Good Golly. Goodbye Molly. Good Riddance

Put on a happy face.

According to The Fullerton Observer, North Orange County Community College District trustee, Molly McClanahan has pulled the plug on her career as an alleged overseer of the bureaucracy at the local junior colleges. Her seat will remain vacant until the November election, a rather telling sign of how critical the job is.

Knowledge just leads to complicity.

Of course Molly didn’t get on the board via an election like her successor will. No she got this job 25 years ago as a boohoo consolation prize for being recalled from the city council by the people of Fullerton in June, 1994. The cause? A completely unnecessary utility tax that was foisted on us to save the city from imminent destruction. Like her two compatriots, Don Bankhead and Buck Catlin she refused to leave the council until a judge forced the City to hold a replacement election. Same arrogance as ever, yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Lights out…

On the council Good Old Molly never veered from a completely predictable path. Always handy with a bubble-headed cliché, she was a constant supporter of Redevelopment boondoggles and expansions, and any other nonsense put in front of her by “staff.” Her supporters always bragged that she “did her homework.” Yet when it came time to take the test there was never anything that remotely smacked of intelligence or the willingness to vote alone, if necessary.

Likewise, McClanahan’s career trajectory over the past two and a half decades on the JC board has not deviated a bit in its pathetic parabola: cover for bureaucrats, never demand accountability from anyone, just do what you’re told. She was caught being wined and dined by bond salesmen who placed the massive bond on the ballot in 2016 under the phony guise of helping veterans, and that pretty much sums up her legacy.

 

What Is The Fullerton Gazette? All Indications Are of Another Chaffee Scam

It looked good from far, but it was far from good…

FFFF recently received an e-mail from something calling itself The Fullerton Gazette. The document touted a list of recommendations for the March Primary ballot yet contained no FPPC number and no political action committee name. Hmm. There among the recommendations was convicted trespasser and thief, Paulette Marshall for OC Board of Education.

Wouldn’t hurt a fly…

A quick trip to the Fullerton Gazette website revealed a very recently concocted site with ridiculous generic  “articles” that only an idiot would read. But there buried in the other pabulum was a “story” about Marshall’s interview with some thing called the “Anaheim Education Bulletin.”

Someone left the water running…

A helpful link takes the curious reader to the Anaheim Education Bulletin website,  another recently fabricated site with the same sort of crap we discovered on the Fullerton Gazette site. And once again, buried in the other trash is the interview with Marshall, nothing other than a political advertisement.

Another Chaffee con job. Sick of it, yet?

But now a name appears to give the thing a tincture of verisimilitude: Deborah Hayter. A quick internet search for this unusual names indicates some woman scratching out an existence as a publicist and PR person, which all makes perfect sense: an Astroturf campaign trying to look like a legitimate journalistic endeavor.

A Race to the Bottom

Riddle: what’s worse, an endorsement by a greasy political bagwoman, or the endorsing of a perjurer, a confessed thief, and a desperate office-seeker?

I don’t know, and I don’t need to.

Here is our lobbyist mayor, the ethically challenged Jennifer Fitzgerald endorsing the equally unspeakable Paulette Marshall to her fellow female Republican cohorts.

Birds of a feather, right?

Whoa! What’s this? Endorsing a non-Republican?

There are two things we may discern from this cozy relationship. The first is that Fitzgerald thinks she can get her scuzzy self re-elected without local party help, and second, more importantly, Curt Pringle, for whom Fitzgerald plies her wares, is betting the farm on the Chaffee Crime Family.

 

The Barfman Cometh. Again.

If you feel like retching, please egress via the vomitorium…

Yes, Dear friends, it’s that time of the political season when we can count on the reappearance of our old pal, Barfman. Barfman has been making periodic visits to Fullerton ever since Roland’s Chi’s restaurant code violations finally caught up with him in 2010. Ever since then Barfman has returned to inform Fullerton taxpayers about particularly vomitous political campaigns. In this case it’s the horrendous and duplicitous Fullerton school bonds – Measures J and K that would cost the average homeowner $400 per year in new property taxes – even if the actual value of their houses goes down.

A New Website Shines Spotlight on Scam Fullerton School Bonds

There it goes…

Usually money-ravenous school districts with their armies of six-figure educrats count on the voters in their districts to be either indifferent or stupid. At least 55% worth. That’s the level of support it takes to pass one of their jaw-droppingly expensive general obligation bonds, bonds that this March would cost the average Fullerton home owner a whopping $400 a year in new taxes.

The website is http://www.noschoolbonds.com.

Check it out. And spread the word.

 

Paulette Marshall – Educator, Attorney, Thief

Oops she did it again!

Our old pal, convicted sign thief and trespass artist, Paulette Marshall is in the news again.

