Jennifer Fitzgerald Archives - Page 12 of 23 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 15, 2019Ahmad Zahra

Will Ahmad Zahra Hold Firm?

AhmadZahra

Back in December, in his first at-bat, Ahmad Zahra surprised me by speaking of the Constitution and transparency whilst simultaneously voting against FitzSilva in their attempt to appoint Jan Flory to Council. Zahra was on fire with gems such as:

“My decision is going to be contingent upon us making sure that the appointment process is fair and open and transparent. So until we can make that decision, I don’t see how we should take votes away from people.

“The question is, is there a fairer and open and more transparent process than voting itself? Can we come up with that? Can we come up with something better than what the Constitution come up with? That is my question for the council. I’m leaving my decision until I hear other council members.”

Tonight we get to find out if Zahra is a man of principle standing by his own talking points at the last meeting or if that was all simply a clever flex to show who has the real authority on this issue in an effort to get his preferred pick onto council.

For those new to the story here’s the gist as I understand it —

Jesus Silva wanted incumbency in 2022 and thus opted to run for the District 3 seat on council.

Council then chose to change the law ON ELECTION DAY in the case Silva beat Sebourn in order to limit the options for voters.

Silva took home the ring on election day and in winning he vacated his at-large seat which runs until 2020.

Then in December the dynamic duo of Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jesus Silva testily complained that they needed Ahmad to go along to get along in order for them to get what they wanted. Zahra didn’t go along which brings us to today.

Tonight we’ll watch as FitzSilva likely tries to lay it on thick and blame Ahmad for the cost of the election should he choose transparency and an election (as he did back in December). This is posturing bollocks but I’m wondering if he’ll stand firm. Both he and our residents need to know that the fault here lies partially with Silva for running, partially with council for changing the city ordinance, ON ELECTION DAY, to facilitate this choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, but really the fault lies with our City Attorney The Other Dick Jones™ for offering terrible advice and putting us in this situation in the first place. Zahra is blameless here on the issue of cost should he choose openness and transparency by way of a special election.

dick-jones

Prepare for the same shenanigans with FitzSilva promising a fictionally transparent process in this city which is allergic to the very premise of transparency. The same transparency which had Jan Flory meeting with at least 2 (if not 3) current council members and bringing a cabal of people to lobby for her to be appointed without the citizenry any the wiser. THAT type of so-called transparency should be rejected and here’s hoping that Councilman Zahra continues to impress the way he did during at his last at-bat.

December 20, 2018Ahmad Zahra

Ahmad Zahra 1, FitzSilva 0

by Joshua21 Comments

AhmadZahra

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…)

December 18, 2018Ahmad Zahra

Is the Flory Rumor True?

by Joshua15 Comments

FergusonDeadWrong-Flory — Except we do, and our own budgets prove it.

Rumor has it that former councilwoman Jan Flory is lobbying to become the appointee to our City Council tonight and has already secured both Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jesus Silva’s votes. This is the same Jan Flory who voted, with Jennifer Fitzgerald and Doug Chaffee, on multiple unbalanced budgets and who helped lead us into our structural deficit. The same Jan Flory who puts City Staff above the very citizens they’re supposed to work for and represent.

Want to know why our roads suck so bad? Blame Jan Flory and her cohorts who think bureaucracy is the true heart of Fullerton. Want to know why Downtown is such a train-wreck? Yeaup. Same cabal of incompetence.

If the council votes to appoint somebody the voting members will own every vote put forward by the new council member. In effect, if they vote for somebody like Jan Flory, who helped sink our budget for years, they will be responsible for both their own votes on the budget (and similar items) as well as hers.

Appointing somebody is bad. Letting Jesus Silva vote on an appointment to the very seat he himself vacated is worse. Having council vote to give themselves the bulletproof majority needed to walk all over the people of Fullerton is downright despicable.

The people should really have a say who in represents them and voting to appoint somebody, especially somebody who will raise our taxes, is the essence of being anti-democratic. Our republic was literally founded against the premise of taxation without representation.

December 17, 2018December 17, 2018About Us

Funeral for Fullerton’s GOP on Tuesday

by Joshua5 Comments

GOP-death-feature-image-4

There has been a lot of talk lately about the problems, changing issues and demographic shifts which have basically killed the CA and OC (R) parties. We’re yet to really see anybody do a post-mortem on Fullerton so here I am to explain why Fullerton is going to get higher taxes and no accountability in the days to come using just our recent past.

