Dead heads Archives - Page 48 of 67 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 10, 2010May 10, 2010Behind Closed Doors

MORE MONKEY BUSINESS AT THE CLERK-RECORDER’S OFFICE; TOM DALY AND HIS PAY-TO-PLAY CONTRACTS.

Daly Really2 — Hey, everyone is good at something!

It looks like we can add another skill to Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly’s public money squandering resume. As previously reported here, not only does Daly excel at wasting public money and doling out jobs to his contributor’s relatives, it appears that he also hands out no-bid contracts to campaign contributors as well. It turns out that the contracts are more of what we’re used to: highly questionable and unaudited relationships, and of course, ultimate failure.

Get a load of this one.

Between 2002 and 2007, Christopher Townsend, who is the president of Townsend Public Affairs, contributed a total of $2600 to Tom Daly’s campaigns. During this period, Townsend was awarded two $60,000 no-bid contracts for “consulting services.” Townsend was awarded these contracts without bidding because of their supposed know-how in obtaining grants from the California Cultural Historical Endowment. What for, you ask?

In late 2005/2006 the grant application was for $150,000 to go to “planning” the archives expansion in the old Courthouse building in Santa Ana. Apparently the contract and the grant application were approved solely on the authority of Daly himself – that’s right, no Board of Supervisor’s oversight.

The big problem was that the grant application was for a building over which the “Manager of the Year” Daly had no authority. Apparently it is controlled by the Harbors Parks and Beaches Department that lets the Clerk-Recorder use it for some of his functions. And seemingly they had no clue what Daly was up to.

Even though Daly got the grant he wanted, the County had to turn the money back in April, 2006 because of the inability of Daly to communicate what he was doing with the other County bureaucrats. The official excuse was “unanticipated space and stakeholder concerns.” Translated from Bureaucratese into English: Big Daly F-up.

Well, there’s $60,000 down the toilet.

Undaunted by failure, late in 2006 the indefatigable Daly was before the Board of Supervisors asking for another $60,000 no-bid contract with Townsend. The motive was the same, but by now Daly’s covetous eye likely rested on the wretched building at 433 West Civic Center, a $2.1 million liability that he would talk the Board into acquiring in 2007. We shared that mess with you, here. The second grant application ended up with a big goose egg, however the purchase of the money pit on Civic Center Drive proceeded headlong, full speed ahead.

Dark-Clouds-looming-500x375 — A river of red ink runs through it...

Another $60,000 chunked into the water hazard.

Oh, dear me. Another Tom Daly fiasco; another example of incompetence and cronyism his pals in the media won’t touch; yet another mauve feather in the dismal repuglican headdress of Daly’s admirer, John Lewis (& Co.) who keeps insisting that the egregious Daly is some sort of “fiscal conservative.”

And good grief, we’ve only just scratched the surface. Be sure to stay tuned.

May 9, 2010May 19, 2010Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – Propagandist for Suffocating Statism

by Grover Cleveland10 Comments

fartboy — I would humbly like to thank the Academy for this recognition...

The other day Orange County’s Most Hypocritical Repuglican (yes, that is one Hell of an achievement) Matthew J. Cunningham coughed up this Red County hairball in criticism of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez:

How very congressional. And also ironic to listen to Loretta Sanchez speaking to a crowd of immigrants who came here seeking the American Dream,, even as she has been voting to make American more suffocatingly statist like the countries they left.

Is he really that breathtakingly unaware of the irony of the mouthpiece for the OC Children and Families Commission dumping on “statism.” Or could it be that he figures that whoever reads his post won’t know about his real day job; and if they do any comments revealing that fact will be deleted.

Aw c’mon Mr. C from Suite C, ‘fess up. You really, really dig suffocating statism; you profit from it and you shill for it. In fact, it’s just about your only real source of income.

Own it.

P.S. Wordsmiths “at the top of their profession” proofread their copy for embarrassing typos.

May 8, 2010May 8, 2010Dead heads

Nick Berardino is Dishonest. And Really Stupid.

by Joe Sipowicz26 Comments

Over at the Red County blog yesterday Cynthia Ward properly went after the idiotic mailer the OCEA put out against Shawn Nelson for voting to preserve the Fox Theater.

Naturally, Matthew Cunningham, who is doing his usual shuck and jive for John Lewis to torpedo Nelson, decided to let Chief Union Goon Nick Berardino defend the flier in detail, and of course did his usual look-the-other-way routine as Berardino just made shit up.

