Who Else Took The School Union Endorsement?

Last week this blog criticized school board candidate Janny Meyer for announcing her acceptance of the endorsement of the Fullerton teachers’ union while simultaneously claiming to be a fiscal conservative. Shortly thereafter we had learned that Bev Berryman and Aaruni Thakur had also accepted union support, albeit much more quietly.

Aaruni Thakur

For Aaruni, the endorsement was a given. Being a union tool is practically a requirement for the modern Democrat politician. Who can fault a guy for latching onto the massive union political machine which has helped put so many Democrats into office? Well, I suppose Republicans could find that to be a cause for concern.

Beverly Berryman

Berryman’s acceptance, on the other hand, is much more disappointing.  She won her first school board campaign without any union support, so she certainly didn’t need it now that she is an incumbent. Saying “no” to this powerful special interest would have been the best way for her to preserve her independence.  She certainly has opened herself up to closer scrutiny on future votes.

On the bright side, Bev does have a history of taking stands on important issues that put her at odds with the union. She led the charge against the most recent attempt to launch a parcel tax on Fullerton voters. Bev also was the only school boarder who has repeatedly said no to imposing the expensive Apple laptop fees on parents throughout the entire One-to-One laptop fiasco.  And she has never been on the receiving end of union’s negotiating power as a government employee.

So that begs the question: Why did the union endorse her anyway?

The Year Was 1988…

It's hard to remember.

Here are a few things that happened in annum nineteen hundred and ninety-eight:

  • Hulk Hogan lost the WWF title to Andre the Giant
  • Florence Griffith Joyner set a world record in the 200 meter dash
  • Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” hit the top 10
  • Mr. T launched his own television show
  • Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America” grossed $128 million
  • The Dodgers won the World Series
  • A gallon of gas cost 98 cents

And Don Bankhead began his 22-year career on the Fullerton City Council.

Twenty-two years is more than enough. It’s time to give mayor Bankhead a break.

The OCGOP Endorsements Committee Unanimously Recommends Sebourn & Whitaker

In a unanimous vote, Orange County’s GOP endorsements Committee endorsed Bruce Whitaker  to replace Shawn Nelson in the two year seat, and Greg Sebourn for the four year seat. Pat McKinley squeaked by with a 3-2 vote, but insiders believe the $215,000 pension double dipper  won’t pass muster when it comes to a vote of the full body.

Bruce entered political activism in 1992 when he became incensed at the largest federal tax increase in U.S. history and the largest state tax increase in California’s history under Governor Pete Wilson. He became active in the city of Fullerton the following year when he led a successful effort to recall a majority of the City Council and repeal unnecessary utility taxes. That repeal has saved more than $150 million for Fullerton taxpayers to date.

After the Orange County bankruptcy, Bruce Whitaker debated against tax proponents and authored numerous guest editorials which helped defeat a bankruptcy sales tax in 1995, resulting in more than $2.2 billion in California taxpayer savings.

Greg Sebourn is an FFFF blogger, a professional land surveyor and an educator at Santiago Canyon College. He’s relatively new to politics, but is very aware of the evils of redevelopment and the deficiencies in our current infrastructure.

Greg has some great ideas for saving money and improving public services in our city.

Dissecting McKinley’s Phony Pension Reform

The other day we challenged retired police chief and $215,000 public pensioner Pat McKinley to put some real meat behind his dubious claim that he will “work to reform public employee pensions.”

Over the weekend we discovered a letter posted to McKinley’s website purporting to declare his position on pension reform. Exciting… until we read it. The letter actually commits to nothing and woefully understates the changes necessary to even begin correcting this problem.

Just say anything

Let’s run through Pat’s suggestions one by one. It’s important to note that McKinley’s letter says pension reform must contain ONLY ONE of the following:

Increase the amount contributed to the plan by Employee Contributions – Necessary, but wholly insufficient. While giving taxpayers some breathing room, demanding employees pay a little bit more does nothing to address the core issue, which is the unsustainable nature of pension guarantees when combined with the power of public employee union lobby. By itself, this change only slightly delays the pain.

Increase the amount contributed to the plan by Employer Contributions – Unbelievable. Increasing employer contributions is another way of saying we should raising taxes to pay for pensions. So now it would be safe to say that Pat McKinley wants to raise your taxes, but it’s really hard to believe he would write anything this dumb. For now, we’ll just assume that he has no idea what  he’s talking about.

Slow the accrual of pension benefits by returning the formula to its previous level – Legally a change like this change can only be made for new employees, which would do nothing to address the massive unfunded liability that we have already accrued. Furthermore, it leaves the door wide open for future abuse when the unions become more powerful.

