NUFF asks the questions
Jan Flory grows impatient
The Earth is still flat
City Hall is closed today and that’s a problem.
It’s a problem because the deadline has passed for City Council Vacancy applications and we don’t know what really happens next and by we I mean both applicants and the public. According to the city website there will be an applicant forum co-sponsored by the City of Fullerton and the Neighbors United for Fullerton on Monday, 29 January followed by a special meeting on Tuesday, 29 January. That’s all we know:
If you look at the NUFF Facebook page it tells us that this applicant forum will run from 6:45pm to 8:30pm.
That’s it.
What does that mean? Will there be a debate? A meet and greet? Will people be able to pose questions of specific applicants or the group? Who will be moderating this event? What should the applicants plan to do, say or bring? As of today, NUFF’s website has not been updated to reflect the change to an applicant forum from the previous “Priorities for Fullerton” agenda and thus leaves us wondering.
The most we know is that the event is scheduled for 105 minutes to vet 25 applicants which basic math tells us is about 4 minutes per applicant if each one was just allowed to speak freely without time taken out for questions, moderation or standard event management.
So really plan to hear each person speak for 2 minutes if they’re lucky.
How will the NUFF forum play into Tuesday’s Council Special Meeting? Is City Staff or Council asking the questions on Monday and using that data Tuesday? Or is Monday just gloss for the citizens while the city council plans to run their own public hearing on Tuesday?
Will the council be announcing an appointee on Tuesday? Will they be interviewing people at this Special Meeting? Will applicants be asked questions or given a chance to speak outside of public comments?
Again, no idea.
Why no idea? Because the city has provided almost zero information on this process and the council has left things so open that anything could happen on Tuesday. This “Open and Transparent” process that we were promised by the council has been anything but. We know applicants are meeting with council members but not who with whom or where and when. My goal in being an applicant was to give you fine residents the inside scoop on how this would play out and as I suspected it is the antithesis of the openness that we were promised.
I have not received a single phone call or email about what happens next. Irrespective of my position on wanting a special election I should still be afforded the same information as any other applicant so this tells me nobody is being told anything.
And to circle back to why this is so ridiculous, City Hall is closed today so we won’t get any information until Monday, the day of the Nuff event and the day before the Special Meeting if we’re given information at that point. The corruption and/or incompetence was baked into the cake before this process was even started, hence the lobbying for and by prospective applicants *cough* Jan Flory *cough* before it even started.
I’ll keep you posted if anything changes but I’m guessing we’ll have a long weekend of behind the scenes wheeling and dealing with nothing given out for public consumption. So open. So Honest. So Transparent.
For full disclosure I have not spoken to or met with a single council member which should be pretty obvious as not a one would entertain me for council even were I serious. They aren’t even pretending very well at this point.
The deadline for council applications has passed and 24 people want the open council seat that Jesus Silva caused to be vacated.
24!?
Technically there are 25 names but I threw my name in not to try for it but to show the ridiculousness that is this process. However 24 peeps actually think they have a shot in this Battle Royale which is just funny.
I’m not that naive, desperate or inane to want this position let alone think I have a shot. Don’t believe me? I listed my kids and my cat as references.
FitzSilva showed their cards last month and we can spot the various partisan stalking horses in the field pretty easily.
Otherwise this list is both a Who’s Who of wannabes and simultaneously a Who’s Who of Who? I’m pretty active in Fullerton politics and some of these people I couldn’t pick out of a police lineup.
I don’t hate a few names but won’t back anybody for obvious reasons.
Gotta love the pretentiousness of some of these applications. 29 pages? Really Mr. Freeman? Come on, nobody cares enough to read that much about a potential appointee. One dude actually included his transcripts but I want to know why he didn’t go all the way back to Kindergarten? We need all of the info apparently so what is he hiding?
I kid, I kid.
Some people are just overeager for power and prestige and don’t know any better. Others of us know that this game was rigged before the board was set out and just find it funny.
Ok maybe that last one is just me.
I’m officially not backing anybody but myself in this nonsense because I don’t want anybody to be appointed. Like I said at council, I don’t care if there are 4 or 5 voices on the dais because despite all of these years with 5 lukewarm bodies up there they have yet to produce so much as a balanced budget.
To quote Larry Bennett from 2016, “It’s Political Silly Season” and thus of course I joined the barrage of people (20 and counting?!) who applied to the open council seat in this ludicrous appointment process. My Application is HERE for those interested in the lulz and my 400 word-vomit blurb is as follows:
In order to fill this position the council needs a majority to approve an applicant. Not the voters, mind you. The voters get short shrift here and are told that in our representative democracy it’s good enough to be told who represents them.
