Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Current Fullerton City Council members are Don Bankhead, Pam Keller, Sharon Quirk, Dick Jones and Shawn Nelson.
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.
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.
…but somebody’s got to do it.
Rincon
Mejia
Major
Hampton
Ramos
Wolfe
Cicinelli
Mater
Baughman
Sellers
Tong
Nguyen
Craig
Blatney
Coffman
Kirk
Basham
Goodrich
Wren
McKinley
Siliceo
And that’s not all. Do I really have to go on?
Watch as June, 2012 Council candidate, and hopefully future Council candidate Sean Paden stands up to the lies and truth contortions of the police union goons:
Well, there you go. Stated succinctly, articulately, and with authority in less than three minutes.
In his desire to promote Chief Danny, Fullerton Council Mole, Doug Chaffee went a bit too far. First he indicates that six cops have been disciplined and some have been fired! Oh, oh. That’s a violation of POBAR, isn’t it? Our trolls are always saying so.
Will The Mole Man’s comments result in a lawsuit by the rogue cops? Let’s hope so. Little Doug can explain what he meant.
What is even more astounding is that Chaffee acknowledges fourteen disciplinary actions by “Acting Chief Danny,” an incredible figure when you consider that some of the bad behavior that we already know about hasn’t even been acknowledged. In other words, Chaffee admits that at least 10% of the force has been disciplined for behavior no doubt well known and protected by a great many more members of the force – including sanctimonious pricks like Jason Shone, the Internal Affairs sergeant.
Chaffee thinks it’s “remarkable” that corrupt cops got “disciplined.” Of course we have no idea what that means, or even if it’s true. What kind of twisted culture exists when the elected authority finds that disciplining bad cops is “remarkable?”
I don’t know about you, but to me that sure sounds like a Culture of Corruption.
Dear Madam Mayor & Council Members,
We cannot pretend that Fullerton is serious about reform when those involved in the murder of Kelly Thomas, the illegal arrest and imprisonment of Veth Mam, and the many other documented cases of police misconduct, are still employed by FPD. We contend that you as our representatives at city hall, now being fully aware of the extent of misconduct by certain officers, that it is your duty above all else to protect the citizens of Fullerton, including those that may now feel targeted because of their public involvement in seeking justice for Kelly Thomas. There will be members of the community who will not comply to the orders of Officer Kenton Hampton, Sgt. Kevin Craig and Cpl. James Blatney, as they feel that these officers do not hold any moral authority over them. This reality puts all residents and peace officers in danger, and makes any contact by these men with the general public unwise. The adoption of the attached resolution by you, and the eventually firing of any officer who cannot live up to the ideals of a post Kelly Thomas Fullerton Police Department, will not only benefit all residents of Fullerton, but it shall restore public faith in the department itself. In doing so you will stimulate public trust to the benefit to those other officers who have always conducted themselves professionally. Professional officers with good intentions deserve to work in an environment which is free of the stigma that the continued employment of these accomplices in a taped public execution places on the entire department.
Only by publically setting standards for peace officers which embody excellence in public service and respect for all Fullerton citizens, and by demanding the termination of all those who represent the worst of FPD’s past, can we move forward with confidently that reform and change has resulted from the tragic murder of Fullerton resident Kelly Thomas on July 5th, 2011. The city attorney, while perhaps well intentioned, has an established propensity to filter his advise through the fear that one of these subpar officers may litigate on grounds of wrongful termination. We advise this council to also consider what may result if any of the officers in question, who have now returned to active duty, are again involved the death or injury of one of our citizens. Prudence dictates that they must be removed before they are given another opportunity to harm the public and burden the city with additional million dollar settlements.
Civility and healing will come to Fullerton when our leaders are responsive to the public and we are not required to pry every hint of justice that this case has brought forth over the last 14 month from the clinched fists of a stubborn leadership at city hall, the DA’s office or FPD. Today we present you with yet another opportunity to partner with us in seeking justice. We urge you to take advantage of this opportunity.
Respectfully submitted by
Stephan Baxter, Fullerton CA
Oops! The new Fullerton Community Center opens up tomorrow, but this news alert might put a damper on the festivities. It turns out the state has rejected redevelopment funding for the project even though it’s already been completed, meaning the city’s troubled general fund may be on the hook for an extra $19 million that it does not have.
It looks like a generation of reckless redevelopment spending has led us to a very dark place.
Friday, October 5, 2012 | as of 12:53 PM ET
Standard & Poor’s downgraded Fullerton largely based on California’s rejection of its recognized obligation payment schedule for the city’s role as successor agency to its former redevelopment agency.
California cities could elect to become the successor agency to their RDAs after legislation dissolving the agencies went into effect early this year.
S&P lowered the city’s long-term rating to AA-minus from AA and assigned a negative outlook to lease revenue bonds issued by the Fullerton Public Financing Authority.
Standard & Poor’s also lowered its long-term and underlying ratings to AA-minus from AA on Fullerton Redevelopment Agency certificates of participation and the city’s previously issued revenue bonds.
“The negative outlook reflects what we view as the city’s exposure to previously state-rejected redevelopment projects which, if not approved, could affect Fullerton’s credit fundamentals in the future,” analysts said in the report. “In addition, city officials estimate some continued structural imbalance in the general fund, despite some previous budget reductions to offset historical revenue declines.”
A portion of the disputed bond proceeds has not been spent, but $22 million was used to build the city’s community center.
The state rejected that as a valid redevelopment project because the city, as opposed to its redevelopment agency, had signed the contracts with the developer as was the city’s practice pre-dissolution, according to the report.
The city has resubmitted its request to the state Department of Finance, but if it rejected again, the city could be on the hook for $19 million.
However, city officials told analysts that it would use reserve money from the city’s general fund to cover the bond payments.
