Chronic Failure Archives - Page 36 of 67 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

July 3, 2017July 3, 2017Chronic Failure

Fitzgerald Casts Toxic Vote for Pringle Client

There’s a five-mile expanding industrial waste plume under Fullerton – mostly the result of industrial run-off from mid-century industrialists. The OC Water District says that it has already begun to contaminate Fullerton’s water supply, projecting that the damage will eventually be catastrophic if not addressed immediately.

As one of the largest polluters, Northrop Gruman has been defending an OCWD case against it for years.

Last month the OCWD asked the Fullerton council to support a request to bring the EPA in to resolve the issue. That would be bad news for Northrop, but good news for Fullerton residents.

Take a look at the video of the council discussion. The topic seems to be of particular interest to Fitzgerald, who is unusually familiar with the characters involved, although she seems to take on an adversarial posture against the OCWD representative. Ultimately the council agreed to send off the letter, 4 to 1. Fitzgerald voted against the recommendation that would help protect taxpayers from paying the price. I wonder why? No I don’t.

What Fitzgerald failed to mention is that Northrop Gruman is or was a client of her employer, Curt Pringle and Associates. Here’s an exposé from the Voice of OC in 2012.

In a later article about her various conflicts of interest, Fitzgerald claims that Pringle’s firm never worked directly for Northrop, but that they were hired through an attorney who worked for Northrop. I guess we’re supposed to believe that this degree of separation clears up her conflict of interest. It doesn’t. I wonder where else this strategy is employed?

Anyway, we’re also supposed to believe that the relationship between Pringle and Northop terminated in 2012. Maybe it did. Who can be sure? But for some reason Fitzgerald is still oddly passionate about Northrup Gruman, fighting against efforts to make them pay for the clean up of their own waste that threatens the health and safety of Fullerton residents.

Why is Jennifer Fitzgerald voting in favor of a Curt Pringle client, in direct opposition to the Fullerton residents who she is supposed to be representing? This is a severe and blatant conflict of interest – one that has lasting health consequences for all of Fullerton.

June 24, 2017June 24, 2017Carpetbaggery

Carpetbaggers of a Feather Flock Together

by Joe Sipowicz12 Comments

I just got wind that preteenage girl-silly Anaheim carpetbaggtress, scammer, and dubious charity operator, Lorri Galloway, has endorsed carpetbagging union executive and Coto de Caza resident, Joe Kerr for County Supervisor for our 4th District. That’s pretty funny – first that anybody would value this endorsement of this ethically challenged nincompoop, and second because Galloway set a record in 2010 for fake addresses – three of them – in her own comical run for the same job. A lot of comedy came out of that scampaign, but not a dime’s worth of substance.

I wonder how many of these people are going to sue me…

Here’s a snippet from some sort of press release:

Brea, CA – Former Anaheim City Councilmember Lorri Galloway announced her endorsement of Joe Kerr’s campaign for Orange County Supervisor today. Galloway joins a growing list of local leaders rallying around Kerr, which already includes Congressman Lou Correa and State Assemblymember Tom Daly.

“Joe Kerr is an effective problem solver who will bring new energy and new ideas to county government,” said Galloway. “Joe’s experiences, as both a fire captain and an advocate for first responders, will serve him well on the board. I am excited to announce my endorsement of his campaign.”

Lorri Galloway served on the Anaheim City Council between 2004 and 2012. She is the founder and Executive Director of The Eli Home, which provides shelter for abused children and their mothers.

I always love those fake, canned endorsements, written by campaign consultants for endorsers who are too lazy or illiterate to scribble their own. Lorri would have us believe that Coto Joe, a public employee union president is going to bring “new ideas” to county government. Really? Like what? Fire Heroes retiring at 40 with 100% of their pay?

June 19, 2017June 19, 2017Behind Closed Doors

An Empty Shell of a Man

by The Rambler32 Comments

Last week California was showered with editorials criticizing state Democrats for their underhanded retroactive gimping of the recall process to protect state senator Josh Newman.

It’s lonely at the top. Also at the bottom.

Here are a few of them:

The Democrats’ cynical move to protect one of their own – Los Angeles Times

Democrats push a phony election ‘fix’ – San Francisco Chronicle

Reject legislation to stymie recall elections – Los Angeles Daily News

Democrats Embrace Banana-Republic Tactics – American Spectator

Democrats playing dirty to save Newman from recall – OC Register

In at least one interview Newman himself has supported the effort to delay his own recall, although he avoided directly voting for it. Newman’s abutment of this electoral abuse of power illustrates his rapid degeneration from virginal statesman to shrugging beneficiary of political treachery. If any of the public’s trust in Newman remained after his vote for the regressive gas tax, it’s all but gone now.

