Chronic Failure Archives - Page 39 of 67 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 27, 2017Chronic Failure

FPD Insults the Taxpayers Yet Again

On Tuesday the City Council held a special Budget Workshop to go over options to keep us from going to insolvency thanks to CalPERS. All departments were asked to come up with cuts to their budgets in spite of the fact that public safety is the biggest driver of our debt.

Miraculously when forced government bureaucrats were able to find it in themselves to not throw tax money away. That it takes a fiscal crisis for the government to care about spending other people’s money is infuriating but not shocking. Ultimately most departments either offered to not fill positions or cut back on $50 boxes of paperclips or whatever frivolity they found.

FFD brought up the idea to negotiate a contract with CARE Ambulance to net the City a cool $1Million in new revenue. They qualified/blackmailed it by saying that they’d have to lay off 3 Heroes if that Ambulance idea was shot down. However, knowing that the council won’t let go of any hero staff at least FFD came to table with something. What did FPD put on the table?

They put up four police officer positions. This was so laughable that staff, during the presentation, reiterated that this wasn’t going to happen and was put there because FPD had to put something.

So FPD effectively offered to cut nothing. NADA.

Fitzgerald straight up said during the meeting that she wouldn’t vote to reduce Hero staffing. At a previous meeting she tried to save the paltry $48,000 for the horrible Behind the Badge PR nonsense and I doubt she’d even let us cut that $25K in legal fees given the choice.

The department, knowing that there aren’t three votes on council to reduce FPD staff, gave the Fullerton taxpayers the middle finger by not even trying to reduce their budgets. I don’t know, maybe don’t blow through so much ammo down at the range for starters ($58K/Year). Maybe end a few subscriptions or cut back on the pay-cations we send heroes on all the time. How about you stop beating people or wrongfully arresting folks and save us some settlement money at the very least? Something? Anything?

Nope, just a big old F-U.

An F-U to the taxpayers from the very people bankrupting us so they can retire 20 years before any of us with their ridiculous 6-figure pensions. The only thing worse than the Interim Chief giving us all the bird is Fitzgerald sitting up on the dais, her fake (R) self to blame for our ever increasing debt, going along with this hogwash.

They don’t want to cut personnel? Fine. Cut something. Come back to us when you want to act like adults and not petulant children unwilling to give up even one toy.

April 26, 2017April 26, 2017About Us

Sukhee Scuttles Southward. Say, Joe, Weren’t You Paying Attention?

by Mr. Peabody9 Comments

The phony professor says: my residency in your town will be this long…

In 2015, the former Mayor of Irvine moved into a gated Fullerton neighborhood to run for the State Senate. His name is Sukhee Kang and his embarrassing and embarrassingly expensive campaign ended in a primary election disaster when he came in last, behind Fullerton’s Josh Newman.

Poor Sukhee had nothing to offer except a disastrous record in Irvine, a phony ballot designation as an educator, a vanity press “autobiography” written by somebody else, the dubious title of carpetbagger, and of course a long list of Democrat party big shots from up and down California who were unconcerned over the ethical problems of an incompetent politician moving into a district to hijack it for his own political aggrandizement.

One of Sukhee’s imbecile Democrat apologists actually tried to make it seem like a perfectly reasonable move – he and Mrs. Sukhee were just a couple of lonely, restless empty-nesters on the move. In reality the ploy was a race-based scam that necessitated hiding Sukhee’s political origins and record.

And now this poor fool is gone – back to Irvine according to Thy Vo of Voice of OC, thus abandoning his wafer-thin commitment to north Orange County. FFFF checked. Sure enough, Sukhee sold his golf course house on November 16, 2016 – eight days after the general Election created a new, Democrat State Senate incumbent. And after his realtor’s commission got paid, Sukhee took another loss.

And here’s the fun, ironic bit. The campaign guy who took over the Josh Newman senate campaign after Sukhee hit the showers, a person named Derek Humphrey, is also working for our latest carpetbagging opportunist – millionaire union executive Joe Kerr, who, in reality lives in ritzy Coto de Caza and wants to be a county supervisor for us. Once again the Democrat establishment seems intent on coalescing around a man who is blithely unconcerned about the ethical problem of carpetbaggery – at least so long as victory seems even remotely plausible.

