I Aint a Swallerin That Archives - Page 36 of 49 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

August 15, 2012Behind Closed Doors

What To Do About The Illegal Water Tax

On Tuesday the City Council is scheduled to discuss what they want to do about the embarrassing fact that the City charged an illegal 10% tax on our water bill for fifteen years, amassing a total rip-off that easily topped $25,000,000. The funds were deposited in General Fund and mostly went to pay for salaries and pensions of City employees that had absolutely nothing to do with the acquisition and transmission of water – the ostensible purpose of the levy. It even went to pay for four-star hotels for Councilmembers’ League of City junkets.

Some folks think reparations are due, in some fashion, to the rate payers that got ripped off. But how? A check in the mail? Lowered rates in the future? Repayment from the General Fund to the Water Fund?

The City doesn’t have $25 mil laying around, and rebates in the future for past indiscretions would certainly create inequities. Going back just a few years for reparations may be a logical and practical step. Repayment from the General Fund over time may be the only recourse and would certainly address the original purpose of the “in-lieu fee” which was the cost of delivering water to the people and businesses of Fullerton. However it should be pointed out that the the 10% that was raked off was never connected to the true cost of the water in the first place.

Another question to be dealt with is what is an applicable rate for miscellaneous City costs that are currently unrecompensed by the Water Fund? There isn’t much unaccounted for, and the “consultant” for the Water rate Ad Hoc Committee tried to cook up some phony percentage between 6 and 7 based largely on the cost of the City charging the Water Fund rent!

This raises all sorts of embarrassing questions about why the Water Utility was not permitted to acquire all this valuable real estate in the first place, dirt cheap, if now it is to be treated as a separate entity; and how a landlord can negotiate rent with his tenant when they are both one and the same person. In any case there is a new council that is a lot less likely to cave in to this sort of nonsense than the old stumblebums.

In any case, I want to mention a couple of things. First, the perpetrators of the scam need to be identified and chastised for their complicity in the tax: they would be all of the former councilmen of the last 15 years who let this happen; the city managers Jim Armstrong, Chris Meyer, and Joe Felz, who participated in the scheme and who either knew or should have known it was illegal; and let’s not forget Richard Jones, Esq., the City Attorney, who was there every single step of the way and damn well knew it was illegal. Second, Joe Felz’ obvious strategy of stalling and temporizing on this issue, aided and abetted by the Three Hollow Logs and Sharon Quirk, protracted the rip-off by another full year and compounded the problem even more, even as they knew the jig was up.

It should be interesting to see if any of our aspiring council candidates show up to share their wisdom on this subject.

What do you think?

August 12, 2012August 12, 2012Behind Closed Doors

CSUF Giving Up on “University Heights” Fiasco?

by admin178 Comments

Poultry — Those birds won’t be coming home to roost. Not if CSUF can help it.

A few years ago Cal State Fullerton decided to get into the housing business for its employees. Why public employees should get any sort of preferential treatment for housing is beyond me, but that’s the society in which we live.

Anyway, the whole thing turned out to be a massive disaster, but not an embarrassment, of course, for such things are not permitted in the lofty ether of educratic circles. FFFF posted about it here, and here.

Recap: the university made a deal with the Elks for land up on Elk Hill and sold a bond to build a bunch of cookie-cutter tract duplexes that were to be sold to professors and administrators, and such like, and subsidized by you and me. The only problem was that an underlying deed restriction required sale to others in the same category, an encumbrance that turned out to be a lot more than a mere nuisance, especially when real estate prices were plummeting all over the place.

The university also had the responsibility to make monthly payments to the Elks for their land, which were to passed on to lucky buyers: a sort of Mello-Roos arrangement, if you will.

CSUF Failure — The eggheads never made it to Egghead Hill

But nobody was buying. So the university opened up residence to any government workers. Still no sales. Finally they just started renting them out to anybody with a cleaning deposit and first month’s rent. Could it get worse?

Looks like it could. Persistent rumors suggest that CSUF wants out of the University heights disaster altogether by completely removing the deed restriction and just selling them off – individually or as a group – no doubt at fire sale prices. They obviously need the cash.

The losses on the original deal would be quietly swept under the rug – no doubt with diminishing fund balances bailing out the catastrophe.

And what for? According to an acquaintance at Western Law School, CSUF wants to buy their facility for $20,000,000, give or take, and metastasize across State College.

It’s pretty clear to me that the CSUF appetite for real-estate wheeling and dealing is insatiable, even as the CSU system teeters on the financial brink. It’s also clear that nobody is going to be held accountable for the University Heights quagmire. F. “Dick” Jones, the City mastermind, is recalled; his buddy, former City manager Chris is fatly pensioned off; Bill Dickerson, the CSUF architect of the fiasco is retired, too. CSUF President, the dopey Milton Gordon? You guessed it. Gone, as well.