Bernardino-2-300x234 — How can you tell when he's lying? When his lips are moving.

Berardino defended his fraudulent mailer by claiming that Nelson received campaign contributions from The Morgan Group who was in negotiations to buy the Fox Theater. Then Berardino points out that (some years later) Nelson voted to approve a matching grant to the Fox Foundation for restoration, like there was some sort of connection.

If Cunningham weren’t working for the Lewis cabal to sink a real conservative Republican (Nelson) in order to promote a district-hopping, ignorant assclown (Sidhu) he would have pointed out that the two things had absolutely nothing to do with one another; that the Morgan Group never had a stake in the Fox grant decisions and that the Fox Foundation that got the grant is a non-profit corporation that doesn’t give out political contributions.

Nick says he did his homework. Nick is a liar and a sack of Nigerian pygmy goat shit.

Oh, and by the way Nick, your flier included a big picture of the old Bank of Italy on it that has nothing to do with the Fullerton Fox.

If Nick weren’t so stupid he might soon come to discover that helping preserve the Fox Theater will win a lot more votes than it will cost him. So keep it up, dummy. Just love the way you waste your members dues!

May 7, 2010May 10, 2011Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – Monitoring John & Ken for Fun and Profit

by Grover Cleveland25 Comments

In our series documenting the PR/lobbyist hungry OC Children and Families Commission we have shown how they have employed local political operative and Red County blog bloviator Matthew Cunningham to propagandize their myriad big-government good works.

We have seen how the preachy Mr. Conservative Republican was paid $200 an hour to do such things as update facebook pages, ghost write articles for liberal Democrats, and perhaps, funniest of all (in a sick sort of way) – coordinate toothbrush distribution to the Diocese. While he was at it, he amassed some mammoth paydays for his “Pacific Strategies” wordsmithing operation.

Jerb2 — The toughest part of the job is thinking up new ways to spend all that gummint dough.

Of course you can’t really propagandize effectively unless you know what the opposition is saying. So enjoy this.

In January, 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger called for First 5 California to be eliminated in his 2009-10 budget. Regional commissions would have taken a 60% cut in funding.

KFI radio broadcasters John and Ken went on the offensive, and Cunningham was right there listening in at $200 an hour to formulate his defense of the Welfare State. Here’s the invoice entry:

Full invoice – January 2009

As I said yesterday, it’s way past time to put this Commission under the control of the Board of Supervisors so that at least contracts and policy can be authorized by elected officials in a much more public forum. And maybe instead of fixating on PR the kiducrats can concentrate more resources on actually helping poor children instead of well-off, hypocritical Republicans.

May 7, 2010May 7, 2010Dead heads

FFFF Quadruple Repeat: Sad. Pathetic. Embarrassing.

by The Fullerton Shadow45 Comments

lorripic5_sm — Aw, what a cutie pie. Picked out your prom dress yet?

You know, this post is just too good not to keep sharing with the Friends.

It appears that carpetbagging Precious Princess stopped making her ludicrous “Lorri in 4th gear” videos after the first one bombed so spectacularly.

Too bad. The spectacle of a 57 year-old woman doing her little dress-up teenybopper routine really is priceless.

The Desert Rat

Hardly anymore introduction is necessary. This clueless airhead wants to be a County Supervisor. True, the bar has been set pretty low in the past. But this is ridiculous. I’d rather vote for her little dog “Bella.” Too bad Bella is a carpetbagger, also.

Last summer we thought her “cute shoes” comment was indicative of a frivolous, unlikely candidacy. Now we know better. Oh, and by the way – shame on Anaheim for electing this idiot to their city council.

Enjoy, if you can keep your last meal down.

May 6, 2010May 6, 2010Dead heads

Nelson Zings Sidhu

by Joe Sipowicz6 Comments

Over at the Red County blog Cynthia Ward shares a fun hit piece on the 4th District claim jumping assclown from the 3rd District – Harry Sidhu. It basically sums up all we’ve been saying about Hide ‘N Seek Sidhu with regard to fake addresses, crazy ambition all out of proportion to any real ability, and only a passing familiarity with the truth. They were too nice to mention the perjury deal and the DA investigation, but that’s okay.

The best part, as Ms. Ward points out, is the map with the push pins showing offices that office hound Sidhu has been whoring around for in the past few years. The pattern sort of looks like a flock of geese flying south – which is where Sidhu’s campaign is heading. The piece archly notes that space precludes them from going back more than 3 years!