Slow the accrual of pension benefits by increasing the normal retirement age to reflect the longer life expectancies of our City employees – Same problem as above. The commitments we’ve made to current employees cannot be changed without a bankruptcy. The only lever we really have left salary and to a lesser extent, contributions. Cut salaries, raise employee contributions… or go broke.

Slow the payout of retirement benefits by lowering the Cost of Living Adjustment in retirement – The cost of living adjustment is about 2% a year. Reducing that, if it’s even legal in California, is hardly enough to sustain hundreds of public safety employee’s earning 90% of their final year’s pay for the next 30 years. And once again, there’s nothing to prevent another band of RINO’s from reinstating this benefit the next time CalPERS overstates its assets.

So what have we learned? McKinley has thrown out a bunch of half baked ideas to fool you into thinking that he wants pension reform, but it really boils down to almost nothing useful. And of course, even after writing this letter, McKinley has not committed to any pension reform.

Woefully inadequate

We’ll say it again: Taxpayer-funded defined benefit plans must come to an end. The private sector learned long ago that they are completely unsustainable and also unnecessary. All new employees should be given defined contribution plans, while current employees should be made to pay as much as possible towards their own retirement, in order to mitigate the damage caused by their own unions and CalPERS through deception and poor planning.

CRA Forum: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Which is which? You decide.

On Saturday Ed Royce and the CRA hosted a forum for Fullerton city council candidates. I’ll spare you the agony of redundant and predictable answers to the not-so-relevant questions on illegal immigration, gun rights and abortion. As expected, all of the candidates stuck to the party line.

So let’s get down to the two major issues where the candidates diverged and that actually affect Fullerton: Public employee pensions and redevelopment abuse. Candidate positions were carefully filtered into the following matrix:

Pension Reform
Committed to serious pension reform No commitment to pension reform
Redevelopment / Eminent Domain Rein in redevelopment abuse and eminent domain powers. Bruce Whitaker
Greg Sebourn
Barry Levinson
Use tax dollars to fund developer projects through redevelopment and allow eminent domain for taking private property when “necessary.” Marty Burbank Roland Chi
Don Bankhead
Pat McKinley

The candidates split into two camps, with Don Bankhead leading his team of big-government RINOs who’ve never met a redevelopment boondoggle that they didn’t like. That’s not really surprising, given that Bankhead and McKinley benefit from the current system through enriched government pensions.

On the other end of the spectrum, a few candidates acknowledged Fullerton’s most serious problems and promised to take action and fight taxpayer abuse.

Overall Bruce Whitaker dominated the forum with his calm, well-reasoned responses. Barry Levinson took some good shots at Bankhead, for which he was reprimanded by the moderator but applauded by this blog. Greg Sebourn also targeted the current bureaucracy with facts and figures which caused Bankhead to become visibly aggravated. Roland Chi spoke well but avoided making any strong statements. Marty Burbank and Pat McKinley both wore funny hats and stumbled through their answers. Aaron Gregg was a no-show and Tony Fonte was a colorful guy but it was hard to follow his responses.

The $215,000 Man Blurts Out “Pension Reform”

The other day we had a look at Pat McKinley’s ballot statement and something surprising popped up. Well, not really. Squeezed into the middle of his I-riddled statement was the curt phrase “I will work to reform public employee pensions.”

That's what they told me to say.

That’s a vague assertion, and frankly it’s hard to believe when it’s coming out of the mouth of one of the pension system’s most noted abusers – a double-dipping  bureaucrat who pulls down well over two hundred grand per year in retirement thanks to a ridiculous 3-at-50 pension system that’s now bringing the city to its’ knees.

So what does McKinley mean by “pension reform” anyway?

It’s hard to tell at this point. That’s good for Pat; bad for the rest of us. You see, as long as he can keep all this pension reform talk clouded in empty platitudes, he can pretend to be a reformer and maybe nobody will notice that he hasn’t promised to really change anything.

So Pat, here’s the gauntlet: You need to commit 100% to serious pension reform. That means two things:

  1. A mandatory 401(k)-style plan to replace the defined benefit for all new hires
  2. Current safety employees must pay the full 9% towards their own retirement, as required by state law.

Take a look at our city’s unfunded pension liability and do the math. Any lesser reform will amount to nothing more than a laughable gesture to taxpayers, ensuring that even more pain awaits us down the road.

Bruce Whitaker Did Not Kill And Eat Cletus’s Dog

Naw, I done that myself...