Would it be asking too much for our State Assemblyman Chris Norby to demand an inquiry on what unfolded up on Elk Hill?

August 9, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Sharon Quirk’s Problem With The Ladies

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy100 Comments

The Voice of OC(EA) is reporting here about the protest held in front of the Old Courthouse by NOW, the OCEA and others demanding that the State’s Attorney General look into the sexual mistreatment of female County workers at the hands of Carlos Bustamante and his superiors.

You’ll notice that one of the “others” was our own Mayor Sharon Quirk. Well, okay.

AlRincon2-163x300 — GOD MODE ACTIVATED. Lookin’ out for the ladies, oh yeah!

But wait! Almost immediately the name Albert Rincon sprung to mind. Who is Albert Rincon? He is the stand-up Fullerton cop that none of the FPD apologists ever want to talk about; the creep who was accused of serially molesting women in the backseat of his patrol car and who cost the taxpayers of Fullerton $350,000 to settle two of the cases.

Remember that these assaults took place during Quirk’s tenure on the council; and that Rincon, in response to numerous complaints from abused women, was merely required by his superiors to take patdown training classes; and that after the settlement was announced, Rincon was quietly permitted to walk away from the FPD – for entirely different reasons.

And what did the outraged Quirk do to investigate an institution that not only permitted, but virtually encouraged this predator? What did she do to bring justice to all the victims?

What’s that Sharon? We can’t hear you?

Next time she goes looking for female victims to stand up for, I humbly submit Quirk doesn’t have to look quite so far afield.

August 7, 2012Boohooism

Flightless Bird Attempts Take Off

by admin50 Comments

FloryBird — By 8:00 AM the celebration was in full swing…

Well, here ya go: the last gasp of Fullerton’s Yellowing Observers? Could be. As my old friend Don Carlos Marx once said: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

August 3, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Keep The FPD!

by The Fullerton Harpoon279 Comments

The natives are getting restless. Well, some of them, anyhow. It appears that a campaign to keep the Fullerton Police Department is underway. Here’s the Facebook site.

Obviously the cop union has decided to start promoting its own perpetuation since the union would cease to exist if, say, the OC Sheriff Department assumed a police services contract with Fullerton – as Yorba Linda just did. And the residents of Fullerton are paying over 30% more, per capita, for municipal policing than the good folks in the City of Gracious Living.

The union’s intention is no doubt to try to make “local control” a fall 2012 campaign issue – and that’s good. Given the behavior of the FPOA brethren and sistren the past couple of years, and budget-busting cost of the FPD to the taxpayers, reasonable people may well be wondering about alternatives.

A lot of people will be asking where was the “local control” when Veth Mam was framed? Where was it when Albert Rincon was molesting women in his patrol car? Where was it when Kelly Thomas was murdered?

July 31, 2012July 31, 2012Behind Closed Doors

The Revolution Was Televised. But You Were Watching Dancing With the Stars.

by Joe Sipowicz476 Comments

Check this out:

The streets of Bagdad or Kabul? No, this occupying force is all dressed up with no place to go – except the mean streets of Anaheim, where the police department has done just about everything possible to take a bad situation and make it worse.

But what’s with all the paramilitary bullshit? Camouflage? Really? What the Hell have we let out country become? Why did we let a bunch of neo-conservative chickenhawks and cowardly statist liberals turn our nation into a place where the local street cops are parading around with all the latest military hardware Homeland Security could buy for them?

Anaheimistan Lalo Cop Block OCW-thumb-504x505 — Courtesy of the OC Weekly

I don’t know about you, but the thought of a Cicinelli, a Wolfe, a Ramos, or a Hampton decked out like GI Joe, gives me nothing but apprehension. In Fullerton our new council needs to start scrutinizing this militarization of the flatfoots, and PDQ.

July 23, 2012Boohooism

Quirk a No-Show At Anaheim Protest

by The Fullerton Shadow195 Comments

On Sunday various groups, objecting to what looks a lot like an assassination by the cops, and what was a police induced riot later, held a protest at the Anaheim Police Headquarters. My husband and I went down to show some solidarity with our neighbors to the south.

Tony Bushala was there along with some Kelly’s Army folks that I remembered from the Fullerton protests last summer. Even mean, uncaring Republican State Assemblyman Chris Norby was there with his family. But where was our would-be squishy-feely Assembly person for the 65th District, Sharon Quirk? I have no idea.

Quirk — Loretta and I were getting our nails done…

Most liberals used to stand for things like social justice, fighting cop brutality, especially when applied to minority neighborhoods. And this would have been a good opportunity for Quirk (whose sole chance of beating Norby, according to her drum-beaters, is winning over neighborhoods in the western part of Anaheim) to show she cares about the little people who can’t fight back. Of course after the Kelly Thomas thing I’ve come to realize that establishment liberals are mostly just empty talk on the subject of police malfeasance.

