Fullerton City Council Candidates Archives - Page 16 of 17

September 28, 2010September 29, 2010Dead heads

A Citizen Responds to Roland Chi Nonsense

roland-chi-079-200x300 — The reaction was visceral. And not in a good way...

The other day Fullerton City Council candidate, carpetbagger, and food poisoner Roland Chi sent out a press release touting his “volunteering” to educate folks about some So Cal Edison program. Despite the hilarious lack of actually doing anything, or even thinking up anything for himself, Rolando decided to hop onto some idea barfed up by the power monopolists at Edison.

It didn’t take long for an unhappy citizen to respond to this vacuity. And fortunately they cc’d FFFF:

Sent: Mon, September 27, 2010 4:40:42 PM
Subject: RE: PRESS RELEASE- CANDIDATE CHI VOLUNTEERS FOR ENGERY & COST SAVING PROGRAM

Dear Roland,
This is a joke, right? Are you seriously taking a tax and spend model based on a false premise of enviromental protection that this utility company has subscribed to and a.) claimed it as your own, and b.) trying to pass it off as pro-small business? Wow. That’s pretty crazy.

The “ratepayers” (residential and commercial) paid extra on their bills and then the company redistributes it by installing different lights, toilets, programmable thermostats, etc. in commercial buildings.

That neither shows “innovative leadership” nor “advance(s) business development locally.”

If you are looking for innovative leadership, try doing something that YOU came up with, not someone else. And if you are trying to help local business development, how about reducing the size and influence of government and quasi-government entities (i.e. utility companies) not encouraging it.

This seriously made me laugh. Keep the liberal policies coming.

And here’s the text of the comical “press release:”

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

Contact: Roland Chi, Fullerton City Council Candidate

Office: (714) 889-8880

E-mail: RolandChi4Fullerton@gmail.com

CANDIDATE ROLAND CHI ASSISTS FULLERTON

BUSINESSES IN SAVING MONEY AND ENERGY BY

VOLUNTEERING TO INFORM OWNERS OF FREE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON INITIATIVE

*Chi is running for Fullerton City Council’s 2-year seat

FULLERTON – City Council Candidate Roland Chi volunteered to inform Fullerton business owners of Direct Install, Southern California Edison’s (SCE) new, energy-saving program. Chi’s efforts in conjunction with the City of Fullerton and Fullerton Chamber of Commerce to facilitate the awareness and participation of local owners in such programs, demonstrates his innovative leadership and commitment to advance business development locally.

As Fullerton continues to experience economic hardships, it makes it especially challenging for small businesses to profit, let alone survive. As a local business owner, Chi understands what owners are facing by having to cut costs and operate cautiously due to continuing revenue loss. To revitalize local business, Chi’s new ideas, initiative, and strong “blueprint” are necessary for short-term local economic improvement.

SCE’s new initiative seeks to lower energy costs for small-business owners by recommending and installing up to $10,000 worth of energy-efficient products at no cost to owners. For a business to qualify, it must be nonresidential and within SCE’s service territory. Direct Install is funded by California utility ratepayers and is administered by SCE and will remain available to business owners until all funds are exhausted. The program is available to any qualified business whose monthly earnings are less than $100,000.

Chi, SCE, and the Fullerton leadership organizations who participated in this imitative, understand the benefits of programs like Direct Install, which foster active dialogues and partnerships between businesses and government, establishing an openness and trust that enables more efficient City improvements.

“I chose to volunteer for this program because this initiative aligns with everything my campaign is about which is improving the business climate for local business owners here in the city of Fullerton. This program directly improves the bottom line of small businesses which is what I seek to do on the city council.” Chi’s business-minded approach will enable local owners to re-invest, prompt growth, generate revenue, and attract new business, thus creating new jobs.

Chi’s participation in Direct Install demonstrates his dedication to advancing local economic interests by fostering open dialogue with owners, integrating new ideas, and utilizing all available resources. “I will ensure Fullerton’s remains a great place to live, work, and raise a family.” For more information about SCE’s Direct Install please call (800) 736-4777. Further information about Candidate Roland Chi is avai lable at www.rolandchi.com or by e-mailingroland4fullerton@gmail.com. VVV

September 27, 2010Fullerton City Council

Bruce Whitaker Responds: Game On!

by admin5 Comments

Over the week-end we received an e-mail from none other than Fullerton Council candidate, Bruce Whitaker. It seems Bruce wanted to respond to a couple of rather pessimistic posts by our bloggers The Desert Rat and English Major. Here’s what Whitaker had to say:

Subject: Game On!