On the bright side, recall organizers have vowed to mount constitutional challenges that will attempt to restore California voters’ right to recall government officials.

June 16, 2017Chronic Failure

Fullerton’s Most Expensive Park?

by David Curlee10 Comments

Just when you thought the Parks and Recreation Department might get their act together comes another gem on next week’s agenda. This time, it’s a $903,500 land purchase for a new park at 3001 Pearl Drive.

The vacant lot used to be home to a swimming pool and clubhouse for the adjacent apartment complexes, which the 33 property owners failed to maintain. Those same property owners now want the City to build a park contingent on the City forking over cash to buy the land.

So what is the land worth? $740,000 according to the appraiser, who notes that an “extraordinary assumption” to build high-density housing was used. Translation: The $740,000 estimate could be totally worthless and the appraiser admits it. Nothing more is divulged about the appraised value because Hugo Curiel only included two pages from the appraisal report. Page One and Page Two

And it gets worse. Hugo wants an additional 20 percent of the appraised value ($148,000) for an administrative settlement to be paid out to the property owners. Once again, Hugo fails to provide any sort of written justification for this:

The parcel is 0.398 acres in size. At that price, it is equivalent to $2.27 million per acre which is more than double the price Chevron is asking for Coyote Hills land. This would be the most expensive land ever purchased for a Fullerton park.

I have a question. Why should we pay the property owners a premium price when it was their own negligence that created this situation? In fact, why pay them anything at all, provided the City agrees to build a park?

Makes you wonder if the property owners are more interested in a cash payout for themselves, or a park for the neighborhood’s benefit.

June 15, 2017June 15, 2017Chronic Failure

Unhinged

by The Worm41 Comments

Last weekend OC Democratic Party official Jeff LeTourneau approached a Newman recall table at the Fullerton Walmart and began shouting profanities. “Which one of you assholes is the gay?” he screams, along with “You are a fucking disgrace to any gay person I know, you piece of shit.”

Video was captured by one of the recall signature gatherers and has just been posted to Fox News.

State Senator Josh Newman and the rest of the CA Democratic party are apparently not returning any calls regarding the incident.

June 13, 2017June 13, 2017A Step in the Right Direction

Coming Up For Air

by The Rambler9 Comments

In FFFF’s early days, this blog noted how the Fullerton Observer and its “editor” Sharon Kennedy would bend over backwards to avoid printing anything that might embarrass City officialdom. In the years after that blog post, the Observer remained true to form. It continually went to bat for the bureaucrats in increasingly shameful ways, even when it violated the tenets of the Yellowing Observer’s own professed liberalism. The culmination, perhaps, was the Observer’s series of misdirections and avoidances in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder in 2011.

But wait. One of our Friends just noticed that the front page of the latest Observer includes an unexpected headline. The article seems to acknowledge the recent claims of corruption in city hall as asserted by the OC DA investigator Abraham Santos.

The piece discusses the facts of the claims against Dan Hughes and Joe Felz without the insertion of Kennedy’s usual dismissive editorial remarks. How could this happen? Is Kennedy turning over a new leaf?

No. This is the work of the Observer’s new co-editor, Jesse La Tour. How he managed to slip this honest piece of work past Kennedy, we may never know.

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017Bad Cops

Kangaroo Court Transcript Reveals Felzian Development Scheme

by The Rambler24 Comments

Remember that quasi-judicial nuisance hearing against the Grand Inn back in April? The one where former police chief Danny Hughes went under oath and accidentally told us that Joe Felz was drunk when he crashed his car and got a ride home from the Fullerton PD?

After some wrangling down at city hall, FFFF finally got its hands on the entire hearing transcript, which you can view here.

The transcript reveals that former city manager Joe Felz did meet with developer Urban West to discuss purchasing, assembling and rezoning the four lots on Euclid and Orangethorpe to build high-density apartments, which included a large lot owned by Renick Cadillac. Unfortunately for Felz and Co., one of the lots was owned by an unwilling participant, the Grand Inn.

Coincidentally (or not), these development meetings occurred just prior to a long, expensive effort by the Fullerton Police to document the Grand Inn as a public nuisance in order to shut it down. Was the sudden crackdown on the Grand Inn related to the Felz/Renick/Urban West development deal? Of course Felz denied the accusation under oath, much like he denies being drunk when he crashed into a poor sapling on Highland. But to the reasonable observer, it stinks like hell. In Fullerton, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

If you still haven’t connected the dots yet, consider the PD’s year-long effort to attribute nearby crimes to the Grand Inn in the context of the police department’s complete disregard for the large volume of calls stemming from the actual public nuisance that is the Slidebar.