While Gil Cisneros bought and took a long held (R) Congressional seat and Doug Chaffee bought and flipped a (R) Supervisor’s seat, the shift in parties in Fullerton is more nuanced and problematic.

Fullerton’s (R)s aren’t in demise because Silva beat Sebourn – Fullerton completely lost their (R) bonafides when Jennifer Fitzgerald joined our council.

Fullerton, for the last 6 years, had a 3-2 (R) majority on council. You wouldn’t know it, because despite being a (R) and a darling of the (R) power brokers in OC politics such as Ed Royce, Shawn Nelson and the rest, she spent more time voting to give the 2 (D)s a majority on council than standing behind her own talking points and election material. Cronyism? She’d vote for it. Non-competitive contracts? Yeaup. Huge pay and benefit giveaways to our heroes? Obviously. There rarely seemed to be an issue on the (R) platform she wouldn’t throw to the wolves. While this isn’t new for Fullerton (R)s, per se, Fitzgerald encapsulates everything that has cost the (R)s so dearly. Sure, she made some noise on SB54 that comes out of the quasi-GOP handbook but that wasn’t a policy issue that impacted Fullerton so much as a soapbox to pretend she has some sort of principles.

Over the years Jennifer Fitzgerald was always ready to vote with Doug Chaffee and especially Jan Flory in order to shaft taxpayers and give government employees, employees with no accountability or real oversight, more and more and more while our services dwindled and our city suffered.

I can’t even count the times that fellow (R)s Bruce Whitaker and Greg Sebourn were on the opposite side of the vote from Fitzgerald.

When she ran in 2012 she ran on ending pension spiking and all of the things that (R)s claim to care about and then she spent 4 years betraying her entire campaign website. Yet this isn’t just a post-mortem of Fitzgerald’s current time on council. This is one of the OCGOP and Fullerton (R)s.

Her abysmal record should have sent her packing in 2016 but instead the OC GOP stood strong behind her with Royce, Nelson and the rest handing her endorsements and support which helped her secure more funding and the W. All this in spite of flat out lying about Fullerton’s “Balanced Budget”.

When your party has no ideology and will support cronies for the sake of cronyism you become nearly indistinguishable from the opposition – especially when you vote with them the majority of the time.

It was no surprise that Jesus Silva beat Greg Sebourn in Fullerton’s 3rd District. I like Greg and I think he is a better choice for council but he isn’t on the payroll of a lobbying firm and doesn’t seem to play the crony game and therefore the OC GOP had little use for him and let him twist in the wind. Bruce Whitaker was the obvious choice for LA/OC/SB (R)s to send to Sacramento in the Newman Recall and yet they backed the empty suit that is Ling Ling Chang. All of these problems are the makings of the blind allegiance of (R) voters to their party elders who do nothing but sell them out.

Fullerton has real problems which require real solutions. Our budgets are getting worse and our services are getting sparser. By way of example, we don’t have the staffing to read water meters within the required 60 day window of billing cycles so people are being overcharged for water and there seems to be no recourse. Our parks are falling apart unless we manage to secure state grants to fix them and our roads continue to be in terrible shape. The list of issues that are going to require adult math and belt tightening, especially in regards to Police and Fire, is long. (more…)

December 13, 2018December 13, 2018Ahmad Zahra

A New Council Member on Tuesday?

by Joshua18 Comments

18Dec2018 Council Meeting

The agenda is online (HERE) for next Tuesday’s council meeting and the one major item of note, item #3, is the possible appointment of a council member to fill out the remainder of Jesus Silva’s abandoned at-large seat.

Item 3 States:

3. On December 4, 2018, Council Member Silva was sworn in as the District 3 City Council Member. This created a mid-term vacancy in Council Member Silva’s prior at-large City Council seat which expires in December 2020 and requires the City Council to consider the legally available alternatives for filling the vacancy.

Recommendation by the City Clerk’s Office:

Appoint a qualified individual to the fill the vacancy through the remainder of the term, either through direct appointment or following a process for applications and / or interviews and / or other steps as determined by City Council.
Direct Staff to prepare resolutions to call a special election to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the term for consideration at the next City Council meeting.
Continue discussion to the January 15, 2019 City Council meeting.

