an airport, and no employees on an electric cart to assist. This is just another reason why a “paid fare zone” is a terrible idea. Instead of allowing a passenger’s loved ones on the platform to assist them on/off train and help carry their belongings, it’s just a matter of time before somebody falls and suffers a traumatic injury.
My friend took the photo shown above. The man in the wheelchair cannot wheel himself around and is dependent on others to help him.
How does the City expect people like him to get to/from the train when his caregiver must buy a ticket to legally be within the “Paid Fare Zone”? That’s not only ridiculous, but probably illegal under ADA laws that protect caregivers.
4. The Pedestrian Bridge is a Public Thoroughfare.
One of the justifications for building the pedestrian bridge in the early-1990’s was to connect the neighborhood south of the tracks with Downtown Fullerton so people didn’t have to cross the train tracks at ground level and risk getting hit by a train.
There’s literally hundreds of people who use the pedestrian bridge daily, many of them kids walking to/from Fullerton High School. But under the “paid fare zone” they too must enter the zone without a ticket and risk citation or arrest.
5. Railfans
People have visited the train station to watch trains and socialize with others for over a hundred years. There’s nothing inherently strange about it. Anybody raised in Fullerton was probably brought here by their parents at a young age to do the same.
There are small, informal groups of railfans who do this on a more frequent basis and congregate on the platforms various days of the week. Some of these groups include current/former/retired City employees. We also have railfans from other parts of the United States, Canada, Europe, and sometimes Asia who visit Fullerton just for this reason, and they frequent many of the downtown restaurants.
The regular Fullerton railfans are an extra set of eyes and ears for any sort of bad situation or suspicious activity. Railfans have pulled suicidal people off the railroad tracks, and have come to the aid of injured railroad employees or passengers before. They’ve also prevented high speed derailments at the train station by noticing track or equipment defects gone undetected. Many of the police calls for service originate with one of the railfans noticing something not right.
All of these things make Fullerton a better place, all at no cost. To expel them from the platform because they don’t have a ticket is foolish.
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The fact these signs are intended to drive the homeless away should be painfully obvious. There’s no other justification to put them up. My sources at City Hall are saying FPD Cpl. Dan Heying in his role as Homeless Liaison Officer, Dave Langstaff and Ty Richter in Public Works, the City Manager’s office, and Deputy City Attorney Ivy Tsai are all involved.
I’d like to believe this is an innocent mistake on the part of the City. But the speed at which the signs are removed (again) will be the real test.
Back in 2016, FFFF filed a personnel complaint with the Fullerton Police Department against the officers involved in the attempted cover-up Joe Felz DUI accident. The complaint offered a tiny bit of hope that a quasi-legitimate internal investigation might be carried out. It also entitled us to a legally-mandated notification as to whether the complaint was “sustained” or “not sustained.” Sadly, this process represents the absolute limit of public visibility into the California system of police self-governance that has drawn the ire of FFFF for a decade.
Well over a year later, this letter shows that some of the accusations leveled at Sergeant Jeff Corbett and Lieutenant Goodrich, under the leadership of the since-departed Chief Danny Hughes, were indeed sustained.
While state law prevents the public from knowing what disciplinary actions were taken as a result of the investigation, sources inside the Fullerton Police Department indicate that Sergeant Jeff Corbett was terminated in February. Lieutenant Goodrich, who once considered himself a promising candidate for promotion to Captain, was pushed into an earlier-than-planned retirement beginning this Tuesday.
Remember the OCDA investigator who faced the wrath of Rackauckas and his minions for suggesting former Fullerton Police Chief Dan Hughes be charged with criminal obstruction?
Abraham Santos and co-plaintiff Tom Conklin have recently filed a lawsuit in Federal court. Be sure to read pages 23-24 where it talks about our esteemed former City Manager Joe Felz and his wild DUI ride home. “JC” refers to FPD Sergeant Jeff Corbett.
(Update: According to the agenda forcast, the vote on this ordinance will be held on March 6, 2018)
Writing for FFFF is a volunteer effort, aside from the stipend we receive from NASA and the Round Earth Cabal (which really hasn’t kept up with inflation, if we’re being completely honest here). Our lack of compensation gives us the advantage of calling things like we see them, without having to worry about how our opinion will play with our employer/advertisers, but it also means that issues often come up and none of us here at FFFF have the time to dig into the issue and provide any meaningful commentary on the subject.
This was the case for the recent vote on the Planning Commission, which will soon be appearing before the City Council, to rezone all commercial property to allow for homeless shelters provided they operate with a CUP. The decision was made as part of a settlement with Curtis Gamble filed through the Pacific Legal Aid Foundation. Local resident Scott Hess, who is opposed to the rezoning, has investigated the change to the ordinance, and much of the information below is from my email exchanges with him on the subject.
On January 24, 2018, the Fullerton Planning Commission adopted a code amendment to allow 24 hour Emergency Homeless Shelters in any of the commercial districts in Fullerton.
The last substantive article to run on FFFF site before its almost four year hiatus was this little gem about the “College Connector Study”, a $300,000 study designed to convince the Fullerton City Council that a streetcar system in costing (in their estimate) $140 million was exactly what the City of Fullerton needed. Why? Well, because building the streetcar would encourage high density development all along the rail line, turning Fullerton from a two story bedroom community into a six story high density, high traffic eyesore.
And, just to be clear, that was the argument in favor of wasting $140+ million on the streetcar.
What, you thought I was kidding?
Based on that report, three members of the Fullerton City Council (Chaffee, Fitzgerald and Flory) voted to make a streetcar part of the City’s transportation plan.