One of these creatures periodically exhibits common sense…

You would think Mr. Humphrey would be acutely aware of the pitfalls of north county carpetbagging, but, hey, a job’s a job, right?

For our local historians, and Humpy, too, here is a list of well-off carpetbaggers who have recently failed when folks in north Orange County were made aware that a carpetbagger was on the loose:

2009 – Linda Ackerman

2010 – Harry Sidhu

2010 – Lorri Galloway

2016 – Sukhee Kang

April 25, 2017Bad Cops

Dan Hughes Accidentally Tells the Truth – Felz Was Intoxicated!

by Joshua12 Comments

A follow-up to last night. Here’s some more, under oath, testimony from Former Police Chief Dan Hughes. See if you can spot the moment when Dan decides to not dissemble the details.

Hint – “The Supervisor believed he was intoxicated”.

Did Hughes lie to the Fullerton City Council or did he lie Under Oath yesterday?

April 24, 2017April 25, 2017Bad Cops

Dan Hughes is a Liar

by Joshua31 Comments

Fullerton Police Chief and current Cast Member Copper at the Walt Disney Corporation Danny Hughes was compelled to testify at a nuisance hearing today, 24 April 2017, at Fullerton City Hall.

During the hearing he was asked, under oath, about his involvement in the Joe Felz DUI disaster. According to an article in the Voice of OC, Hughes claimed that Felz was afforded some sort of “objectivity” by the orders he issued to his officers that night. He also had some choice words about Fullerton. Let’s go to the audio (transcribed below without his “uhs”):

“When there is a, especially in the city of Fullerton, where there is somebody, whether it be a City Council Member or in this particular case the City Manager, those types of incidents are gonna, what I would describe, blow up. No matter what that decision is made regarding the outcome of that case there there will be allegations and conspiracy theories and all sorts of information that comes from that. So, uh, generally speaking the supervisor would notify a Lieutenant, that Lieutenant would notify the Captain, the Captain would generally either make the decision or contact me.”

Allegations and Conspiracy Theories. How quaint. That’s almost as cute as when Pat McKinley tried blaming the Kelly Thomas protests on “outside agitators”.

Let me break this down for former Chief Hughes and the cops in the audience.

That same “If you aren’t a criminal so what are you afraid of?” maxim that you all love so much? It applies double to you. Our fair residents have no reason to trust the FPD after the years and years of corruption and corrupt officers that just can’t help themselves from turning to the dark side. Bad Apples you say? Maybe, but I don’t see any heroes stepping up to put them down. I don’t see officers testifying against their corrupt allies. My inbox isn’t exactly brimming with HeroMail™ regarding what needs to change on the inside. Maybe if that blue wall of silence didn’t protect violent felonious acts and sexual predators we wouldn’t feel the need to make “allegations” about your culture of corruption.

Further to the point the Felz incident has nothing to do with the outcomes of a “case” but rather with the circumspect treatment at the scene of a crime. Nobody cares if everybody on city staff was called that night because what matters is that AFTER the calls were made the officers on the scene opted to not do their jobs be it by choice or by following possibly illegal orders.

Hughes stated in his own memo that Felz smelled of alcohol and yet nobody made sure that the situation was beyond reproach by administering a breathalyzer. Felz was treated differently than the thousands of drunks that are arrested yearly here in Fullerton and that’s how you end up with “allegations” and “information that comes from that”.

As for the “conspiracy theories” comment? The idea that Hughes was complicit in a Felz cover-up isn’t the stuff of conspiracies as that’s just simple deductive reasoning. THIS is a Conspiracy:

Still more believable than Hughes’ version of events on 09 Nov 2016

Exit Question: In the above audio Hughes claims the following:

“So, uh, generally speaking the supervisor would notify a Lieutenant, that Lieutenant would notify the Captain, the Captain would generally either make the decision or contact me.”