UPDATE: We have received the following communication from the Bruce Whitaker for City Council Campaign:

“The rumors that Bruce Whitaker killed and consumed Cletus’s dog are completely false and unfounded. Bruce Whitaker is a normal and healthy carnivore, but has never eaten the flesh of a dog. Such accusations are baseless attacks on an acknowledged frontrunner. We categorically condemn them and ask all fellow candidates to do the same.”

Lately we’ve had some commenters who have questioned whether or not Fullerton council candidate Bruce Whitaker “kilt and et” a dog belonging to some slack-jawed yokel named Cletus.

I know for a fact this rumor is not true because that dog is up here with me in doggy heaven and he told me – Cletus done ate him up last winter when the crick froze over and the pork ‘n beans run out.

So now you know.

A Word from Madusha Palliyage

We just received this message from Madusha, who filed papers to run for Fullerton city council last week but failed to qualify because a few of her signatures were invalid.

Hi! Friends of Fullerton and all Fullerton residents and everyone in my case. I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank all of the signers who signed my nomination papers. Although I had very enthusiastic signers from other cities and registered voters not from Fullerton. I learned the democratic 20 signatures are more important than outreach to the public to know how we could serve them and getting to know their concerns. I thank everyone for the feedback and will be reaching out to Fullerton residents so that their voices can be heard. I will publish my blog later on sometime.

For anyone who does not know me, I was brought up my whole life in a political environment which my father was a very involved public service official. I love law and wanted to be a lawyer. My father wanted a lawyer in the family. But things changed and I studied Business Administration, and started a computer manufacturing company and went in to computer services. We are the pioneers of underground data vault off site back up services. And started supply teas to major grocery stores which got halted due to the lack of resources and unable to keep up with the demand.

I have a passion to serve and a compassion to help. Though not perfect, I believe as a person I thought of serving the people and seeing how we could improve our city with the people who live and do business in Fullerton. I serve the Technology Working Group for the City of Fullerton and am involved in many things that I could serve.

Hearing that I want to run, someone from the church told me why I want to be a politician. His exact words were “Why you need to be a politician? You are a good person.” I thought about what he said. And I promise to serve without that politician frame of mind. That was what I wanted all along. Will I be successful with that frame of mind? I don’t know. I hope people who truly and honestly have the ability and the knowledge should be able to serve the good for the fellow men.

Again, thank you all. And sorry if I let down anyone in the process. I did not want to run for the 4 year seat even though I considered it but decided otherwise. I may consider running in two years or not. But running for the city council certainly was a heavy responsibility in my heart and I took it very seriously and with great passion to serve. But next time I know better to pay attention to that 20 democratic way of doing business and get those signatures before reaching out to my fellow people.

Madusha Palliyage

Game On!

As of 5:00 pm today, the nomination period for Fullerton city council is now closed. There was one addition to the four year race and and one disqualification for the two year seat.

Those helmets might come in handy.

As of 5:00 pm, the nomination period for the 2 year city council seat has closed, with the following candidates filing papers to enter the race:

Name Occupation Registration Age
Bruce Whitaker
1918 W. Baker
Fullerton, CA 92833
Planning Commissioner R 55
Aaron Gregg
2840 Altivo Pl.
Fullerton, CA 92835
Small Businessman R 57
Anthony “Tony” Fonte
2252 Cheyenne Way
Fullerton, CA 92833
Local Attorney R 78
Roland Chi
3156 Highlander Rd.
Fullerton, CA 92833
Businessman/Non Profit Director R 31
Madusha Palliyage
Nomination papers did not qualify with 20 signatures
Inventor/Entrepreneur DTS 42

Because incumbent Pam Keller did not file, the nomination period for the two 4-year seats has been extended to next Wednesday. The following have filed papers for the four year seats:

Name Occupation Registration Age
Don Bankhead
1231 W. Valencia Mesa
Fullerton, CA 92833
Council Member/Mayor R 78
Gregory Sebourn
1824 Rosalia Dr.
Fullerton, CA 92835
Land Surveyor/ Educator R 37
Doug Chaffee
315 Marion Blvd.
Fullerton, CA 92835
Attorney D 67
Patrick McKinley
2722 Ashwood Circle
Fullerton, CA 92835
Retired Chief of Police R 69
Barry Levinson
609 Lake Terrace
Fullerton, CA 92835
Financial Consultant/Auditor R 58
Jesse Latour
114 W. Wilshire #A
Fullerton, CA 92832
Educator/Art Gallery Owner D 31
William Martin Burbank
3074 Primrose Lane
Fullerton, CA 92833
Family Business Attorney R 46
Johnnie Atkinson
1500 W. Valencia Dr.
Fullerton, CA 92833
Campus Security