Fullerton City Council Candidates Archives - Page 17 of 17

good_bad_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
Redevelopment / Eminent Domain	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.

This just came over the transom:

Fullerton, CA – The Board of Directors of the California Land Surveyors Association (CLSA), a statewide organization with 2200 members, voted unanimously to endorse Greg Sebourn for Fullerton City Council.

CLSA was established in 1966 advances the interests of the profession of Land Surveying, to maintain the highest possible standards of professional ethics and practice, to encourage uniformity of practices and procedures, and foster public faith in and understanding of Land Surveyors and their work.

CLSA represents Land Surveyors, in public or private practice, whether they are employees or proprietors.

“I have observed Greg as an effective Board member and team player with sound judgment when working through difficult issues that involve our profession,” says Aaron Smith, CLSA President. “Greg has been an active member of the Orange County Chapter, CLSA and currently serves as co-chair of the State CLSA Trig Star Program, which is an annual high school mathematics competition that acquaints high school students, career guidance counselors and high school math teachers with the use and application of trigonometry in the real world.”

Mr. Smith stresses, “Greg’s involvement has demonstrated his dedication to carrying out duties assigned to him in a professional manner.”

“I am humbled by the endorsement from the CLSA,” says Fullerton Council Candidate Greg Sebourn, “The CLSA serves with distinction of dedicated professional land surveyors that shapes our local communities by making our neighborhoods a better place to live.”

Mr. Sebourn says, “I have been tested in my profession as a Land Surveyor, who is ready to serve the people as the next Councilmember for the City of Fullerton with dignity and dedication, because the voters demand nothing less.”

Category: Fullerton City Council Candidates

CRA Forum: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

California Land Surveyors Association Endorses Sebourn