Dead heads Archives - Page 21 of 67 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 19, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

Bulls Eye! Charges of Illegal Lobbying Leveled Against Anti-Recall Team Leader

Well, really, are you surprised? You shouldn’t be.

Political fixer, bag man, phony charity rip-off artist, carpetbagging spouse, lynch-type mob manager, lobbyist and, not coincidentally, head of the Fullerton anti-recall effort, Dick Ackerman, is about to be haunted by the Ghost of Crookedness Past.

Vern Nelson, the editor of the Orange Juice Blog, and staunch defender of the OC Fairgrounds against a swindle set up by Toad-in-Residence (and, not surprisingly, Anti-recall campaign manager) Dave Ellis, will be delivering a challenge to the DA’s whitewash of Dick Ackerman’s role as an illegal lobbyist in the slimy attempt to sell off the Fair to a group of insiders composed of Fair Board members themselves.

The dirty deal took place in the summer of ’09 when Ackerman started making calls to legislators on behalf of enabling legislation (that he only admits he “helped write”) even though he, himself had been out of office for less than a year – in direct violation of State law. Predictably, our honorable DA gave Ackerman a clean bill of health in the fall of 2010; but Lo and Behold!, in early 2011 Norberto Santana of the Voice of OC uncovered Ackerman’s actual billing records! You know, those embarrassing records the DA didn’t bother to look for. These records indicate illegal calls to legislators – which is exactly what Ackerman apparently told DA investigators he didn’t do. Uh, oh! Dick’s in a wringer!

When Santana published his discoveries, DA spoksholetress Susan Kang was quick with the smarmy defense: we reached the conclusion we did based on the evidence we had.

Wow. It’s amazing what you can’t find when you don’t look!

Well, Nelson is now calling Ms. Kang’s bluff and challenging on our do-nothing DA to do his job by re-opening the Ackerman case.

A year has passed, but the Statute of Limitations hasn’t.

January 15, 2012January 16, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

The Shameful Water Triple (Er, Quadruple) Dip

by The Desert Rat78 Comments

UPDATE: Of course the comment from “Do the math” is right on the money. The 10% in-lieu fee is defined as a percentage of gross revenue – including the in-lieu fee itself! This tricky little dodge adds 10% of the 10% – an add-on of yet another 1% to the cost of your water bill! Uh, oh! Quadruple dip!

– The Desert Rat

Way back in 1970 the Fullerton City Council passed Resolution No. 5184 dictating that 10% of the gross revenue collected by the Water Department was a reasonable amount to cover ancillary costs from supporting City departments. Here’s the key language from the Resolution:

That an amount equal to ten percent of the gross annual water sales of the Municipal Utilities Department during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970 is hereby transferred to the General Fund in payment for the services of the Finance Department of the City and of the City Administrator, the City Attorney and the City Clerk to the Municipal Utilities Department of the City as a part of the operating costs of the waterworks system of the City during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970.

That at the end of the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1971 and at the end of every fiscal year thereafter, a sum equal to ten percent of the gross annual water sales of the Municipal Utilities Department of the City shall be transferred to the general Fund of the City in payment for the services, during such fiscal year, of the Finance Department of the City and of the City Administrator, the City Attorney and the City Clerk to the Municipal Utilities Department of the City.

What sort of justification proved that 10% of the water revenue in 1970 should have gone to the General Fund is anybody’s guess.

In 1982 the City Council passed an ordinance permitting itself the authority to collect an “in-lieu” fee from the water utility as a fixed percentage of revenue. Despite the name change, the City continued to add the historic 10% to Fullerton’s water bills, and rake it off directly into the General Fund – without so much as a second thought.

A bit confusing? Not really. The original justification for the fuzzy 10% figure was to reimburse the City for vague incurred costs; calling it an in-lieu fee never changed the inescapable fact that the 10% amount was supposed to pay for actual costs associated with running the waterworks. Either way, as of 1997 and the implementation of Prop. 218, that became illegal.

Flash forward to today, and peruse this year’s budget documents. The Water Fund is Fund 44. Check out the total column on the right.

Summary of Appropriations by Fund.

Notice the amount directly allocated in the 2011-12 budget to the City Manager and Administration: $1.7 million ($29,917 + $1,678,962).

Now let’s see some actual charges. Observe Fiscal year 2009-10, over there, in the left column.

Summary of Expenditures and Appropriations by Fund

Good grief! As you might have guessed (based on this year’s budget), in 2009-10 the City directly charged the Water Fund over $1.5 million for the City Council, City Manager, and Administrative Services; plus fifty grand for Human Resources, and $100,000 for Community Development!

And this means that those services that were originally being used to justify the 10% levy on our water bills are already being charged directly to the General Fund. Double Dip!

Of course it gets worse. We now know the 10% is a double dip; but hold on to your water bill. Because the directly charged costs for “administration” are considered part of the base waterworks cost; the automatic 10% in-lieu fee (which was supposed to pay for “administration” but that pays for nothing), is applied to that! That increase this year is at least $170,000, if you add 10% to that $1.7 million figure we saw in the first table. Triple Dip!

