Hidden Government Agencies Archives - Page 6 of 9 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 3, 2011January 4, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Another Pringle Undertaking

Cemetery1-300x225 — Der Pringle is dying to get in...

The OC Cemetery District sure seems to have a morbid fascination with failure.

Last year we reported on how the Orange County Cemetery District had employed Anaheim’s mayor-for-hire, Kurt Pringle as a consultant. Pringle was getting 6,000 bucks a month to find a new cemetery site, do PR, and act as a cemetery developer. Which was really pretty funny since Pringle is not a realtor, is not a landscape architect, and all the publicity the Cemetery District has gotten lately has all been bad.

PringlePower-300x225 — We have something really nice for you in mahogany.

Pringle’s been on the Cemetery District’s payroll for two years now, which seems like ample time to have accomplished a lot. Well, something. Anything.

But in these opaque, special districts nothing succeeds like failure, apparently, for tomorrow the Cemetery District Board of Trustees is being asked by their staff to extend Der Pringle’s contract even though so far he has accomplished virtually nothing for them. Part of the problem is that the Cemetery Board is independent of any real oversight; and the average age of the Board is something like 969 years old, so there seems to be zero sales resistance.

Renew!!?? Sweet Jebus! The Board ought to be suing Pringle and his Associates for breach of contract!

September 30, 2010September 30, 2010Hidden Government Agencies

Is Pringle’s Runaway Gravy Train Coming To A Halt?

by admin17 Comments

After months of wondering how Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, Curt Pringle, could get away with pushing through his high speed choo-choo on the folks of Buena Park, Fullerton, Anaheim, Orange County and all of California, I discovered a legal opinion from Legislative Counsel addressed to the Secretary of the State Senate that unequivocally opines that Pringle holds incompatible offices as Chairman of the California High Speed rail Authority, while simultaneously representing the City of Anaheim and the Orange County Transit Authority. He is breaking the law.

Pringle has already directed the better part of $200,000,000 of Orange County transportation funds to Anaheim’s idiotic “ARTIC” facility, and that doesn’t even include more that will be necessary to accommodate his high speed boondoggle. Is it a coincidence that the first leg of the CHSR will be built in the least necessary or useful stretch of this concept – LA to Anaheim? Is it just as coincidental as Pringle’s lobbying firm being there to “consult” after hizzoner is out of office?

Pringlescrib — Mr. Curt? He up in the Big House.

Of course, Pringle is the heart and soul of Orange County repuglicanism: he runs the plantation and we all are just his cheap labor.

Yesterday I sent a letter by overnight delivery to our Attorney General requesting a quo warranto opinion from the AG, to wit: if the AG believes that the finding of the State Legislative Counsel is correct then the AG must take action to have the Pringle, and his LA Metropolitan Transit Authority counterflack Richard Katz, removed from their prior public offices to protect us regular folk from the sharks. Eric Carpenter of the register has written about my letter the AG, here.

It matters to Pringle. With a month left in office the influence he can still peddle at our expense is significant.

August 25, 2010Brick Veneer, Fake Old, And Other Horrors

Very, Very Important Information on HSR

by admin11 Comments

Just when you thought a government official could not sink any lower…

Push play and listen to the ridiculous reason High Speed Rail board member and Curt Pringle idolizer Quentin Kopp gives for not having a business plan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEkWWZOXA68

August 12, 2010August 13, 2010Hidden Government Agencies

The Continental. Pringle Parties Across The Pond

by Mr. Peabody12 Comments

PringlePower — I am suave. And de-boner. Oh, and yes, you are growing very sleepy...

Looks like Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, the slippery elm repuglican par excellence, Curt Pringle, has been getting some free trips to Europe courtesy of the French and German guvments.

Hmm.

Trips to Europe to “study” high speed rail by Herr Pringle. Paid for by socialized governments who are evidently competing on behalf of their socialized industries with the good old US of A.

And wine. Did I forget to mention the freedom-loving Anaheim Haupt-burgermeister loves his wine?

July 18, 2010July 18, 2010About Us

To Hell In A Handbasket

by admin7 Comments

If you spend much time driving around Fullerton you become painfully aware of the sad state of the streets. The deteriorating infrastructure underneath is a disaster just waiting to happen. Some folks might characterize this as blight. I know I do. And yet when it comes to dealing with blight, the one and only mission of Redevelopment law, our agency would much rather spend millions on subsidies to commercial developers, land “write-downs,” low income housing, crummy remodels, fire sprinklers for dance clubs, transforming a useful alley into an elevated pedestrian paseo, purchasing a poisoned park, and relocating a McDonald’s for $6,000,000, etc. etc.

One of the key points of our settlement negotiations with the City over its Redevelopment project area expansion will be to require the Agency spend a significant portion of its funds on infrastructure replacement – the very “talking point” that the pro-expansion mouthpieces used at the public hearings in the first place.