It seems as if Ms. Marshall has been bitten by the elected position bug, for she has decided to run for County School Board. The job itself isn’t all that important other than giving Paulette the opportunity to put the word “Honorable” in front of her name, a designation that couldn’t be more misplaced.

One of these miscreants is pretending to be on the city council. Naughty.

Pilferin’ Pauline was busted just a years ago faking an address in the flatlands so she could run for city council in a classic limousine liberal move. She was caught on video stealing campaign signs that proclaimed her carpetbaggetry.

Her latest scam is her ballot designation in which she wildly claims her primary ballot designation to be an educator, a lie so blatant that it challenges even the slowest of the slow’s credulity. It seems that she can’t even pretend to be some sort of volunteer teacher for more than a year.

She didn’t teach penmanship…

Liberals and real teachers are always trumpeting the value of their jobs as educators. You have to wonder how such a noble profession can be scuffed up with impunity. Oh, well.

We Get Mail – Zombie School Bonds Edition

Kind Readers, every once in a while we receive an essay one of the Friends wishes to us to publish. In this instance Mr. George Jacobson has written a piece objecting to the proposed gigantic school bonds that the educrats at the FSD and FJUHS districts have smuggled onto the March ballot with virtually no public notice.

The vote on the second reading of the FSD Resolution that included language changes, was actually taken December 10th, a mere three days before the ballot opposition statement filing deadline and seven days after their Notice of Intent was filed. Well, let’s hear from Mr. Jacobson:

Always coming back for more…

ZOMBIE SCHOOL BOND MEASURES TERRORIZE FULLERTON VOTERS

by George Jacobson

They are coming after us, with their ravenous appetites. Yes, the Fullerton Union High School District (FUHSD) has placed on the March 3rd Presidential Primary ballot a very large property tax bond measure that will require every homeowner and property owner in the district to pay $30 per $100,000 assessed valuation. So, for example, if you live in a house that has a $500,000 assessed valuation, you will pay an extra $150/year in taxes to the high school district. But wait, it gets worse. Not to be outdone, the Fullerton Elementary School District (FSD) is also placing on the March 3rd ballot their own very large property tax bond measure, which also will require every homeowner and property owner living within the elementary school district’s boundary to pay an additional $30 per $100,000 assessed valuation. What this means is that if both bond measures—Measure J and Measure K—pass, and if you live in a home that’s assessed at $500,000, you will pay an extra $300 annually in property taxes.  Both Measure J and Measure K are by far the most expensive local school bonds to ever appear on the ballot in Fullerton!

Just like zombies, these two school districts keep coming back for more and more of your money, not waiting for bonds that they already got passed to be paid off. As you may recall, in 2014 the high school district fooled enough people to get their $175 million Measure I bond measure passed (it just barely passed, receiving a 56% “yes” vote; anything less than 55% “yes” and the bond measure would have lost). You may also recall the mailers urging a “Yes” vote that voters received claimed that the $175 million would be spent on educating and training FUHSD students for “jobs for the 21st Century.”

Now, a 21st Century job is usually one that is thought to encompass the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. And, for one to be successful and employable for such occupations, one needs to possess a solid background and understanding of math. So, let’s look at how FUHSD math students have performed since the $175 million Measure I bond passed in 2014. At the end of each year 11th graders (juniors) in all the district’s schools are administered the state test—California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). In 2015 at Fullerton Union High School 63% of the juniors did NOT meet the CAASPP grade level standard for Math. One would think that by 2018 the $175 million of Measure I bond money should have produced significant improvement in these students’ math scores. But, in fact, the students did worse! In 2018 67% of FUHS students did NOT meet the CAASPP grade level standard in Math. Shockingly, this worsening trend was the same at all the other FUHSD schools. Buena Park High: 76% in 2015, then 79% in 2018 not meeting the grade level standard for Math. La Habra High: 58% in 2015, then 67% in 2018. Sonora High: 55% in 2015, then 58% in 2018. Sunny Hills High: 40% in 2015, then 45.5% in 2018.

How could such a horrible worsening of the math scores occur, given that FUHSD’s top priority in 2014 was supposedly to train and educate district students for jobs for the 21st Century? A clue can be found in looking at what the district really spent the $175 million on. It turns out that FUHSD actually spent most of the $175 million on the following: a new theater at La Habra High, new stadiums at La Habra HS, Buena Park HS, and Fullerton HS, new swimming pools at Sunny Hills HS and Troy HS, and a new gymnasium at Sonora High. An actor, football player, and swimmer is not a 21st Century job! As for FSD, its students’ test scores also make for grim reading. For example, in 2018 the median English/Language Arts score on the CAASPP test was 51% of FSD students NOT meeting the grade level standard, with 6 FSD schools reporting 60% or more of its students not meeting the CAASPP grade level standard for English/Language Arts.

