Good question. She is the spouse of Fullerton Councilman Doug “Bud” Chaffee, and has often been considered the brains of the operation.
She is also rumored to be a future council candidate from the 2nd District once that district comes up for election – now slated for 2020. Here is Ms. Marshall attending an underpass opening ceremony. She’s the one over on the left wearing the purple jacket.
Here’s a close up.
But wait. Why is she even there? She doesn’t hold any official position in the city. And even more importantly, why is she wearing a City of Fullerton badge bearing the official city seal? How did she get that badge and why is she wearing it?
A cynical person might suspect that Ms. Marshall is posing in a photo op like this for future campaign material, projecting the subliminal message of “incumbent.” But that would be extremely unethical and really hard to credit.
Here’s a fellow named Skip Davis who gives our “honorable” City Council an earful about the proposal to create a new property tax in downtown Fullerton to pay for the mess created by City politicians in the first place: the Culture of Booze.
It was fun to watch ol’ Skip unload on the notion of a Bizness Improvement District with its attendant tax, a tax generally aimed at people completely innocent of the mayhem that our City Council caused and their cops can’t control. But Skip makes a salient point: why is his retirement income so easy for the government to lay its hands on when the Heroes in the back of the room have completely sacrosanct (and massive) pensions.
I have a thought experiment for those of you who work in the private sector.
Let’s suppose you are accused of some misdeed by your employer. It could something minor like rudeness to a customer, or something potentially criminal such as embezzlement, assault or even potentially murder or manslaughter.
Hypothetically
Let’s further suppose your employer comes to you and asks you about certain accusations. What do you suppose would happen if you refused to answer any questions about that incident unless you had an attorney present? And if you did speak to speak to your employer what are the chances they would agree to not use your statement against you in a criminal action? Could you refuse a polygraph test under any circumstance? And could you insist your employer never disclose the results of their investigation upon pain of criminal prosecution?
The answer in the private sector is clear cut: while you have constitutional rights in criminal proceedings (including the right to have an attorney present and against self incrimination) if you refuse to cooperate with an employer you can be fired on the spot.
Not so for many of our public employees. Thanks to the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights (Government Code §3300-3311) many of the rights afforded to all of us in criminal prosecutions are also afforded to officers in administrative actions. For example, pursuant to Government Code §3303(f), statements made under duress, coercion “or threats of punitive action” are inadmissible in civil proceedings as well as criminal. Thanks to the decision in Lybarger v. City of Los Angeles (1985) 40 Cal.3d 822, an officer can be disciplined for refusing to answer questions in an administrative hearing, but only if they are first told that the statements cannot be used against him in any criminal matter. An officer also has a right to have council present during any administrative proceedings relating to their conduct. And if there is a violation of any of these or other rights, there is no requirement to exhaust administrative remedies first (like the rest of us have to); the officer can immediately sue in Superior Court.
The combination of the protections in POBAR and the Supreme Court decision in Copley Press, Inc. v. Superior Court (39 Cal.4th 1272) have combined to essentially make our public safety employees above the law. Copley guarantees that any complaints against officers that are handled through the police department will be investigated at the sole discretion of that department, since the public is typically not told how the department ruled or why. Or even whether they looked into the matter at all. Remember, Chief Dan Hughes once admitted that many complaints against officers were simply tossed into the wastepaper basket, since there was no ramification for the department for doing so.
“After careful deliberation, we have concluded that no evidence exists to warrant disciplinary action. At least, not anymore.”
This does not mean that there are no good officers in Fullerton, but it does mean that there are no meaningful external check on the conduct of officers that are a problem, so long as the conduct is not so shocking it winds up becoming a national story. And even then, the protections afforded by POBAR makes firing for even the most shocking crime difficult. See for example Kenton Hampton, who is still employed by the Fullerton Police Department (and pulling in $175,958.90 in total pay and benefits as of 2015, according to Transparent California) despite his involvement in the beating death of Kelly Thomas and the beating/ false imprisonment of Veth Mam (video here) and the fact that even Joseph Wolfe may actually be reinstated despite his role in Thomas’s death.
Since we cannot rely on transparency (state law prohibits it), and we cannot rely on officers within the department to come forward (don’t forget, Copley makes disclosure of internal personnel records a criminal offense, and as Paul Irish has recently learned, even mild, non-specific criticism of department policy can get you in more trouble with your employer than standing around doing nothing while your fellow officers beat a man to death), I concluded several years ago that an effective independent Civilian Oversight Commission was the best method of placing some check on our public employees. Rather than simply advocate for the civilian oversight, those of us who were advocating it decided to prepare their own proposed ordinance, which Matt Leslie has been hosting on his Fullerton Rag blog ever since (it can be found here, although the transfer does appear to have altered the subsections in a way that makes it a bit confusing).
The specifics of and the benefits of the proposed ordinance, and the means in which this City Council could implement it, will be discussed in Part 2.
Another public sidewalk expropriated by a developer.
This is the site of the giant mess coming in the 700 Block of South Harbor Boulevard – a behemoth brought to us courtesy of our present City Council, who approved this monster unanimously.
I don’t get it. There’s nothing difficult about a contractor keeping a sidewalk open. It just takes a City that cares about the people who live here and use the public sidewalks, instead of bending over backwards the the developer of another massive, San Quentin-like apartment block. The only thing missing will be the gas chamber.
Well voters have spoken and District Map 8A will be how Fullerton is divided for the next two coming elections. Do you know how it’ll play out?