And that, Friends, is a triple gainer off the high board and right into the deep end of the pool.

January 13, 2012January 13, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Retirement on the Brain

by Grover Cleveland12 Comments

The bright morning of July 19, 2011.

Kelly Thomas was taken off life support only a few days before, the cops who did him in are patrolling the streets of Fullerton, and the public still believes FPD PIO Andrew Goodrich’s lie that cops suffered broken bones in some titanic struggle with a felonious, homeless superman.

Despite the recent string of FPD bad behavior that had been coming to light, Goodrich is upbeat. Great returns for CalPERS that might take the heat off from critics who deride the defined benefit pension plans for cops who get to retire at age 50! Nasty unfunded liability!

January 10, 2012January 10, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Sellers Examines His Package

by Grover Cleveland41 Comments

SellersbyEdcarrascoweekly — Suddenly it just wouldn't be worth it anymore...

It is now August 4th, 2011 – about a month since six of now-MIA Chief Mike Sellers’ cops participated in the brutal beating death of a homeless man – and in the middle of a full-bore campaign of obfuscation by his underlings.

Here is Sellers scoping out his contract and his “executive” benefits a few days before his doctor told him he was really, really “sick.” He is looking forward to “wrapping things up.” And how.

And then an inquiry into the IRS to get “squared away.”

January 9, 2012Behind Closed Doors

We Get Mail: Something Is Really Rotten in Fullerton

by Mr. Peabody76 Comments

Here’s an e-mail we just got from a Friendly reader:

I just got done reading how the Fullerton Police Department tried to harass a law-abiding citizen by pursuing a phony prosecution against his brother. This behavior is absolutely despicable. And I noted that the police employees have been trying to use their fraudulent case by posting comments on-line.

The idea that that one of the police employees leaked what they assumed would be harmful information about a political adversary that turned out to be phony is also indicative of a department that is absolutely steeped in corruption. This is not the first time. They tried this with State Assemblyman Chris Norby and they will try it again. No one with an ethical fiber in his body is in charge of the Fullerton Police Department.

Something is really rotten in our City and we need to flush the toilet. Now.

It is time the voters and citizens of Fullerton reclaimed their city from the crooked police and the entrenched special interests in City Hall that are using the senile and incompetent civil authority to promote their own interests. The police have declared war on the citizens of Fullerton. Okay, war it is.

God bless the Recall, and God help Fullerton.

J. Stanley

January 9, 2012January 3, 2017About Us

FPD Harassment Up Close And Personal

by admin122 Comments

fatcops-300x198 — Excessive horning was the least of it…

Friends, over the past couple of months you may have noticed anonymous comments on some of our posts referring to “George” and “Jorge” and some sort of hit-and-run issue. Those comments referred to my brother George and came from inside the FPD. I let them go. Then. But not now.

This is a cautionary tale about a Culture of Corruption in the FPD that encourages the harassment of law abiding citizens. Getting a ticket from Barry Coffman for “excessive horning” is bad enough. Getting prosecuted for a non-existing “crime” is intolerable. Unfortunately this sort of thing has become business as usual with the FPD. It appears to be not only tolerated, but encouraged. And that’s what happens when the civilian authority abdicates its responsibility to oversee the cops.

Here’s the story.

Back on the morning of February 28, 2011 my brother George was driving east down Walnut Avenue, and turned right into the driveway of our office building parking lot. A car had parked quite close to the entry of the driveway, and as he turned in he heard a distinctive sound. After parking he noticed that the front bumper of the car was lying in the street.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t hit the car in any way, and there was no other damage to that car, or to his own vehicle; and he noticed that the bumper had been jerry-rigged at some point to stay on with sheet metal screws. He believed his right front tire just hit the thing as it lay in the roadway.

George kept watch on the car, and later in the afternoon a woman came to pick it up. He explained the situation and told Mrs. Bumper that he didn’t think he was responsible, but that he would help put the bumper back on with secure connections to the chassis the next day. She was grateful and drove off.

The next day her husband showed up and demanded that George buy him a new bumper. George suggested he go away and take his bumper with him.

Mr. Bumper filed a police report and soon George was interrogated by a couple of FPD cops. He told his story for the third time. The next thing he knew he was being charged by the District Attorney with Hit and Run, Unsafe Turn and Illegal Tampering With A Vehicle!

Story recap: No hit. No run. No unsafe turn. No tampering. No evidence. No witness. No nothing. Yet our esteemed DA, following the advice of FPD, had decided to prosecute my brother.

Of course George had to hire a lawyer who made six different court appearances on this idiotic “case.” Finally the DA blinked and offered George the DNA “spit and acquit” deal he makes with campaign-contributing food poisoners. George said no. With a trial date looming the DA’s office just dropped the whole thing on September 20th.

Here’s the case history.

Too bad, in a way. I really looked forward to seeing those FPD clowns on the stand to explain and defend their evidence. Now the public will never see the facts behind what can only be described as a malicious attempt to intimidate and harass me through my brother.