This agenda item, according to City Manager Domer, was written intentionally vaguely so that council can do whatever they want on Tuesday. If they want to just appoint somebody on Tuesday, solidifying the premise that they’ve already been wheeling and dealing behind closed doors, then they can appoint whomever they want. If they want to take a different path, such as an election, they can direct staff to start that process as well.

This item will be somewhat fun to watch because of how it played out up to this point. It only matters because Silva beat Sebourn. As for the ability to appoint a crony to fill out Silva’s seat, that was passed 3-1-1 with 2 (R)s swinging into the Yes column on 16 October 2018 and again 3-1-1 with Fitzgerald ($R), Whitaker (R) and Silva (D) voting for this move on 06 November (election day) 2018.

Direct Appoint Council Vote

If another liberal (D) ends up on council after Tuesday, the (R)s in Fullerton will have nobody to blame but their own council majority. A council majority that this vote could cost them.

UPDATED: Corrected the 06 November vote. A previous version claimed it was 5-0 when it was the same 3-1-1 as the 16 Oct meeting.

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018Ahmad Zahra

A New-ish Council This Way Comes

by Joshua4 Comments

Backroom-Deal

Tonight Doug Chaffee and Greg Sebourn leave the Fullerton City Council and Ahmad Zahra gets sworn in to be the first to represent District 5 on the dais. This wouldn’t be Fullerton if that’s all that was happening tonight – a simple transition of (some) power – but true to form our current Mayor (for a few more hours), Doug Chaffee, opted to ram a pet project down the council’s throat one last time. An unsolicited bid to turn the parking lot used for Train Days into a “boutique” hotel without the pesky bother of worrying about competition or opening a bid process. He wants this to happen now, NOW, NOW! because… reasons. It’s such a great idea that Chaffee doesn’t trust the council to pick it up without him which means he either thinks they’re too stupid to know a good thing when they see it or it’s not… wait for it… a good thing.

Ah the smell of cronyism.

While we’ll eventually get to say goodbye to a few members and add Ahmad which should be the only focus tonight, first we have to see if Jesus has been bought off and has changed his tune on competition. A tune that he sung only 2 weeks ago, mind you.

After that first crony, I mean agenda, item has been dealt with the council will move on to the actual (partial) transition of power.

For those not keeping track here’s what will happen tonight:

Jesus Silva moves from at-large to the District 3 representative. This will leave his at-large seat open until council decides to fill it or holds a special election.

Bruce Whitaker and Jennifer Fitzgerald will stay status quo.

After tonight we’ll also have a new Mayor (likely Silva) and a new Mayor Pro-Tem (likely Fitzgerald). As for the empty seat – don’t forget to comment on who you think will be the appointed council member in our Wheel of Replacement Candidates thread.

We doubt there will be any surprises tonight but we’ll keep you posted as always friends.

November 30, 2018Behind Closed Doors

Chaffee’s Last Crony Grasp on Council

by Joshua8 Comments

Just when I was preparing to see a new chapter of shenanigans in Fullerton coming from our new council, instead from the realm of ARE YOU F^&$&ING KIDDING ME comes Doug Chaffee trying to slap Fullerton with one more bit of cronyism before he leaves to play at the county level.

Less than two short weeks ago the council voted, 3-2 (Sebourn, Silva & Whitaker vs Fitzgerald & Chaffee) against an unsolicited bid for a hotel on the parking lot near the train station at Santa Fe and Ponoma. Cooler heads prevailed and a more open, transparent and honest process was suggested.

Now Chaffee, who per the City Manager agendized this item, wants to crush that transparency and openness in his last meeting this coming Tuesday. To make matters more unpalatable the council/staff arranged the agenda to swear in our new council member (Zahra) and say goodbye to the ones leaving (Sebourn & Chaffee) AFTER they vote again on this hotel nonsense. For the uninitiated there is a vendor who wants to build a hotel and Fitzgerald and Chaffee want to hand it off to them without opening a bid process to interested parties. It’s cronyism and backroom dealing 101.

Agenda-NewCouncilHotel

This is truly a slap in the face to both Ahmad Zahra and District 5 as this new development would be in their neighborhood and the first District 5 candidate will have no say on it because the agenda lets Zahra join council mere moments AFTER this hotel’s fate is already decided.

This coming back this quickly means one thing and one thing only – somebody got to Silva* as he’s the likely weak link on this issue.