And then of course, there’s the giant, disembodied Sidhu head floating over OC, signifying massive ego and inflation with lighter-than-air gas. The voters never get tired of this:

Geez, I really love that pic. Almost as much as this one:

May 6, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Time to End the Children and Families Commission’s Autonomy

by Grover Cleveland24 Comments

The public relations and tax revenue fixated OC Children and Families Commission needs oversight. How do I know? Because of the amount of money these people pay to PR types and lobbyists – who just happen to be pals of Commission members. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in fact.

Last year the Riverside County Board of Supervisors addressed the same issue when their “First 5” Commission members were busted for distributing grants to their own organizations. Here’s a 2009 article from The Riverside Press-Telegram that talks about the problem. The solution proposed by the Riverside BOS was to subsume their “First Five” Commission into the County government structure.

Whether or not this sort of thing has been going on in OC is not known without a complete shakeout. But what is known is that the Commission has been paying for things like toothbrush distribution and facebook editing at a rate of $200 per hour – to a Matthew Cunningham, a pal of the current Commission Chairman, and a running board occupant of the John Lewis political machine.

Then there’s the small matter of the hundreds of thousands contracted for lobbying services to Phil Isenberg as well as our own local big-government gold digger – Anaheim Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.

PringlePower — When you awake you will feel completely refreshed...

It’s high time to place this Commission in a chain of command that puts ultimate responsibility in the hands of elected representatives – people who will have to account for grants and contracts awarded to political operatives, and to decide what sort of political lobbying, if any, is appropriate. And that would be the County Board of Supervisors.

May 5, 2010May 5, 2010Behind Closed Doors

CSUF Going Way Out On Limb

by Mr. Peabody7 Comments

We just received an e-mail from a young Friend, directing our attention to a story in the CSUF Daily Titan about the university trying to go ahead with the acquisition of the Hope University campus across Nutwood Avenue. We’ve been documenting the damage already done to mid-century architecture in the area and of course noting that the buildings on the Hope campus are architecturally significant – and would be demolished by CSUF.

According to the article funding would come from the sale of bonds. $30 million will be needed to close the deal. But of course the university employee cited says nothing about how the bonds are to be paid for. It seems that the school’s debt service ratio is already crappy – they’ve been spending like drunken sailors over there and their credit card is maxed out. Can anybody forget the debacle of the “University Heights” housing fiasco, here, and here? That didn’t help, either.

With the State budget cuts they’ve had to cut enrollment, and so student fee revenue is down.

And speaking of fees, it also seems as if the recent increases in fees and tuition have a lot of students pissed off, and using their dough to help swing future expansion that’s years off is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

So will the CS Chancellor’s office nix this massive added liability? Let’s hope so. CSUF President Milton is on clueless cruise control. Somebody needs to behave responsibly – and soon.

May 5, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies: January, 2010 – The Kiducrat Bonanza

by Grover Cleveland6 Comments

The largest monthly tax-payer funded haul for local Kiducrat spokesman Matthew Cunningham seems to be January 2010, when he racked up an impressive $10,840 to wordsmith and social network as a PR shill for the big-government OC Children and Families Commission. Click on the document below to see what a “conservative” Republican wordsmith does for a living – apart from writing op-ed pieces for liberal Democrats.

My favorite line item is the last one – a blanket $800 charged for “account management” for the month, whatever that may entail. Say what? You mean the folks in charge bought into that baloney? Oh that’s right – nobody seems to be in charge at all.

But hey! It’s all about the kids, right?

With every passing second it become more and more obvious that the Children and Families Commission is in dire need of some outside oversight to stop this exorbitant waste of money on overpriced PR efforts doled out to political operatives.

May 4, 2010May 6, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies – The Facebook Gold Mine

by Grover Cleveland11 Comments

More fun stuff from one of OCs repuglican welfare state spongers, Matthew J. Cunningham. $4,200 in 8 days, to be precise. And ten references to Facebook updates.

Link to full invoice

Funny how stuff kids do for free can be mined by a well-connected political operative for big bucks. Well it’s big bucks when you charge 200 clams per hour and have no competition.

What’s really startling is that the Children and Families Commission kiducrats are willing to pay somebody that exorbitant rate for a “social network” medium “work” that will have a completely negligible effect. Not negligible, you say? Prove it says I.

Oh, yeah. Be sure to reflect upon Mr. Conservative Republican’s daily billing totals and note the inevitable “account management,” whatever the hell that is. Who knew being a kiducrat payed so well?