Well, guess what, boys? It didn’t work.

How much police, DA and court time and money was completely wasted in this effort to try to push around a citizen and taxpayer? Who knows? Five different DA employees had their spoons in this soup, as well as judges, bailiffs, court scribes, etc.

But I know one thing. There is an entrenched Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department that runs pretty deep, and it needs to end soon!

January 9, 2012January 9, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Count The Ironies

by Grover Cleveland39 Comments

PoorMike — Retirement was on his mind...

The date is July 19, 2011 and Fullerton Chief of Police Mike Sellers has just returned from his cruise and is still on vacation. FPD murder victim Kelly Thomas has been off life support for one week. Clouds are gathering, alright.

“Chief” seems interested in sharing his knowledge of some newfangled strategy called “predictive policing,” which, presumably, would not predict crimes perpetrated by the cops themselves. His correspondent, Dennis Kies, then Interim Police Chief of Costa Mesa, is suitably unimpressed.

Some folks may remember Kies from his days as police chief in La Habra, a tenure punctuated by the over-reaction cop shooting of 25 year-old Korean-American artist Michael Cho on the final day of 2007.

Then discussion of a new job at Seal Beach comes up, and apparently Kies name had popped up. “Chief” shares the bennies package.

I don’t know what a “medical retiree clause” is, but it probably has something to do with Chief’s Disease. Ironic that in less than a month Sellers himself would be rollerskating out of Fullerton with a bad case of it.

January 8, 2012December 12, 2016Behind Closed Doors

Oops. Slidebro Backtracking?

by Joe Sipowicz100 Comments

Brandon Ferguson of the OC Weekly is suggesting that downtown Fullerton bar owner Jeremy Popoff appears to be talking out of both sides of his mouth considering his recent voicemail left at the Weekly, and assertions made subsequently on-line.

On Facebook, Mr. Pop denies dodging requests to talk to the Weekly about his establishment’s role in the Kelly Thomas murder. And he seems to be accusing Ferguson of somehow twisting the words of his voice message.

You can be the judge since Ferguson has thoughtfully posted a link to the audio and shares a screenshot of the facebook page.

True, enough, the actual word of the voice mail message are non-specific – but the topic is clear enough – Kelly Thomas – and Popoff clearly says the stories are “not true.” Since the only issue involving his establishment and the murder are the questions of who made the call to the cops, and why, we know exactly what he is talking about.

The only thing I can think of is that perhaps Slidebro is getting nervous about his denial that the call to FPD on the night of 7 /5/11 did in fact come from the Slidebar. But as Mr. Jeremy acknowledges himself, the preliminary hearing is only six weeks off and all sorts of things may start coming to light.

January 7, 2012January 6, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Joe, Lou, and Mike; Does Anybody Know What’s Going On?

by admin75 Comments

Here’s a couple of interesting e-mails from the final day of July, 2011, between Acting City Manager Joe Felz and soon to be MIA Police Chief Sellers.

On the surface it seems that Acting City Manager Joe Felz is unhappy with Lou Ponsi for writing “Very Old” news. But maybe he is really upset that the public gets to hear (again) that the cops who killed Kelly Thomas had been out on the streets for over three weeks like nothing had happened; or that maybe Sharon Quirk looks like she is actually in charge. Sellers seems to be concerned with the latter, and he can already see the writing on the wall.

“Hopefully the remaining three council members don’t feel left out” is code for: “Make sure the Three Dead Tree Sumps get lined up, fast!”

“Lou is Not a bad guy from what I understand,” means that Sylvia Palmer and Andrew Goodrich have previously informed Felz that Ponsi is a reliable regurgitator of their crap.

By the way, is anybody else appalled by the weird punctuation and capitalization deployed by these $200,000+ per year bureaucrats?

January 6, 2012January 6, 2012About Us

Broken Bones and Blaming Whitaker for the Truth

by Grover Cleveland132 Comments

Syl — Oh, oh! The truth almost escaped her mouth! (Image generously borrowed from Fullerton Stories)

It is July 22, 2011 and now-MIA Chief Sellers gets an e-mail from City Hall’s version of Andrew Goodrich, city publicist, Syliva Palmer.

She’s subsequently fled the the scene of the crime, and won’t have to answer embarrassing questions about this correspondence – like her insinuation that Councilman Bruce Whitaker leaked inside information to FFFF in a post. Apparently the otiose Palmer was too lazy to actually read the post, and too stupid to follow the link to The Fullertonian – the ones who actually caught Goodrich in the broken bones lie.

But so what if Whitaker had actually had a hand in disseminating the truth? The outright lie about Fullerton cops suffering broken bones was propagated by Goodrich, clearly with the blessing of Sellers and Plamer, and now we may safely assume, Palmer’s boss City Manager, Joe Felz. Perhaps with the blessing of the Three Dead Tree Stumps, too. That would certainly fit the truth-challenged profile of Pat McKinley.

Note also that Palmer laments the fact that the media didn’t talk to other reliable councilmen who, presumably were only too happy to toe the party line.