For the next three years, progress on the streetcar has stalled, and a competing proposal in Anaheim (this one estimated at $325 million) was shot down by the City Council after a coalition of good government activists ousted the Chamber backed majority from power. Unfortunately (to borrow the tagline for the Friday the 13th Part VI poster), nothing this evil ever dies, and the Fullerton Trolley is back. And like all bad horror sequels, it’s even bigger and more elaborate than before, while making even less sense.
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay. Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare.
The Centerline (something which has been in various stages of development at OCTA for over a decade) incorporates the Fullerton plan, along with a proposed streetcar line through Santa Ana, and several other lines. The plan is to run the line all the way through Harbor Boulevard all the way up to the transportation center. This would probably explain why that streetcar has been popping up on the artist conception for the Fox Block (image above).
OCTA recently provided a presentation to the Fullerton City Council at Tuesday’s meeting, which can be found here . No mention of which government entity will pay for the project, but even if the OCTA picks up the entire tab, we will at a minimum be on the hook for the maintenance cost , just as Anaheim is with the ARTIC Wasteland. Anaheim taxpayers have been forced to dip into the general fund for every year of ARTIC’s operation, as the revenue generated ($1.6 million) is nowhere near enough to pay the operation ($3.9 million). But hey – the City of Anaheim was given a fancy trophy for agreeing to shoulder these expenses, so the tradeoff was totally worth it, in some people’s eyes.
The trophy is huge, gaudy, expensive, tacky, unnecessary and completely impractical. It’s the perfect metaphor.
The Streetcar/ trolley concept is an absolutely terrible idea for too many reasons to count. The cost is astronomical , the benefit miniscule, it will render the streets it is located on un-drivable (seriously, just picture trying to make it through Downtown Fullerton with that thing blocking traffic). Oh, and it will also further undermine bus service in the county, because the cost of running a streetcar line is substantially higher than rapid bus service.
So to sum up, the OCTA wants to take Orange County into the twenty first century by spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing a nineteenth century technology designed to service people who don’t need it, at the expense of the bus riders who do. Sadly, this is about par for the course for state and county government, minus the exceptionally high price tag. Lets give the Center Line project – and every other streetcar project proposed in Orange County – the quick, merciful death it deserves.
Your Fullerton City Council majority — consisting of Fitzgerald, Chaffee, and Silva — made one of the worst decisions in recent memory last night.
Desperate to protect their pensions, and to keep pension contributions at a minimum, the Fullerton Police Officer’s Association (FPOA) approached the City about extending their contract. They voted yes.
CalPERS pension costs are skyrocketing as a result of poor investment returns, and far too optimistic rates of return. To “correct” this problem, CalPERS is demanding the City of Fullerton pay more in the years ahead. The table shows pension costs for FPOA members which consist of Police Officers, Police Corporals, Police Sergeants, and a small handful of non-sworn civilian employees, such as Police Dispatchers.
The table above uses the current fiscal year as a baseline (on the bottom row) to get a feel for the pain ahead. Beyond the current fiscal year, the projected pension costs for FPOA employees will cost Fullerton residents — at the very least — an additional $12.3 million through June 2022.
That’s $12.3 million of new money the City of Fullerton doesn’t presently have.
The timeline of the FPOA contract status is illustrated above with the agreed to “concessions” which are disingenuous at best. As noted, the contract extension runs to 2021 at the earliest, and possibly 2022 if FPOA decides to exercise that option.
You might be thinking to yourself, wait a minute, if their current contract expires June 30, 2019, why not negotiate a new contract at that time to get a better handle on the escalating pension costs? That’s precisely the problem.Instead of acting in good faith for Fullerton residents, council members Fitzgerald, Chaffee, and Silva rolled over to satisfy the public safety unions that paid big money to help them get elected.
The worst part about the FPOA contract, and the extension handed out last night, is the City cannot reopen negotiations to combat rising pension costs. The promises are now etched in stone through 2021 or 2022 regardless of what CalPERS does.
All very troubling, not just for basic principles, but because the California Supreme Court is expected to rule in 2018 on the so-called “California Rule” which prevents government agencies from reducing already promised pension benefits. The court’s decision will carry significant implications either way. If they overturn or modify the “California Rule,” Fullerton could have sought to renegotiate FPOA pension benefits upon the expiration of the contract in June 2019 and saved Fullerton residents millions of dollars. Conversely, if the “California Rule” is upheld, CalPERS will likely respond by further lowering the discount rate (assumed rate of return). A lower discount rate will cost the City of Fullerton tens of millions more in the coming years.
At last night’s meeting, the introduction of a new financial forecasting tool was presented earlier in the night, before the FPOA extension came up for a vote. The gentleman making the presentation noted that his model predicts a U.S. recession in the year 2020 — right in the middle of the FPOA extension. I was at the meeting and brought this up when it came time for the FPOA vote. I also pointed out that Fullerton’s brand new City Treasurer, who started on January 8th — just eight days prior — should be given a chance to review the FPOA proposal and offer his thoughts to the City Council. After all, the existing FPOA contract didn’t expire for another 18 months, so what’s the rush?
Council member Sebourn registered his opposition to the FPOA proposal, and then, without another council member saying a word, it passed with a 3-2 vote, Sebourn and Whitaker voting no.
Last night’s recklessness puts us a couple steps closer to municipal bankruptcy. When the Library is forced to cut hours or close completely, when Parks and Recreation has to shutter the community center, when Public Works has to stop paving streets and repairing broken water mains, you now know exactly which three council members to thank. It was failure on full display. As usual.