Oops.

Anyway, Ms. Quirk, here are some topics about the Anaheim incident you may contemplate at your leisure:

1) Possible assassination by cops of man in front yard

2) Arrest of innocent bystander for no particular reason, charged with obstruction, etc.,etc.

3) Overreaction by cops, contributing to near riot and assault on innocent men, women, and children by rubber bullets and attack dog.

4) Accusations of cops trying to buy potential evidence.

Yes, Sharon, Anaheim is in the district you wish to represent. Time to get out and meet your constituents.

Oh, yeah, about that PORAC endorsement thing…

July 21, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Compulsive Liars Lie

by The Fullerton Harpoon85 Comments

bankhead-crown — The closer you look, the less there is.

They lie about stuff big and small. They just can’t help it. Last year FFFF nailed former councilman Don Bankhead in a bald-faced lie here, when he denied saying Fullerton would be a ghost town without Redevelopment.

Here he is denying to Fullerton Stories that he had pulled papers to run for the city council (after having been recalled just six weeks ago). Possibly Bankhead is unaware that not only does the City Clerk keep track of who has pulled papers, but they list it on their web page.

Of course Bankhead has run so many times that he should know this, unless the teeth are just worn away and the old gears are spinning aimlessly.

July 15, 2012July 15, 2012Behind Closed Doors

It’s Broken. Fix It.

by Joe Sipowicz199 Comments

And let’s start with someone named Dana Fox who supposedly is an attorney for the City of Fullerton – a holdover from the Old Regime of Incompetence and Denial.

Here is a story by the never helpful Lou Ponsi of the OC Register that includes an interview with said Mr. Fox. It’s all about the the lawsuit filed by Ron Thomas against the City of Fullerton for the murder of his son by the Fullerton cops July 5th, 2011.

First Fox pops off about the irrelevance of previous bad behavior by some of Fullerton’s Finest:

Responding to the lawsuit Thomas filed last week, alleging officers’ misconduct in multiple incidents apart from the July 5, 2011 incident involving his son, attorney Dana Fox said many of the allegations deal with “extemporaneous” and “irrelevant” matters.

“All of those other matters have nothing to do with the events of July 5, 2011, and are irrelevant to determine if there is liability, and if so, if there are reasonable compensatory damages that Mr. Thomas is entitled to recover,” Fox said.

I think the history of malfeasance and cover-ups is very much germane to the Culture of Corruption that permeated the FPD. Of course I’m not a lawyer. But Garo Mardirossian is. I do know one thing: I want the history of FPD abuses addressed, admitted to, and corrected, and through a court proceeding, if necessary.

Later on Fox dangles the tasty carrot of an easy settlement:

“As the city and Cathy Thomas were able to do, which is put aside their differences … the city is more than willing to sit down with Mr. Thomas and his attorney,” Fox said. “Otherwise, it will be a lengthy case.”

Differences? Hell, we all saw the video. Who in the hell gave this assclown permission to speak to the media on behalf of the City. Bankhead, Jones, and McPension have been fired by the people of Fullerton. Who is giving this bozo direction in dealing with Ron Thomas, or any other of the long line of plaintiffs against the Fullerton Police Department? Again, I only want a settlement after a court trial, in public, details the facts of the Kelly Thomas murder on top of those the DA will not touch.

Finally, I would like to know who gave Lawyer Fox permission to open his yap to the media in the first place. Was it Old Regime City Manager Joe Felz? Was it Old Regime City Attorney Richard Jones? Was it Mayor Sharon Quirk? Whoever it was, one thing should be made abundantly clear – nobody speaks for the City of Fullerton except the city council; this means no more happy press releases issued by staff, no more government self-promotion, and no more obfuscation meant to protect city employees and meant to sweep embarrassments under the rug.

And let’s hope the new council gets on with the business of clearing out the holdovers from the corrupt, stupid, incompetent, and negligent council majority that preceded them.

July 12, 2012I Aint a Swallerin That

A Close Look at Total Compensation

by Travis293 Comments

Thanks to the City of Bell scandal, local governments are now required to report compensation figures to the state every year. The other day a reader shared that report with us.

This is the first time that we’ve been able to see pension contributions, insurance premiums, overtime, etc. added together for each of the city’s employees, showing us the full value (and cost to the taxpayer) of a job with the city of Fullerton.

The numbers speak for themselves:

[iframe_loader width=’100%’ height=’600′ frameborder=’1′ scrolling=’auto’ src=’https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AiyL667gfsw9dHlZalV5WTQ2R3dqRnFMMEJucEI4LWc&output=html’]

Keep in mind that the city’s pension and retiree medical plans are severely underfunded even with these sizable contributions. That means these cost figures are actually understated.