In reality, this whole process – from our gerrymandered districts to our inability to vote upon our own representation – is sad and rather pathetic.
Our council has run up our pension debt while crying that Sacramento mismanaged the money we keep shoveling their direction year in and year out. When warned that a problem was coming we citizens were laughed at, ridiculed and ignored.
Worse than ignoring us malcontents and gadflies, our council has ignored our infrastructure, sat idle while we were illegally taxed and over-charged on our water bills, resisted any form of police oversight or accountability, all but abandoned the Hunt Library, caused a lawsuit over Coyote Hills and on and on and on.
We call ourselves “The Education Community” but we refuse to learn from our mistakes. We refuse to be honest, we refuse to be knowledgable and forward thinking unless it lines the right pockets or benefits the rights constituencies.
And yet here we are waiting for our historically negligent and pompous council to tell us who is worthy to join them up on the dais.
To make it worse here I am offering myself up as tribute. I’m not adding my name into the veritable Goblet of Fire because I think I can win over the council or because I think I’m a good choice – I’m doing it because I want to highlight how ridiculous of a process this is in the first place.
When I ran for Council in 2016 I had to get 20 people to sign papers saying they supported the idea of me running to represent them. Today I don’t need even one. Not a single citizen has to support me to throw my name into the mix, not a single person has to walk for me or talk me up to their neighbors and worst of all not a single person has to vote for me.
I can’t get 1, let alone 3 votes from council, but neither should anybody else.
To paraphrase Denis from “The Holy Grail”, You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a council majority at you!
No, I don’t expect to be appointed or even interviewed. Yes, I’m aware that this is transparency theater. See you all at the NUFF event on Monday.
After some debate, a short delay and a little snapping by Jennifer Fitzgerald, a council majority opted to hold a beauty pageant to decide which crony will get to join them on the dais.
The city is accepting applications for contestants who are interested in the job of city council without the need to actually convince the citizenry to vote for them.
We won’t know who all is running until the application process ends but we’ve already heard some names and most of them are terrible if you care about the city budget or basic math skills.
In the ongoing process the council will pretend to view and vet the candidates in an “open and transparent” process which means closed door meetings and private wheeling and dealing with a dash of favors and/or threats for good measure.
There will be a “candidate forum” sponsored by the Neighbors United for Fullerton but really it doesn’t matter who you like or what they say to the public because the council is making this decision regardless of your thoughts or opinions. You have no real voice in this process despite empty promises to the contrary.
Let us not kid ourselves, despite applications being due by Wed, 23 January and the NUFF forum being on the 28th, this will be a done deal long before you get a chance to even know who’s all in the running and who can twirl a baton the best.
The meetings are already happening and the deals are already being struck – hence Fitzgerald, Flory and the Flor-Bots all shilling for Flory back in December before this process even started.
You can apply if you’re a masochist or you can just show up to the forum and council meeting to watch the slew of candidates take 8 boilerplate questions about the roads and zero about pension reform and overspending. Overall don’t expect the public face of this charade to matter much in the actual decision making process.
However if you want to pretend like you have a chance to be on city council and believe you have what it takes to beat back the leviathan and fix our structural deficit then all you have to do is fill out a few pieces of paper to apply. Apply Today. The more the merrier.
Ah, privilege.
Raise your hand if you thought that Paulette Marshall Chaffee getting caught on video, TWICE, stealing campaign signs was going to result in justice.
*Raises Own Hand*
Yup. I really did. I thought that getting irrefutable evidence that the Mayor of Fullerton’s Orange County Supervisor’s wife, a candidate running for office, blatantly broke the law to stifle the right of others to freely express themselves during an election was going to result in some sort of real justice.
I am that stupid.
Paulette Marshall Chaffee pled guilty to two charges of petty theft.
Her sentence? A small fine and a few hours of community service and restitution to the victim of $20.
If this wasn’t bad enough, after completing the terms of her plea, the District Attorney will completely wipe the event from history. Paulette will legally be allowed to claim the incidents never happened.
This isn’t justice. This is a Chaffee getting away with cheating, because that’s what rich well connected politicians do.
Best of all? No one is doing to do a damn thing about this. Because in Fullerton what you do isn’t what really matters. It’s who you know and who you call a friend.
