How To Burn Through $55,000

We’ve had a lot of fun exposing the waste and incompetence of our three Jurassic councilmen, Bankhead Jones, and McKinley, although the indecent exposure hasn’t been pretty. The Redevelopment scams, the Water Fund fraud, and the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department all point to sclerotic ineptitude of Biblical proportions.

But nothing that came before prepared me for the Protect Fullerton expenses identified on their Form 460.

Somehow these dopes managed to spend $55,000 in a few months mounting a pathetic opposition to the Fullerton Recall signature drive. $55,000 spent on a gang of fixers and political prostitutes assembled by OC’s number one bag man, the “Honorable” Dick Ackerman. The childish website, the dumb mailers, the rotten political advice cost the Three Sluggish Sloths plenty. And what do they have to show for it? A handful of recission cards from people who probably never even signed the Recall petition in the first place.

But, lest you feel sorry about the poor boobs who had their hard-earned contributions wasted by these dodos, consider the source: over half the dough came from the Fullerton cop union and a few other police agencies across the state – including the cop slush fund that is fronting the money to pay for Ramos and Cicinelli’s lawyers.

And to wrap the package in a pretty bow, Friends, reflect on this: if the Three Dimwits can throw their money around to such little effect, just think what they have been doing with our money all these years.

 

Sidewalk Hijackers Support The Dinosaurs

Caution - ethical behavior narrows ahead...

And why not? Life is good when you can get away with grabbing a public sidewalk and build a building on it. “Are you crazy, Joe?” I can hear you saying. No. FFFF shared the story, here.

The sidewalk grabber was Mr. Anthony Florentine, proprietor of the Tuscany Club. Here he is chipping in to save the Three Dithering Diplosaurs:

And the guy that let Florentine get away with the heist was none other than former Fullerton Development Services Director F. Paul Dudley, whose incompetent tenure caused harm to Fullerton that will probably never be fixed. A member of Fullerton’s $100,000 pension club, Dudley makes extra cash lobbying his former employers on behalf of developers. So he’s working to keep the Old Boys in office, too:

Of course Dudley had help in brushing off the sidewalk scam, and then papering it over. And he had help in the persons of Don Bankhead and “Dick” Jones, previously beneficiaries of Florentine’s campaign largess.

What nice people.

So Who Do Downtown Developers Support?

Update: Gentle Friends, I forgot to remind you that Pelican Ontario was also shaken down, er, contributed $300 to Pam Keller for her Fullerton Collaborative just ’cause they care so darn much for Fullerton.

Here’s a snippet from the anti-recall Protect Fullerton Form 460 – indicating a healthy contribution from Pelican Ontario LLC.

What is Pelican Ontario? Why that’s the partnership proposing “Amerige Court,” that god-awful downtown Fullerton monstrosity in which millions of dollars worth of land is to be given to the developer for free. What’s that you say? Free? Of course. Because to people like McKinley, Jones, and Bankhead giving public resources to private interests without due consideration isn’t a gift of public funds, it’s being pro-business. We get stuck with the traffic and they get the campaign contributions.

You have to admit it takes a lot of nerve to attack Tony Bushala as a downtown developer when he isn’t, and at the same time take the money from people who have millions of reasons to prop up the Three Dyspeptic Dinosaurs. But these worthies are not bothered by ethical nuisances like hypocrisy.

Tow Racket Leads to Yet Another FPD Lawsuit

A few weeks ago we told you all about the Fullerton Police Department’s attempt to protect the city’s tow monopoly through harassment of AAA tow truck drivers.

Now the OC Weekly is reporting that a suit has been filed against the FPD claiming that police officers harassed and intimidated tow truck drivers for competing against the city’s preferred tow vendor.

Read the lawsuit

The suit alleges that drivers from a Bob’s Towing were singled out and cited over 40 times for frivolous reasons while other companies’ drivers went untouched.  Officers Hagen and Ledbetter are accused of turning off their audio recorders for “off the record” conversations constituting harassment. Drivers have quit and left the city in fear.

Is the FPD violating these folks’ constitutional right to equal treatment under the law? That seems to be par for the course.

Of course, if the PD has been systematically denying it’s own citizens the benefits of fair competition, then this has undoubtedly caused drivers to be left stranded while AAA scrambles to find tow truck drivers willing to face the FPD.

And then there’s that big question we keep having to ask: Can a single month go by without the FPD drawing taxpayers into a major lawsuit?

Amateur Hour at Anti-recall HQ

I'll be happy to take your money and waste it. Been doing that for years.

How many tens of thousands of dollars of Pat McKinley’s pension bucks have Anti-recall leaders “Dick” Ackerman and Dave “Dick” Ellis squandered so far?

The metamorphosis into an oxygen breathing life form conferred no added intelligence.

Tens of thousands? Here’s a hopeful blurb from Dick Ellis’ pathetic website:

Rescission Cards Flood In After Mailer Exposes Over 80 Bushala Code Enforcement Violations
Click here to view

Uh, yeah, right. Those were the cards wishfully cast out, blindly, into a sea of possible Recall signatories. The idea was that some folks would take back their recall signatures when they learned what a monster Tony Bushala is.

The “flood” turned out to be more of a trickle that evaporated before it could even form a puddle.

Now that signatures have been submitted, we also know the fruits of Dick Ackerman’s campaign genius: 145 cards returned for each of the Three Dithering Dinosaurs. 145. And many of those are the names of dead jazz musicians, infamous criminals, and assorted fictional movie characters living at impossible addresses.

Consider that when compared to over 17,000 signatures gathered for the Recall on each of the Ossified Fossils and you will understand the breadth and depth of the Anti-recall failure. And be sure to recall Pat McKinley’s winning margin in 2010 – 90 votes.

How many tens of thousands of dollars were wasted on the Anti-recall  mass mailing efforts? I don’t know. But I suggest that if you want to find out, you inquire of the experts in wasting our money: Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley.

Go Home or Go To Jail

Awhile back Grover Cleveland posted on how the Fullerton City Council’s creation of a mess downtown led to the rise of an FPD goon squad to quell the crime wave. The only problem was that the FPD goon squad added to the crime wave. Here’s a reminder. An innocent bystander is beat up and arrested. Later he is tried for assaulting a cop to which Fullerton cops Kenton Hampton and Framk Nguyen swear in a court of law. Only problem is it didn’t happen, but that didn’t stop the FPD and the DA from trying to put an innocent man in prison.