In true Fullerton fashion, Mr. Felz could not get through the hearing without invoking his right to not incriminate himself.

Back to the development scheme – which would not be complete without the insertion of our favorite lobbyist/councilperson. In the testimony we learn that Jennifer Fitzgerald had met with Renick and Felz at least once in the early stages of this fiasco. We’ll never know the depth of her involvement with the developer, or whether she was wearing her lobbyist hat or her elected official hat at the time. But we can assume she was aware of the value of her vote, should a lucrative zone change come before the council in the near future.

Either way, Renick and Urban West seem to have given up on the deal, since Renick is now rebuilding its showrooms. But the city is stuck pursuing it’s selective enforcement action against the Grand Inn (or are they?). More taxpayer money goes down the drain while nothing is accomplished.

June 6, 2017Chronic Failure

Prioritizing Park Dwelling Fees

by Joshua52 Comments

At the last City Council meeting it was asked by the public and re-asked by Council member Sebourn why Park Dwelling Fees cannot be utilized for maintenance in existing parks. At approximately the 3:41:00 mark in said meeting Parks Director Curiel stated it was owing to an ordinance and Interim City Manager Roeder specified that it was State Law which is where the conversation ended.

I would like to set the record straight from my layman’s perspective.

First and foremost let us explain Park Dwelling Fees. They are fees that developers have to pay the city in order to build new places for people to live within the city. $X/Room. That money is then used for Bridges to Nowhere and temporary stairs that cannot be repaired. What it is not used for is maintenance on our existing parks.

This is especially problematic as salaries and benefits eat up ever more of our general fund and we find ourselves with unsafe parks and deferred maintenance. We put plywood up over damage (nearly 6-weeks later and counting), or worse, while our $6-figure employees tell us we don’t have the budget to keep our kids safe. It’s infuriating. (more…)

June 4, 2017June 5, 2017Chronic Failure

Maintenance of our City’s Parks is a Bridge Too Far

by Sean Paden14 Comments

Parks and Recreation has been spending a considerable amount of energy lately, between their big PR push to justify their last costly mistake (Hillcrest Park’s poorly constructed and unneeded stairs) and obtaining approval for the next one (Hillcrest Park’s unneeded bridge across the creek).

Do you know what Parks & Recreation have been paying less attention to? Their parks.

Residents have been complaining for several months about the condition of Rolling Hills Park’s playground and equipment. The issues run from routine maintenance like unpainted benches to hazards like this:

And this:

Hey, kids! This is what our City Manager’s car looked like after he totaled it!

Phone calls and letters to Parks & Recreation were ignored for months until residents went over Hugo Curiel’s head and appealed to the Commissioners directly, at which time they finally saw results.

Well, sort of. The benches have been repainted, but that rickety play truck is unchanged. Meanwhile, the broken spinner was simply been removed, along with an unsafe climber that had split in two. Before removing the climber outright, however, this was Parks & Recreation’s solution:

Which worked out about as well as anyone who’s ever had a five year old could have told them it would.

This right here is the hidden cost of our wasteful policies at City Hall: we get stairs and bridges we didn’t ask for or want, but we do not get well maintained parks or working playground equipment (aka recreation) for our children that we expect. Our government in a nutshell.

June 1, 2017June 2, 2017Behind Closed Doors

Fullerton’s Leaderless Ghost Ship

by Joshua35 Comments

It’s been six months since Police Chief Danny Hughes left Fullerton to go work for the mouse. Six months since the alleged cover-up that didn’t save Joe Felz from early retirement.

In that six months we had an interim Police Chief in David Hinig and an interim City Manager in Allen Roeder. Well, Hinig has maxed out how much he can be paid by CalPERS so he’s jumped ship and based on timing alone we can calculate that Mr. Roeder will be on his way out sometime in mid-July.

That will once again leave Fullerton without an official City Manager & without a Police Chief to add to our lacking Community Development Director, Museum Director and on and on and on.

It’s almost as if we can’t get great candidates in spite of having no money, a divided city council, a police department knee-deep in a cover-up scandal and on and on and on.

Why wouldn’t new people want to come on board to answer to a council that would rather build bridges to nowhere instead of maintaining what we already have in place? Why wouldn’t somebody new want to grab the tiller of the S.S. Fullerton while it’s sinking? They’ll have the full support of the council majority providing polishing the brass is the only priority on this particular Titanic.