No. You don’t. You don’t because neither does the city and they don’t because nobody thought to figure it out first. Not even the people on Council when the lawsuits on this issue were settled.
Do you know what districts will be up for a vote in 2018? Nope. That hasn’t been decided yet.
The assumption is that it’ll be districts 2 & 5 because 2 is where Chaffee resides that he’s up for re-election in 2018 with nobody else living in his district and 5 because nobody on Council is a current district 5 resident. This is incumbency, and establishment, protectionist nonsense.
But Sebourn is up for election in 2018 as well so why not put district 3 up for a vote? Oh because that’s where Silva lives and therefore they’d have somebody in their district who is theoretically accountable to them. Therefore if Sebourn wants to stay on Council he’d have to move. Why not make Chaffee move instead? He keeps talking about how great Brea is so maybe it’ll prompt him to finally leave.
Okay, you may have painfully listened to the five-minute drone of Fullerton City Attorney Richard Jones on a previous post, explaining why no information was forthcoming in the Case of the City Manager and the Dead Parkway Tree. Sorry to inflict that on you, but no pain, no gain, as they say.
If your cerebral synapses are sufficiently recovered, reflect back on what Mr. Jones, Esq. said, and what he was asked to repeat twice by our Mayor, about electronic records generated at the scene and how they could not be released via PRA request because they were part of an “ongoing investigation;” but moreover, because they were somehow part of some sort of double-top secret “personnel” proceedings.
But wait! A quick trip to Jones and Meyer’s website newsletter to clients (we are clients, aren’t we?) reveals some interesting case law that seems to show exactly the opposite of the malarkey Jones was pitching to a remarkably incurious Council the other night. Here’s the synopsis:
See? The video was created before any administrative investigation, or internal affairs investigation even started.
So let’s get this straight. A “client alert” sent out less than four months ago seems to contradict what Jones said, and reiterated twice on Tuesday night. Hmm. Hopefully someone can drop by to explain why the case of City Manager Joe Felz isn’t covered by the Greenson case finding by the Court of Appeal.
It seems like I keep saying this. And it keeps being true.
The Old Guard Establishment that buried us under a mountain of unfunded pension liability, that stole almost $30,000,000 in the guise of a water “fee” and who created a murderous Culture of Corruption that abused us, stole from us, lied to us, and even killed one of us, isn’t going without one last, vaporous, noxious gasp.
Jan Flory disappeared ten years ago, run out of office after a two-term misrule that included overdevelopment, massive corporate subsidies, boondoggles galore, and of course, worst of all, the disastrous 3@50 retroactivepension spike. Now teamed up with the most obnoxious elements of the corrupt, unapologetic cop union, Flory represents the completely discredited Ancient Regime better than anyone.
Well, anybody but Flory’s old chum King Don Bankhead, recalled twice and so desperate, demented and disconnected that he still believes he has something to contribute to Fullerton besides the comical spectacle of falling asleep during meetings.
He’s the one on the right.
There’s somebody called Rick Alvarez running, who like Flory, has been hugely supported by the cops. This cipher is the last wheeze of the Ackerman repuglican tribe, a dying breed to be sure. No one knows anything about this drone, except that he appears to be willing to say anything to anybody. He is also supported by the Old Dems who see in him their main chance of stopping reform.
Then there’s a woman called Kitty Jaramillo who seems to be just what what the doctor ordered – in case you wanted a former city employee making decisions that affect her pals’ pensions. Cynically, she’s been dropped like a hot potato by those Old Dems and the cops who don’t want her siphoning votes from their candidates, and who wouldn’t support two latino-named candidates.
Another entry is Jennifer Fitzgerald who stood up to Dick Ackerman when he started tricking himself out for the cop union. But this sure seems like way too little, way too late: as Friends will recall she was a big opponent of the recall which speaks volumes as far as I’m concerned. Her backing by Ossified GOP clique is equally telling. Her employment is based on lobbying and political hackery – which for Republicans is a sure fire sign that they are for big government.
Are you sufficiently depressed, yet? Don’t be! You can do yourself a favor. You can support conscience and reform.
There is Barry Levinson, a guy who has been on the front line of reform for the past couple of years, and a man who wuold undoubtedly demand accountability in City Hall.
Jane rands has been at the forefront of reform in Fullerton, too, particularly about land use and cop brutality, which has not endeared her to the liberal establishment.
Finally I arrive at Travis Kiger and Bruce Whitaker, the incumbents. These two have accomplished more in four months than their predecessors had done in twenty-five years. They have finally ended the illegal water tax and they have demanded fiscal and practical accountability from the police department. Naturally the public safety unions are outraged and have spent a fortune attacking them. Why? because Kiger and Whitaker work hard for us, and the unions just hate that. They hate it a lot.
Yep. The choices stand in stark contrast to one another. You can go back to the depressing days of unaccountability and irresponsibility; the days when our police department spiraled out of control; the days when downtown Fullerton became a subsidized, open-air booze court; the days when land was given away to favored developers and City Hall looked the other way when it came to environmental impacts on the rest of us.
You would think that even a band of rogue cops with the recent history of malfeasance such as the FPOA brethren would recognize that publishing a wanted poster of your political opponents is crossing a line.
Damn straight. Wanted for re-election.
Well, I guess not. When you are willing to defend killers, robbers, pickpockets, liars, perjurers, incompetents of all kinds, property room thieves, sex perverts, and who knows what else, you’ll defend anything.