I’ve been reading some posts and comments here that are “doom and gloom” regarding Fullerton’s future. And while there are many reasons for concern, there are solutions.

Taxpayers/residents/small business owners and those (and there are many) who support rational public policy, objective decisions and open, ethical government: There is still time to put your shoulder to the wheel of my campaign!

If you believe and lament that the outcome of this election is already decided . . . I submit that now more than ever, you should consider helping me to attain a seat on the Fullerton City Council.

Even if we do not agree on every issue, you should consider voting for me for the following reasons:

I believe that a councilmember should ensure openness; invite public input; demand fair and thorough deliberations and hearings; avoid conflicts; continuously conduct independent research and exercise due diligence that would keep him/her fully informed and prepared regarding items coming before the City Council.

Your councilmember should be available, be a good listener and treat the public with respect. A good City Council represents the people in the process, not the agendas of special interests which would work to the detriment of the people.

You can be assured that I will “speak up” when confronted with unethical, harmful or wasteful acts in our city government while representing you as a member of the Fullerton City Council.

Please visit my website for a closer look at my candidacy – www.brucewhitaker.com
and review Fullerton Planning Commission meetings which are archived on the City of Fullerton website.

September 26, 2010September 26, 2010About Us

And Now For Some Good News! A Sunday Morning Essay

by English Major10 Comments

After reading the Desert Rat’s pithy and mordant post about the likelihood of having three antiquated and liberal repuglican geezers on the Fullerton City Council, I felt compelled to respond with my own message – a message of hope and good will to those who can only contemplate Ed Royce’s RINO triad with a sense of gorge-rising horror.

No, I will not dwell upon the morbid actuarial statistics for the American male. Rather I invite the Friends to contemplate, along with me, the New Reality. My grandfather Frank always admonished us to seek out the proverbial silver lining in bad news; and so we shall. The Economic Recession that has hit so many in the private sector, and that so far has barely affected the public sector at all, will, in 2011, deliver its overdue bill to government employees.

Can Obama keep cranking out money fast enough to preserve all the government jobs it has protected so far through the comically named American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? The answer to that is likely no. Not after the November election. And even if he could, California had received barely 10 billion through the end of the last fiscal year – not nearly enough to grease all the bureaucratic skids in our dysfunctional state at the various levels. The presses just can’t print that fast.

The chances of raising local taxes, like Don Bankhead did (and McKinley and Jones would have likely joined him) in 1993 seems dim. Nobody’s going to stand for it. Not even the ignoramuses who voted them in.

And this leaves us with the spectacle of the public employees fighting among themselves for their share of the diminishing fiscal pie. And to that I say: Amen! Competition is good. It causes us constantly to assess our priorities. It’s true that the cops and emergency service providers will have the advantage, standing, as they already do, at the head of the line. But will the public stand for library or park closures in order to fund these people? The RINO mantra of “public safety” can only take its chanters so far. Sooner or later reality demands a check.

And hovering in the back of the room, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy is the specter of municipal bankruptcy, Vallejo-style – the game changing possibility that all public administrators and employees should want to avoid like a plague. But the public may have reason to be more ambivalent about that prospect.

So cheer up!

September 25, 2010September 25, 2010Boohooism

Fullerton Is Doomed!

by The Desert Rat9 Comments

Out here on Screech Owl Road, east of Twentynine Palms you can see things pretty clearly. Sometimes the heat causes shimmer mirages; sometimes the wind kicks up some devilish sand storms – the kind that can strip the chrome off your Hummer. But most of the time you get used to seeing a long way. Even as far away as my former home, Fullerton.

McKinley2 — Banacek called. He wants his clothes back.

The City Council race of 2010 is already over. You will re-elect the brain dead sea cucumber known as Don Bankhead – pension spiker, staff stooge, abysmal decision maker. And you will also elect Pat McKinley – poster boy for pension abuse, supporter of the hideous Ackerwoman, repuglican de-jour, and yet another retired cop. And it won’t even be close.

Bankhead, Dick Jones, McKinley; please contemplate that triumverate of septuagenarian, lint-headed, RINO back washers and tell me why you aren’t in deep shit. Can anyone say gerontocracy?

In the two-year seat Bruce Whitaker has a chance, but let’s face it: he’s up against a bankrupt and a carpetbagging food poisoner. Really, I don’t see how he can pull it off.