I believe the Watch Commander from Hughes’ own memo above was Lieutenant Andrew Goodrich. So was protocol and the chain of command, generally speaking, broken when Lieutenant Goodrich called Hughes and not his Captain? And if so, why?

April 23, 2017April 23, 2017Chronic Failure

Park Barrel Spending … Literally

by David Curlee17 Comments

Further review of the budget document dump offers lots of worthy material. Why not examine the “15” Parks and Recreation Fund, shall we?

The only justification they can provide for $15,000 of Landscape Maintenance Supplies is “Substantially increased use of trash can liners in several parks“. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Not long ago, I wrote about their brainstorm to launch fireworks from the top of Hillcrest Park on the Fourth of July. Included in that proposal was an idea to use Lions Field for Fourth of July festivities.

When youth sports are in session (i.e. most of the year), your chance of finding a parking spot at Lions Field in the evenings and on weekends is nearly impossible. Parking along Brea Blvd. is also used up for the same reason.

That’s okay, when Joe Felz’ Hillcrest Park stairs to nowhere are open — and the kids aren’t playing ball — people can park their cars at Lions Field and climb the hideous stairs when nobody is around, right? Wrong.

Under this proposal, parking at Lions Field during the day, everyday, will be scarce, if not completely unavailable.

That’s because the footer of the Parks & Rec Proposal offers this wonderful idea:

Lease the Lions Field to Hope International University, most likely during the day, since youth sports already use it on the nights/weekends.
Lease the Lions Field parking lot to St. Jude for employee parking use.

Just as the stairs are a terrible waste of money and devoid of any logic, so too is the idea to lease parking spaces to St. Jude for profit. This is how Parks & Recreation operates: (1) waste a ton of money on something completely unnecessary that benefits less than 1% of Fullerton residents, (2) realize there isn’t enough money to support it, (3) come up with some scheme to siphon money away from the end user.

Leasing the Lions Field parking lot creates yet another reason for Fullerton residents not to use the stairs.

Oh, and by the way, the Park Dwelling Fee is slated to increase from $11,700 to $12,015 per unit.

I think the time has come to reduce — or even eliminate — the Park Dwelling Fee so that nonsense like the stairs isn’t affordable anymore. The $12,015 per unit would be far greater used to fix Fullerton’s streets, water mains, and sewers.

April 22, 2017April 22, 2017Bad Cops

Behind the Badge

by Joe Sipowicz2 Comments

One of the more startling examples of stupid waste at Fullerton City Hall has been the exorbitant expense of Behind the Badge: fifty large ones a year for former bad OC Register “journalists” to publish and disseminate pro-cop propaganda pabulum. It was all phony crap meant to obscure the real news about the FPD: a litany of bad behavior and criminal activity that over the past decade has spanned the breadth of the California Penal Code. Fortunately, thanks to the Friends this ridiculous waste is coming to an end. We wanted to make sure, too, so we requested the good bye letter.

And here is our temporary police chief Dave Hinig, hand-wringing over the loss of what can only be described as no loss at all for the taxpayer:

Is this some sort of sick joke? Value? To whom? Certainly not for the people who were paying out almost $250,000 over the past four years.

And what’s really laughable is all this lachrymose bullshit over a contract that was made in secret, was grossly mismanaged, and that had no actual requirements for performance – even if Joe Felz had had any inclination to oversee what he initiated.

Well, anyway, Behind the Badge is going away although why we have to pay another $8000 for two more months of this unadulterated literary manure is beyond me.

April 22, 2017April 22, 2017A Step in the Right Direction

The Dan Hughes Sense of Entitlement

by David Curlee26 Comments

City Hall did something really helpful this week. The Clerk’s Office worked with Administrative Services to post very detailed budget documents online in advance of next Tuesday’s City Council budget workshop. I asked if this could be done and they made it happen 24 hours later. Thank you!

Budget detail of this depth has never been provided to the public. This is a big step in the right direction, and likely never would have happened if Joe Felz was still in charge.