June 25, 2010August 5, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Hypocrite Hugh Hewitt Says “Enough”

by Grover Cleveland4 Comments

Okay Friends, fight the gag reflex as you peruse this column written in something called The Washington Examiner under the by line of Hugh Hewitt, sanctimonious repuglican blabbermouth. I say “under the by line” because we recently disclosed how this allegedly literate yakmouth had stuff written for him by Children and Families Commission Scribe/Flack and $200 an hour Toothbrush Distributor, Matthew J. Cunningham, and it would now be risky to assume Hewitt writes anything for himself.

fartboy — Hugh is a very busy man. He can't write all that stuff himself!

“Enough!” Hewitt loudly admonishes his ignorant readers at the end of his drivel. Ignorant? How so?

If they are reading anything attributed to this hypocrite they are almost certainly unaware that he serves on the biggest Tax and Redistributionist Commission in the history of California – the OC Children and Families Commission; and no doubt unaware that his words may very well be written by someone else – Cunningham, perhaps – his protege, and the fellow whose $200,000-a-year PR contract with the Commission Hewitt annually votes to approve.

Yuck.

June 22, 2010June 22, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies – A Few Days In The Life

by Grover Cleveland14 Comments

Check this out. Here are a few days in the life of supposed conservative pontificator, Matthew J. Cunningham as he dishes out his stellar wordsmithing on behalf of the uber-liberal Prop 10 funded “OC Children and Families Commission.”

I’ll let you tally up the big bucks this hypocrite pulled down doing battle with the forces of…well, forces like the “Flash Report” of which he was a blogger, its editor Jon Fleischman, and of course those insensitive beasts at the OC Register.

And be sure to enjoy that monthly $800 catchall bill for, well, who knows what it’s for? Just stuff. But Hell, when you’re milking the cash cow be sure never to leave anything on the table, right?

June 18, 2010June 18, 2010Behind Closed Doors

The Scandal of Government Lobbying Government: The Children and Families Commission

by Grover Cleveland10 Comments

billcampbell-240x300 — If I cry will you believe me that it's well run?

A while back we posted a story about the OC Grand Jury callying for a lobbyist registry. They also attacked the practice of government agencies paying lobbyists to lobby other government agencies. Teri Sforza at the OC Watchdog did a post, here.

Yes, it certainly seems even more disturbing when practiced by opaque agencies like Water Districts and of course, by our old pals at the Children and Families Commission.

PringlePud — God bless America, land of opportunity!

As we have amply documented, this commission has paid Curt Pringle to lobby on its behalf and it has also employed the services of former State legistalor Phil Isenberg. Just yesterday we did a post about wordsmith Matthew J. Cunningham raking in some big bucks getting ready and attending a lunch for legislative staffers. Presumably the whole thing was a lobbying sales job.

The worst part of this of course, is that the OC commission is not lobbying for itself. No point in that – unless there’s a call to change the money distribution formula to benefit OC. No, all these hundreds of thousands of lobbying dollars are going to defend Prop 10 revenue in general. In other words, the OC Children and Families Commissions is spending all this dough lobbying for the other 57 counties’ First Five Commissions.

Are these other counties lobbying themselves? Who knows. Not unlikely. But this just emphasizes the point that the whole thing is out of control – no matter how many times Cunningham ghost writes blather about how well run they are.

And while we’re at it, let’s remember The White House Writers Group and their six-figure contract to promote the commission outside around the country!

If you think about it the whole thing really stinks. Time to pick off the scab on the commission and see what’s supperating underneath.

June 17, 2010June 16, 2010Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – My Big Fat Staffer Lunch

by Grover Cleveland6 Comments

fartboy1 — If you take a doggie bag you can actually feed your whole family on the Commission's dime - and get paid, too!

Looks like about $2,540 billed for activities leading up to and including a Republican legislative “staffer lunch” back in March of 2009. Hope there were some crusts left over to help feed the children.

View the Full Invoice

All that dough to persuade GOP staff aides about how wonderful the Rob Reiner commissions are? You’ve gotta be kidding!

Note that third item about Riverside County making their “first Five” Commission a county agency. I wonder what that sort of scrutiny would mean for our Commission. No more Campbell crony contracts?

June 16, 2010June 16, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies – Normally Loquacious Hugh Hewitt Needs, Gets Help Organizing Thoughts

by Grover Cleveland12 Comments

UPDATE: Gustavo Arellano has weighed in over at the OC Weekly.

Here’s a compilation of invoiced time Matthew J. Cunningham spent ghost writing for the supposed conservative Hugh Hewitt,who is a proud member of Rob Reiner’s Children and Families Commission.

Hewitt is Cunningham’s blog mentor who encouraged him to start what is today called “Red County”.

As noted above Hewitt is also a commissioner on the CFCOC, and thus Cunningham’s boss.

It’s odd that the presumably literate Hewitt can’t write his own letters and “op-ed” pieces if he believes so strongly in the Commission. He needs his buddy Cunningham to do it at a cool $200 an hour; and he’ll do it too, dammit, no matter how many hours it takes.

Of course it’s also odd that Hewitt is on this ridiculous commission in the first place, unless one recognizes it as a platform to dispense patronage to old pals.