The Measure I 2014 property tax bond costs homeowners $19 per $100,000 assessed valuation, and is not paid off until 2039. Already a person living in a home that’s assessed at $500,000 is paying $95 annually in property taxes to the high school district. And, this same homeowner is already paying annual property taxes on the elementary school district’s Measure CC bond, which passed in 2002 and isn’t paid off until 2027. Plus, this homeowner is already paying on not just one, but two bonds that the college district (North Orange County Community College District—NOCCCD) got passed. In 2002 NOCCCD’s $239 million Measure X bond passed, and in 2014 so did NOCCCD’s $574 million Measure J bond. These two NOCCCD bonds cost $120 annually for a homeowner living in a house assessed at $500,000. When one adds up all the taxes that one is currently paying to FUHSD, FSD, and NOCCCD, if the two new bond measures that will appear on the March 3rd ballot are passed, one living in a house assessed at $500,000 will pay just to these three education districts $590!

There was a time when school districts lived within their means. If they issued a bond, they would pay it off over the bond’s 25-year period, and only after the bond was paid off would the school board then consider asking the voters to approve a new bond proposal. Clearly, those days are over in Fullerton. If the high school and elementary school districts fool enough voters to get their latest huge property tax increase bonds approved this March 3rd, what is to stop them and the college district from coming back again in 4 or 5 years with yet another bond measure? Remember, zombies keep coming back for more.

Meanwhile Back @ The Ranch – Part 4

Grossly overfed…

Yes, Friends, FFFF still has some catching up to do, what with being sued by the legal beagles at the crack I Can’t believe It’s a Law Firm of Jones & Mayer. Enduring legal attacks from the the people whom you are paying to represent you is pretty annoying. Sort of like a boil on the butt – aggravating but not life threatening.

It Wasn’t Here a Minute Ago

So now I belatedly draw your attention to the ongoing saga of the Fullerton College Stadium From Nowhere, a sad tale that has been going on, seemingly forever. FFFF first wrote about it, here, over ten years ago. We’ve been opining on this brainless proposal ever since.

Back then we noticed that the proposed football stadium emerged out of nothing – never mentioned in the environmental impact documents connected to the bond expansion projects, a blatant oversight that would have slipped through if nobody had been watching. Then, as now, the clueless Trustees of the North Orange County Community College district are looking for ways to use up the bond money they have chiseled out of us in two massive bond floatations.

Nothing intelligent was forthcoming…

In the latest news, the trustees have finally been forced to actually approve, in public, this project. It first passed in October by a slender 4-3 majority that included the support from Fullerton’s Molly McClanahan, who has never said no to a bureaucratic scheme, no matter how hare-brained. For McClanahan the answer to outraged neighbors was to halve the size of the stadium capacity, splitting Solomon’s baby right down the middle. Good idea right? No, Molly, dear, because if you took the time to really understand the situation you would know that the campus doesn’t need a football stadium at all, no matter how many stooges are lined up in front of you in a big hurry to waste tens of millions of dollars.

Fullerton already has two plausible venues for Fullerton JC football, the stadium at CSUF paid for by the City, and the stadium at Fullerton High School right across the damn street. Of course there is no need to play games in Yorba Linda, and no need to build thousands of seats for people who will never show up for an FJC sporting event of any kind.  But let us not stand in the way of progress with common sense or facts. Rather, let’s get on the Hornet bandwagon and follow the lead of our eminently able educrats.

Yes, two stadiums are too many

Regular readers know we have already covered the the proposed Fullerton College stadium in detail (see here, here and here). In a nutshell, the NOCCD Board of Trustees want to turn Sherbeck Field into a 4500 seat football stadium so the Hornets can play football in their own stadium instead of their current location, or the Fullerton High School stadium located less than three tenths of a mile away.

The horror.

The residents around Princeton Circle have been fighting this boondoggle for awhile and appear to be getting organized. They have website, http://www.sharethestadium.org,  and are passing out campaign signs, to spread the word that the Sherbeck Field proposal is a costly and unnecessary boondoggle and should be scrapped.

Admittedly, they don’t hammer on my biggest objection to the stadium – the fact that the funds to build it only exist because the voters passed Measure J in 2014, based on the (since reneged) promise to improve the Veterans Centers on campus, but perhaps their approach will be more effective long term. Either way, this is a good sign that the Trustees have a  well deserved fight on their hands.

Regardless of where you live, the conduct by the NOCCCD Trustees is a slap on the face for every taxpayer who believes in fiscal accountability and responsibility, or who believes politicians should keep their campaign promises. If you want to help the effort to force some accountability by the NOCCCD, be sure to pay the sharethestadium.org folks a visit.