That’s the shallow self absorbed city we really live in. Because if Paulette was a crazy homeless person in a parking lot, she wouldn’t be spending Christmas dinner at her big home in District 2 feasting on roast beef and a side of steaming hot victory.
She’d be dead in a gutter while her husband told the media how fabulous the Fullerton Police are for dealing with the criminal element undermining our beautiful town.
I was pleasantly surprised at Fullerton’s City Council meeting last night and that rarely happens. I was surprised because Ahmad Zahra stood his ground on the principle of Democracy being the preferred way to settle our current council vacancy caused by Jesus Silva. He withstood Fitzgerald’s venom laced claws and boxed Silva in so much that Silva had to contradict himself by claiming to believe voting is important except, you know, with regards to, uh, the vacancy he created in playing musical chairs.
I had heard going into the meeting that Jan Flory had lobbied 2 if not 3 of the current council members to be appointed to the vacant seat. I had also heard and believed that Fitzgerald and Silva were going to push for an appointment process to get the Flory ball in motion. I also knew, just from historical context, that Whitaker would vote no on that because he and Flory are opposites on most items and he gains nothing by supporting her. I did not know how Zahra would act or vote despite allegedly meeting with and being lobbied by Flory. Owing to Zahra’s campaign and his coziness to people I believe to be ethically challenged I didn’t hold out much hope and assumed he might go along to get along.
Then Zahra showed up to play ball and stomped on my assumptions. (more…)
UPDATE 1/14/2019
This item is back on the agenda for tomorrow. You gotta spin it to win it!
With Jesús Silva big win in Fullerton’s District 3, Fullerton is abuzz with potential names for who the Council might pick as a replacement.
So, who’s it going to be? Here’s some gossip for you to discuss. Feel free to nominate your own darlings for consideration on the WHEEL . . . OF . . . CANDIDATES!
Updated 11/27 with reader suggestions
Free Play– Current Councilman (odds 1:1)
Greg Sebourn
Seems like the easiest option. Someone familiar with the current issues and has existing relationships with city staff and council, and isn’t eligible to run in District 1, 2, or 4 in 2020. Let the voters spin again in 2020.
Lose a Turn– Leave it Open (Odds 1.5:1)
If three votes can’t be found to put a warm body in a cold chair, Council could choose to leave the vacancy open. The vacancy could last through 2020 or until a Special Election gets called.
Bonus Round– Former Members of Council (odds 2:1)
Still can’t come up with an answer to the riddle? Bring back some former contestants for another crack at solving the puzzle.
Jan Flory, Fullerton City Council (twice)
Chris Norby, Assemblyman, Supervisor, Fullerton City Council
Shawn Nelson, Supervisor, Fullerton City Council
Leland Wilson, Fullerton City Council + Fox Theater Point Person
Pam Keller, Fullerton City Council, Ex-Fullerton Collaborative
Buy A Vowel– Current and Former Fullerton Officials (odds 3:1)
Get some help with those neighboring consonants from people who’ve helped reveal a simple phrase to Council before.
Chris Meyer (Former City Manager)
Joe Felz (Former City Manager)
Wolfgang Knabe (Retiring Fire Chief)
Pete Beard (not a former employee, but Fullerton’s current Metropolitan Water District Representative)
Paul Dudley (Former Dev Services Director)
Ed Royce (No way in hell, but hey, we’re listing everyone on the wheel)
Luxury Resort Vacation– A Bar Owner (Odds 7:1)
Relax and let all your troubles float away as you blissfully drift from lane to lane down Commonwealth Avenue…
Tony Florentine
Jeremy Popoff
Toss Up– Former Candidates (odds 9.5:1)
Just like an Olympian disqualified by a post race drug test, let the title go to the runner-up!
Paulette Marshal-Chaffee
Vicky Calhoun
Larry Bennett
Jane Rands
Jose Trinidad Castaneda III
Kitty Jaramillo
Joe Imbriano
Mystery Wedges– Other Notables(odds 10:1)
Marty Burbank (Infrastructure Review Commission)
Nick Dunlap (Chair, Planning Commission)
Christopher Gaarder (Vice-Chair, Planning Commission)
Patrick McNelly (Infrastructure, Energy, and Water Ad-Hoc Commissions)
Arnel Dino (Infrastructure and Water Ad-Hoc Commissions)
Rusty Kennedy
Tony Package
Gretchen Cox (Parks, Energy, and Water Ad-Hoc Commissions)
Erik Wehn (Parks Commission)
Kathleen Shanfield (Planning Commission)
Kevin Pendergraft (Planning Comission)
Ryan Cantor (Planning and Library Commissions)
BANKRUPT— Anyone Associated with FFFF (odds 100:1)
Sure would put is in a pickle. What would we live for? Criticize ourselves?