For reference here’s what Silva said about the ENA at the last meeting at approximately the 3:30:12 mark:

“I think an RFP, or a bidding, would help the city I think, would help us get the best possible product. Competition drives, brings out the best in you. And I think having that can bring out the best in the current applicant and someone else.”

We’ll see if Silva still believes this on Tuesday or if all of the sudden competition is less important than craven cronyism. Even if it’s the case that Silva changed his mind, does he really think so little of fellow Democrat Ahmad Zahra that he’ll prevent him from voting on an issue that residents of District 5 have officially elected him to decide on?

This is just dumb, unnecessary, and silly. One can’t help but wonder if this is really Doug Chaffee being that tone deaf or if it’s really retribution for Ahmad Zahra winning a seat his wife coveted in the first place.

Because, and let’s be honest, if Paulette Marshall Chaffee won this election, Doug wouldn’t be preventing her from voting on Tuesday.

cronyism-kills

*it’s possible that Whitaker or Sebourn were flipped but they had stronger arguments than Silva and are more ideologically opposed to cronyism.

September 17, 2018September 18, 2018Behind Closed Doors

City Lies While Attempting Hostile Takeover of Library

by Joshua10 Comments

Odds are that the Fullerton City Council will vote tonight to fire the Library Board and replace it with themselves in a cynical attempt to steal property to offset some Police & Fire Pensions. Fitzgerald wants to do it, Chaffee wants to do it and it likely won’t take much effort to convince Silva to do it.

Why? Because the city needs to pad the budget to fill holes left by Public Safety Pensions and totally predictable but avoided CALPers issues.

Thus the City is planning, under Ken Domer’s guidance, to take property donated to the library to plug General Fund budget holes.

Donated. As in stealing charity. Love Fullerton, indeed.

This is the brainchild of Councilwoman Fitzgerald despite her original campaign rhetoric about libraries being a “core service”. I guess we can just add this to the long list of lies Jennifer Fitzgerald said to get elected. We’ll put this one right up there with her promise not to take a salary and to desire to implement zero based budgeting.

Oops. Fooled you!

(more…)

August 28, 2018Bad Cops

City Manager Ken Domer Lies By Omission

by Joshua12 Comments

For those of you playing along at home we know that two of Fullerton’s Finest (Chief Hendricks & Captain Oliveras) have been put on a paid stay-cation (costing us approximately $1,955/day) for their conduct at a Lady Antebellum concert in Irvine. With City Manager Ken Domer putting Captain Bob Dunn in charge of FPD we are now being run by… Dunn & Domer.

It’s too bad this isn’t a comedy. Instead we’re finding ourselves in more typical Fullerton drama that a little transparency might have avoided. Alas instead of openness and honesty City Manager Ken Domer couldn’t be bothered to let anybody outside of the police department know what was happening in our town at the time, the next day or even the day after that.

In fact per a statement to the OC Register by Jennifer Fitzgerald it took Domer at least 3 days to inform his employers (City Council) of any details (if they have gotten any) and it has taken him 4 days to bother to release information to our fair city by way of a press release. It’s almost like he doesn’t know who he works for anymore.

Fullerton Councilwoman Jennifer Fitzgerald said she knows little about the incident, but “what I know of Chief Hendricks and Captain Oliveras is that they are fantastic guys and fantastic public servants and I look forward to the investigation being complete.”

Let us peruse this fascinating bit of PR garbage:

Hendricks Oliveras Press Release

That’s quite a few words to say almost nothing of substance. What happened? How long is the leave? Was it criminal? Who’s investigating the case?

The City will not provide further information at this time, out of respect for the integrity of the ongoing investigations.

In other words “F U. You don’t have a right to know anything at all because integrity of an ongoing case”.

Nothing to See Here

Except no.

We already know from an email from the City of Irvine there is plenty to see here and we deserve details. I’m tired of this mentality that it’s okay to publicly and loudly (Instgram?!) shame societal nobodies when they screw up but when our overlords do the same all of the sudden we need to worry about “integrity” and bury the details behind a wall of BS.

The first bit of BS that we need to knock down here is that this isn’t just some boilerplate investigation that “related entirely to allegations of off-duty conduct”.

This is an allegation of battery against an EMT. By possibly armed off-duty officers. The alleged battery alone falls under CA Penal Code 243(c)(1) unless the injury was serious and then it elevates.