The files are posted here: http://cityoffullerton.com/gov/departments/admin_serv/city_budget/2017_18_proposed_budget_information.asp

From this cache of documents, we are able to see the type of General Fund waste that Dan Hughes justified during his tenure as police chief. The next time you call the Police Department and are told no officers are available to respond to a call for service, just remember where his priorities were.

Much of this is charitable and/or personal expenses. Dan Hughes was Fullerton’s highest compensated employee in 2015 with $358,403 in wages and benefits. He should have paid these expenses out of his own pocket, or simply not at all.

Let us not forget that it was the City Council — led by Fitzgerald, Flory, and Chaffee — that let him get away with shenanigans like this.

One can only hope the current City Council sees fit to finally end this nonsense.

April 20, 2017Chronic Failure

Ready to Recall New Senator Newman?

by Joshua15 Comments

Carl DeMaio out of San Diego has been pitching the idea of a recall for our new CA State Senator Josh Newman. Why Newman? Because Newman voted to increase our gas taxes for the dubious claim of fixing our roads. He barely won his seat and without him the State wouldn’t have a (D) Super-Majority with which to tax us into oblivion.

While it’s true that Mah Roads need fixing it is not true that the government needs to steal more money in order to accomplish this task. Sadly Newman, like nearly every (D) in Sacramento (I’m looking at your Quirk-Silva) thinks theft is the only way to combat incompetence and prior graft. The cycle will continue unabated until we get mad as hell and don’t take it anymore.

Will the recall succeed? Considering Newman barely won by a razor thin margin this last November it’s definitely possible that he could get the boot. While Newman’s district covers quite a bit of real estate it’s not as if this would be Fullerton’s first recall rodeo.

For those that support the recall I’d recommend checking our DeMaio’s page HERE. While I’m inclined to give the boot to anybody who saddles the working class with such ridiculous taxes – I remember who our last recall gifted us in this fair town and substituting Newman for a Fitzgerald type would be no win for taxpayers. I’m also of the opinion that if we’re going to boot Newman for being a party stooge reaching for our wallets we should probably aim for a twofer and do the same to his colleague in the Assembly at the same time.

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017Behind Closed Doors

It’s All Just a Case of Miscommunication

by Joe Sipowicz9 Comments

How funny. When you hire a lawyer the City’s legal minions suddenly realize that peddling bullshit may just have ramifications. They become slightly less obnoxious to the citizens they are supposed to be working for.

I’m not telling the truth and you can’t make me…

In the case of Jennifer Fitzgerald’s phone records from the early morning of November 9th, 2016, the public was first told that there were no responsive records. FFFF knew that was a lie because Fitzgerald herself admitted she was in communication with the police chief, Danny “Galahad” Hughes that night; and Hughes memorialized his conversations with councilmembers the very next day in a written memo.

That was when FFFF decided to lawyer up.

Well, here’s the response FFFF attorney, Kelly Aviles, received to her first demand letter. Mostly it’s a clarification about what FFFF wants. But the final page of the response contains this priceless gem:

Seems it was all just a “miscommunication,” donchaknow, in which the poor, befuddled lobbyist-councilwoman Fitzgerald thought members of the public were seeking information about some whole other day, you know, just for the heck of it. But boy was she hustling to cooperate when she found out what FFFF really wanted!

Yeah, sure, whatever you say, “Jen.”

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017Chronic Failure

Budget Proposals Call for Elimination of City Positions

by Deadeye8 Comments

FFFF was just sent a few pages from the latest budget proposals, which the Fullerton City Council will soon vote on. The true costs of Fullerton’s pension debt are coming to bear, as the proposals call for the elimination for firefighters, police corporals, maintenance workers and security guard services.

These reductions will be necessary in order to offset significant increases in CalPERS pension payments for existing employees. Most of the budget is allocated to staffing, so city staff claims there are very few non-staffing cuts to be made.

From here, it will only get worse. CalPERS will continue to lower its discount rate, triggering higher bills for cities across the state. We are looking at many more reductions in services and increases in taxes and fees over the next few years.

Will our council have the guts to pull the trigger and start making severe cuts now? Or will they postpone action until insolvency becomes inevitable?