Fullerton, the Education Community, has a special knack for electing the weak, the feeble-minded, the incomprehensible. Jeez, do I have to draw you a diagram? Molly McClanahan, Buck Catlin, Julie Sa, Peter Godfrey, HeeHaw Jones, Mike Clesceri, Leland Wilson, Pam Keller. This rougues gallery of incompetence even starts to make Jan Flory look good. Well, no, cancel that.

Yes, I believe you are doomed.

September 23, 2010September 23, 2010Fullerton 2010

Chaffee’s Magical Tax

by Travis Kiger19 Comments

Plenty of bad ideas were tossed about at the candidate at the forum on Monday night, but this one from council hopeful Doug Chaffee takes the cake:

So according to Chaffee, doubling the hotel tax in the middle of a recession will bring more hotels and visitors into the area. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of logic behind his idea, but perhaps that’s why he calls it “magical.”

Chaffee pushes the idea further by suggesting that Fullerton should “generate” (aka subsidize) a new hotel to compete with Disneyland, the most famous theme park in the entire world.

ihasafunny-disneyland — Gee, another one?

Of course we’re later reassured by Chaffee that the tax would only be tacked on to “other people” who make the mistake of taking brief refuge in our city. That’s the old divide-and-conquer tax scheme that’s plagued California businesses for a long time: levy heavy taxes against each industry, one at a time. Who’s next?

Hey Doug, a tax is a tax, and there has never been a worse time to raise taxes. And quit trying to convince us that we should be more like Anaheim.

Update: Click here to suffer through the entire event.

September 21, 2010Fullerton 2010

Orange County Republican Party Endorses Greg Sebourn

by admin18 Comments

This press release just came over from the Greg Sebourn campaign:

With a 2/3 margin, the Orange County Republican Party’s Central Committee voted to give Greg Sebourn the Party’s endorsement. The vote came after a 5-0 recommendation from the Endorsement Committee just two weeks ago.

“The Orange County Republican Party stood up and spoke. Clearly they want to further advance the Party’s platform which speaks of limited government, lower taxes, and the power of the entrepreneur,” says endorsed council candidate Greg Sebourn. “The Party has recognized that being a Republican In Name Only, or RINO, does nothing to advance the conservative movement. RINOs are what have turned off so many good conservatives from the Republican Party.”

The endorsement comes just days after Sebourn received endorsements from the California Republican Assembly (Fullerton), the North Orange County Conservative Coalition, and the Fullerton Tea Party. Greg Sebourn is also endorsed by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, Assemblyman Chris Norby, and Supervisor Shawn Nelson.

Greg Sebourn has distinguished himself from the other 4-year candidates with his promises to not take the City’s pension and medical benefits, to close down the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency, and reform the City’s broken and unfunded pension system.

If you would like to meet Greg Sebourn, please attend the grand opening of his new campaign headquarters, Tuesday, September 28, 5:30PM, at 511 S. Harbor Blvd. , Fullerton 92832 . The headquarters is being shared by Assemblyman Chris Norby, Bruce Whitaker (candidate for the 2-year seat), and Chris Thompson (candidate for the Fullerton School Board) all of whom will be on hand to speak with.

More information about Greg can be found on the campaign website at www.gregsebourn.com.

September 21, 2010Dead heads

So Why Did Rackauckas Endorse Roland Chi After Criminally Charging Him?

by Mr. Peabody20 Comments

Your guess is as good as mine.

The charges leveled by the OC DA Tony Rackauckas against Roland Chi were as long as your arm, and stemmed from the tsunami of flagrant and persistent health code violations at a Garden Grove market. The case appears to have finally culminated in a plea agreement reached last April.

An alert Friend calling him/herself Vic Tayback noticed that our hapless DA, just a few short months later, has lent his name to the Chi Fullerton Council campaign as an endorser! Wow, that’s setting the bar pretty low, even for Rackauckas, and of course not only makes you wonder what T-Rack’s endorsement is worth, but also to contemplate the composition of the man’s moral fiber – if any exists.

Tony-Rackauckas — Jesus, it's not like he actually killed anybody...

Rack has been criticized in the past for his inability or unwillingness to pursue political corruption in OC – like Harry Siduh’s blatant perjury. Now it appears he is willing to endorse just about any kind of misfeasance.

September 16, 2010September 16, 2010Fullerton 2010

Aaron Gregg Wriggles Out From Under His Taxes with a Quick Bankruptcy

by Travis Kiger28 Comments

When you put your name on the ballot, you’re asking voters to trust you with hundred million dollar budgets and the power of a government office. Therefore, it is a duty of the public to make sure that each candidate is qualified to handle this burden of responsibility. Anybody with a financial history that cannot stand up to basic scrutiny should not put themselves out in front of the voters.