(c) (1) When a battery is committed against a[n][…] emergency medical technician […] engaged in the performance of his or her duties, whether on or off duty, […] and an injury is inflicted on that victim, the battery is punishable by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars ($2,000), by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment, or by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for 16 months, or two or three years.

Next we have to ask who will oversee this investigation? Why were no arrests made for this alleged battery?

How is the District Attorney involved? Which internal investigator are we planning to hire? Is Irvine being allowed to investigate this case?

These are all pertinent questions especially considering the incestuous relationships we have with other departments. Remember that Irvine’s Chief of Police, Mike Hamel, is married to Katherine Hamel who herself is a Lieutenant under Captain Oliveras and Chief Hendricks.

Is Irvine’s Chief Hamel really going to investigate his wife’s boss? Is this why no arrests were made?

Regarding the “ongoing investigation” angle – that’s the same claptrap the city is still throwing at us over the Joe Felz accident and cover-up that happened 657 days ago. #SorryNotSorry that we can’t trust you and your comrades in obfuscation in the City Attorney’s office to come clean Mr. Domer.

If Fullerton’s City Manager Ken Domer really cared about transparency and “integrity” he wouldn’t hide behind subterfuge and lies of omission. He would tell we the citizenry about what is happening, how it is happening and how we can be assured that another Danny Hughes Felzian cover-up isn’t taking place in our city.

Domer would do well to read his own interview with the OC Register when he said;

You cannot operate local government without partnerships, without collaboration, without openness, transparency.

Ken Domer — (Photo by Brian Whitehead, Orange County Register/SCNG)

I’ll be on with John & Ken during the 3pm hour (1500) discussing this issue. You can listen live on KFI’s website or on your radio at AM640.

January 13, 2018July 28, 2019Arts & Architecture

A Trip Up and Down Memory Lane…AKA The Pine Wood Stairs.

by Mr. Peabody27 Comments

“Pine Wood Stairs” looked a lot better in concept than in reality…

Back in May, FFFF documented the lamentable construction disaster of the Pinewood Stairs, a $1.6 million boondoggle created by City staff, whose construction defects were so bad and so plentiful that a reasonable person might even inquire about how we could get our money back. In fact, City Councilman Sebourn mumbled something about getting our money back, then said he was just kidding. Bruce Whitaker said nothing at all. On Facebook City Hall bureaucracy advocate Gretchen Cox cooked up a story about some alleged City “report” that exonerated all concerned.

Nine months have passed and I thought it might be interesting to revisit the site of the fiasco and share a visual tour to take another look.

Here’s a typical example of a project with nobody in charge and nobody who knows what they’re doing.

The caisson footings with the wood posts are almost all cracked; some of the posts aren’t even vertical. Some of the caissons are out of plumb, too.

Aspects of the construction reveal building that was cobbled together to make the contraption fit together.

Now, as then, the wooden rails are extremely rough and splintiferous.

The lack of quality workmanship, structural and cosmetic remains in evidence. And those fraying cable ends? Why, they’ve been taped! Of course the tape is falling off.

Simple things – like removing the cardboard tube form from the caissons seem to have eluded the City’s crack inspection team. Crack. Get it?

Basic design oversight problems were jerryrigged and never addressed properly at all.

Weird features that are nothing but potential for risk management headaches and taxpayer payouts are still much in evidence – like this trip hazard. Shrug, indeed.

Loose cables. Down the hill goes the toddler.

As usual, maintenance of public property remains a challenge for the City. Loose ends are not their specialty.

How hard is it to keep a tree alive? Don’t bother asking. You won’t get an answer.

The effects of the inevitable pedestrian shortcuts betray both design and maintenance failure. It looked better on paper.

We have been assured by people who don’t know what they are talking about that everything was just grand about this grand failure; but, the evidence did and still does point to the exact opposite: a project that suffered from fundamental design shortcomings, incompetent and careless construction, a construction manager whose only function seems to have been to cash our check, and inspectors who were (and probably still are) a disgrace to their profession.

As you can see driving up Harbor, the City is now building its splendid new entry to the park – including a bridge – costing millions and accomplishing nothing but wasting park construction resources. Apart from the obvious uselessness of the project I have to wonder if it will suffer from the same dereliction that informs the so-called “Pinewood Stairs.” Nothing leads me to hope for the contrary.