Analysts credited Fullerton for continuing to budget appropriate amounts in the general fund to fund both its Series 2010A bonds, which were backed by federal subsidies that now may not be available, and on the COPs issued for the RDA.
The 2010A debt was issued as federally taxable recovery zone economic development bonds. The city has budgeted for the full cost of payments on the bonds regardless of whether it receives the federal subsidy.
Just the other day Fullerton City Council candidate Jan Flory was heard to remark about needed reform: protecting the poor, underpaid and overworked city staff that used to bring her all those important projects when she was “on council” right after the last ice age.
Well here’s a staff-driven project that her beloved staff dumped on her and which she happily voted for: The Poisoned Park.
We did a whole series on this fiasco that you can read about here and here. In a nutshell, the City bought contaminated property from the Union Pacific Railroad on West Truslow for a community park. Forget the basic fact that nobody in the neighborhood wanted a park, let alone a gang hang out; the land was there and a private party wanted to buy it.
Fullerton’s stellar bureaucracy led by Susan Hunt (Parks Director), Bob Hodson (City Engineer), Jaim Armstrong (City Manager), Gary Chalupsky (Redevelopment Director), and Paul Dudley (Planning) just couldn’t get in the way of a pending deal fast enough. The City steeped in and bought the land for over a million bucks, then they built their park. More millions spent. All approved by Jan Flory.
And then disaster. It transpires that there was a toxic flume under the site. A fence was set up around the offending park and it remains closed to this day, over ten years after it was purchased, falling into decay. Nobody had ever bothered to to a proper environmental assessment and make the sale contingent upon its results.
The Poisoned Park may well be the exemplar of an incompetent collection of boobs from whom no accountability was ever demanded and from whom none was ever delivered.
But to Jan Flory’s “lights” these are the “heart of the City.” Hmm.
I have always been fascinated by the urge for government employees and their die-hard supporters to cling to the notion of collective bargaining as some sort of birthright. The ability for public employees to unionize is actually not even that old, but is a comparatively recent and curious chapter in the history of organized labor.
Classical Marxist doctrine holds that in the capitalist phase of history there are two elements contributing to economic activity. There are capital and labor; the first representing the bourgeois investment class (and their managerial overseers); the second is the workforce that sells its labor to the former. Naturally, the cost of labor , the investment of the capitalists, and the return the latter is willing to accept determine the supply side cost of goods.
The Marxists believed that capital habitually exploited an oversupply of labor through poor working conditions and long hours of employment. There was certainly evidence to support this contention and the capitalists did their best to outlaw labor “combination” through their control of legislatures.
(For the sake of argument I will happily stipulate the socialist fact in evidence.)
Of course labor did combine.
But the idea of government workers unionizing did not enter the into the equation. Why? For several reasons, one of which is succinctly stated by the most effective liberal in American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Roosevelt realized that people who work for the government cannot hold the same employer/employee relationship since their employer is the people as a sovereign whole. Clearly the idea of collective bargaining, and particularly militant union tactics used against the citizenry was abhorrent to old FDR himself.
Another related problem is that government employees do not fit into the labor-capital equation, since the “capitalist” investor in their operation is none other than the taxpayers and citizens – and not a natural adversary in an economic system. And public employees were granted civil service protection and security to make up for comparatively modest wages.
And then there is the problem of the complete public sector labor monopoly. Producers of goods compete with each other in marketplaces that, among other things, sets a value on product that helps determine the cost of labor. No such balance exists in the public sector where nothing is for sale and there is no competition in the labor market at all.
The ability to unionize and the concomitant ability to engage in collective political action has enabled the public sector labor monopoly to elect its favored candidates at all levels, and subsequently to exact greater and greater salaries and benefits for themselves; and always using the argument that all they seek is parity with the private sector. Yet never have they jettisoned the civil service protections that makes in almost impossible to fire an incompetent public worker.
Most comical are the “management” unions that represent the upper tier employees who oversee the lower, and whose own interests in running the “company” are inexplicably linked with the benefits conferred upon the latter!
And so dear Friends, next time you see a “retired” 50 year old cop who was granted almost 100% of his salary as a pension, and who was given two decades of retroactive benefits, ask him whom he has to thank. I guarantee it won’t be you, or even the other public employees who negotiated his benefits on your behalf; nor even the lackeys on the city council like Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, and Jan Flory whom his union got elected. Nuh, uh. He will thank an anonymous “system” that has created this mess and that has virtually bankrupt California and threatens almost every municipality in the state.
Well, we know who to thank.
Jan Flory is running for Fullerton City Council. Jan Flory used to be on Fullerton City Council. Jan Flory is hoping that nobody remembers her disastrous decisions on Fullerton City Council.
Oops! Too late.
In one of the costliest misjudgments in Fullerton history, Mrs. Flory joined her fellow council members in approving the horrible, retroactive 3@50 pension formula for the City’s “public safety” employees that was a massive gift of public funds and created a huge unfunded pension liability that eats up a bigger percentage of Fullerton’s budget every year.
Bankhead, Flory, Clesceri, Jones and Norby. At least Norby apologized for his blunder. Flory never has. She even made the motion to approve the gargantuan giveaway!
View the agreement
Of course the excuse Don Bankhead and Patdown Pat McPension used was that without the benefit Fullerton couldn’t recruit the best and brightest. You know, cops like Ramos and Wolfe and Cicinelli, and Rincon, and Mater and Mejia and Major, and well, you get the idea.
Of course Mrs. Flory never got around to explaining how giving away a retroactive benefit to current employees would improve future recruitment.
Being on a city council for eight long years can create an embarrassing trail of disastrous decision. Our job will be to remind the public of Mrs. Flory’s string of expensive votes.