The inevitable self-loathing may morally bankrupt us, if it doesn’t destroy us first.
If Paulette Marshall Chaffee receives the most votes in the District 5 Election on 06 November – will she resign the office or allow herself to be sworn in?
It’s not a tough question but Mrs. Chaffee has refused to talk to anybody or answer any questions. I emailed both campaigns asking for comment before posting the original sign theft post. No comments or responses came. Likewise Voice of OC, KTLA, Fox11 and the OCRegister have all tried to get various answers from her to no avail. She has ignored them all. She has also, by way of her silence, manipulated the voters in District 5 by sending mixed signals.
With her signs still hanging all over the district, her mail still hitting voter mailboxes and her husband’s campaign overlapping her own race (which throws a few percentage points at her by sheer name association) she is, by all visible metrics, still running despite her Facebook and website deactivations.
With consideration of how power signs can be in an election, which I know from personal experience, I opted to do some research.
I started by looking at her 460 disclosure forms and found that she used Cogs South and Impact Signs to print and place her campaign signs. The signs cost her $470.oo to place ($3/sign plus distance charge).
Cogs South are the local go-to for signs and are great people to work with so I also took the liberty of giving them a call. When I asked if a candidate could pay Impact Signs to remove signs I was assured the answer was yes with the only qualifier of it maybe taking a few days. When I asked how much it would cost to have the signs removed, being that that $3/sign cost included post-election takedowns, I was told no more than that cost again. Most likely less.
Even if we assume the same cost per sign again, it would cost Paulette Marshall Chaffee one phone call and $470.00 to have her signs removed from around District 5.
$470.00.
That’s what Chaffee is unwilling to spend to show that she really is suspending her campaign. (more…)
Make taxpayers shell out $400,000 or meddle in an ongoing election.
Pick one.
That’s the quandary in front of our city council tonight in the form of agenda item 4:
4. FULLERTON MUNICIPAL CODE AMENDMENT REGARDING CITY COUNCIL VACANCIES
Consideration of an ordinance to repeal Fullerton Municipal Code Section 2.02.020 and follow procedure for filling City Council vacancies as set forth in Government Code Section 36512.
Without getting too much into the weeds the problem the city is trying to address is specific to the costs and ramifications of Jesus Silva winning the race for the District 3 council seat.
The voters in District 3 have 3 choices on their ballots; Greg Sebourn, Jesus Silva & Nickolas Wildstar. If either Sebourn or Wildstar wins this municipal code change does nothing in the foreseeable future.
If Jesus Silva wins then he vacates his current At-Large seat and we, by law, must hold a special election. That special election could cost us between $391,532 – $428,150 per the OC Registrar of Voters.
Silva likely didn’t even know he was risking socking the taxpayers with that hefty bill until somebody else pointed it out to him. Or perhaps he just didn’t care. That his wife was on council when the to be repealed ordinance was passed points more towards didn’t care than didn’t know.
We went through 2017 knowing this was an issue and the City Manager couldn’t be bothered to deal with it. Then most of 2018 came and went. Nothing. Instead of worrying about a near half a million dollar liability Ken Domer had the council worrying about which volunteers to fire from the various boards and committees around town. As a former member, I’m glad the Economic Development Committee is gone but if you’re going to muck with the municipal code perhaps worry about the parts costing us, or potentially costing us, real money before worrying about a committee that rarely met because it rarely had quorum.
Now this issue is on the City Agenda for the coming City Council meeting tonight. During an election.
Yes, the election is on 06 November but absentee ballots are already in the mail and thus the city is asking council to change the rules of elections DURING AN ELECTION. People will have already voted in District 3 BEFORE the council decides what to do tonight.
This is ridiculous.
I don’t want the city to have to spend $400,000 to fill a vacated seat if Silva wins in District 3. However – and this is a big however – Jesus Silva decided to run knowing that his run could cost us that much money and he did it anyways. That he did it anyways speaks to his character.
That is a political consideration and changing the rules during the election screams of a partisan fix to a problem Silva could have avoided by not throwing his at-large seat away in the quest for 2022 incumbency. Voters make decisions on issues that cost and matter less than $400k and deserve to judge this issue without council interference after the fact.
But how did we get here? (more…)