On that note, Aaron Gregg should not be running for Fullerton City Council.

aaron-gregg-short — Okay, creditors to the back of the line!

You see, attorney Aaron Charles Gregg filed for a $107,000 bankruptcy about 10 years ago, discharging over $75,000 in federal and state back taxes and $30,000 in other debts to individuals and businesses, all while claiming $8,000 a month in income from his business.

View the bankruptcy filing

It’s all laid bare in these papers that were filed in federal bankruptcy court, which show that Aaron Gregg neglected to pay his taxes for most of the years from 1992 through 1998. When the debt piled up, he hired an attorney and let it all go.

Among the more curious items in the filings, Aaron Gregg listed assets of $25 dollars cash, $200 in clothes, $75 wrist watch and some office supplies. Times must have been tough for this professional attorney of 21 years. Fortunes were about to change, however, when he realized that he would be able to dump his debt but keep his leased $5,000 Savin copier. I bet that will come in handy some day.

savin-copier — I'll need that when I run for city council.

The documents also show that halfway through the bankruptcy process, Aaron Gregg discovered that he might also owe money to a family in San Pablo City, Philippines. What could that be for? Well they’re never going to vote in Fullerton. Might as well get rid of that debt too.

philipine-jeepney — It was a bad investment.

In the end, it looks like Aaron was able to dump over $100,000 owed to nine different creditors, two of which were government agencies. When the tax man doesn’t get his revenue, guess who gets to make up for it? That’s right, you and me. And somehow I have a feeling that Aaron Charles Gregg made it out of this financial mess and has been doing just fine ever since. But that’s no reason for him to think he’s a valid candidate to run our city.

On second thought, Aaron’s keen ability to get himself out of unwieldy financial commitments may come in handy when it’s time for Fullerton to escape our massive redevelopment and pension debts. But it’s probably safer to just call him in as a consultant.

September 14, 2010September 14, 2010Fullerton City Council Candidates

Roland Chi Supported Convicted Sheriff Mike Corona

by The Fullerton Savage19 Comments

California Fair Political Practices Commission reports show that Fullerton City Council candidate Roland Chi contributed $1,000.00 to the Friends of Mike Carona during the first quarter of 2006. Carona was barely re-elected to a third term in June of that year.

Read it here:

Yes, it’s a big list of contributors, but you won’t find the name of Bruce Whitaker on it.

How about a big round of applause for Roland Chi, recently of Garden Grove, for helping now convicted felon Mike Carona to squeak by with 50.9% of the vote, enough for Carona to avoid a runoff in November of that year. Carona was indicted while in office the next year, exposing the OCSD to needless upheaval and Orange County to national ridicule.

What does this contribution say about Mr. Chi’s ability to judge character? Do we want someone willing to fall in to line with Mike Carona on the Fullerton City Council?

September 14, 2010September 14, 2010Don Bankhead

Levinson Wallops Bankhead

by Travis Kiger18 Comments

The latest Mickadiet column gave Fullerton candidate Barry Levinson a chance to tell us what he really thinks of mayor Don Bankhead, and Barry did not disappoint.

See, Barry contacted the mayor when he learned that a sex offender was about to move into his neighborhood, which should have been protected by Jessica’s Law due to it’s proximity to Laguna Lake park.

The way Barry tells it, Bankhead did nothing to solve the neighborhood’s sex offender problem. Well actually, it’s worse than that. Bankhead launched a typical delay and distract strategy to avoid facing the issue, doing nothing while telling Barry that he was working on it. In Levinson’s own words:

He said Bankhead “assured us he was ‘on our side’ and would get back to us within a few days with more information.” Ten days went by, “no call from Mayor Bankhead.” When they finally talked, he says, Bankhead “had no answers for us but assured us he was still working the problem. That was the last time the mayor ever spoke to us … He did absolutely nothing. This mayor always touts his police background … What a total disappointment.”

City staff told Bankhead that Jessica’s Law had no teeth, so there was nothing that the police could do about it. Great. Responsibility absolved, right? Rather than pursue the issue by pushing for a new ordinance (a task that Levinson ended up taking on himself), Bankhead opted for the do-nothing-and-hope-Barry-the-citizen-goes-away approach.

Major backfire. Now Barry is challenging the Burger King’s 22-year rule.