MSM Falls on Face Archives - Page 7 of 9 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

July 17, 2010July 17, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Kiducrats Love to Pat Selves on Back

One of our observant friends passed along this iridescent pearl from Rob Reiner’s under scrutinized Tax and Redistribute OC Children and Families Commission:

July 15, 2010

The Children and Families Commission of Orange County was awarded the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). This achievement is the highest form of recognition among government finance and is given annually to promote high quality finance reporting in the public sector. More than 3,500 governments participate in this program each year.

This self-congratulatory item was no doubt scribbled by Chief Commission Wordsmith and $200 an hour toothbrush hander outer, Matthew J. Cunningham, and is typical of government accountants passing out accolades to each other.

Too bad nobody has done a real external performance audit, including investigating how exorbitant PR and lobbying contracts are being handed out to Commission member Bill Campbell’s political running buddies like Curt Pringle and Cunningham himself.

Well, not to worry. Something tells me that come 2010 Fringie Award time we’ll be recognizing the Commission with our own special brand of recognition.

July 12, 2010July 11, 2010Dead heads

Who Should Pay To Clean Up The Mess in Downtown Fullerton?

by admin10 Comments

hooligan — Welcome to Downtown Fullerton

Surely not the businesses that don’t sell booze.

Last year a few downtown Fullerton property and business owners lobbied the City Council to impose an tax assessment on downtown Fullerton. The purpose of this “Business Improvement District” was to raise money to clean up the mess introduced into Downtown by the numerous booze joints and illegal dance clubs.

The first step was predictable: hire yourself a “consultant” who will tell you what you want to hear. But the price tag was too steep and the promoters couldn’t get a clear majority of the Council to go along.

But apparently now Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva has changed her mind about hiring a consultant to meet and greet and spread the BID propaganda.

The direction here is all too clear: build up some momentum toward the idea and then rely on the self-interested parties to vote their interest and hope that the other property owners don’t catch on.

Well I think this stinks. Why should all the downtown property owners pay to fix the problems caused by the bar owners and their out-of-control customers, not to mention a City policy that has enabled all these problems? And let’s not forget – former police chief and council candidate Patrick McKinley who liked to look the other way.

And why should the taxpayers keep footing the bill?

July 2, 2010July 2, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies & The Case of the Great Disappearing Agenda Item

by Grover Cleveland12 Comments

A quick perusal of the OC Children and Families Commission meeting for July 7, 2010 might be a bit misleading. Item six talks about a Strategic Communications Work Program and lists the “consultants” – really lobbyists and promoters whom we’ve seen before – Pringle and Associates, and O’ Haren, and the comically named White House Writers Group, that are lining up to line their pockets at the expense of hungry kids.

However, it’s not until you actually look at the agenda item staff report that you see our old friend Matthew Cunningham from Suite C described. Hiding something? The budget item is for “on call” services for a total of $30,000. I’m not sure what on call services amount to, but clearly Cunningham is still to be employed doing whatever it is he does for the Rob Reiner Tax and Redistribute Commission at the princely rate of $200 an hour.

The somewhat ambiguous phrase “a no-cost extension will be executed, and as necessary, modifications within the contract and budget authority” is appended. Apparently “Final” FY 2010-2011 budget actions take place in October.

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.

“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, 2010Dead heads

The Voice of OCEA Provides Forum For – OCEA

by Mr. Peabody3 Comments

Bernardino-2-300x234 — Bloggers of the world arise...

If you needed any more evidence of the evident symbiosis between the The Voice of OC and it’s paymaster, Nick “Bullhorn” Berardino of the OCEA union you need look no farther this blog post by Norberto Santa. Please notice that 30 of the 31 comments are just pro-union/OCEA propaganda. 30 of 31.

SantanaHeadShot — Aw, c'mon Norberto, nobody's buying that...

Could Berardino be instructing his troops to frequent the union-sponsored blog just to keep the traffic up? Why not? It’s all one big, happy family, and The Voice never claimed to be objective – just non-profit.

June 17, 2010Harry Sidhu

The Voice of OCEA Welcomes Federal Political Crimes Unit

by Mr. Peabody5 Comments

In a post today (or was it yesterday? Aw, who the hell cares?) the Voice of the County Public Employee Union passed along a story they got from the LA Times (no link thanks, you punks).

Of course they are doing it for the wrong reason. Their story is all about how their paymaster Nick Berardino was made to look like a chimpanzee for publicly attacking Webster Guillory and getting dressed down by the County CEO. The implication is clear enough: Rackaukas won’t investigate criminal wrongdoing by politicians. True enough. But why haven’t we heard a single word from the Voice of OCEA about Democrat Tom Daly hiring friends and the relatives of campaign contributors; about County staff withholding critical information from the BOS regarding the purchase of a derelict building on Civic Center Drive; about the Children and Families Commission hiring political hacks for bloated PR and lobbying contracts; about a political operative getting $48,000 to “study” a sports hall of fame; about a candidate for supervisor who committed voter fraud by perjuring himself twice on official documents?

Well, you get the point.

June 14, 2010June 14, 2010MSM Falls on Face

Observer Smacked Down

by Travis Kiger9 Comments

yellowsub-500x362 — Nobody told us about the depth charges.

Previously we noted the Fullerton Observer’s legal maneuvering in an attempt to add itself to the city payroll. Last week we found out that Sharon Kennedy’s court filing had been met with objections by both the Orange County Register and the City of Fullerton.

The City’s objection is based on the same points we brought up a few weeks ago – namely, the Observer is not printed within the city, it is not printed weekly and it doesn’t have a bona fide list of paying subscribers as required by law. That’s three strikes for the Observer.

City of Fullerton’s Objection

The city calls into question Sharon Kennedy’s own filing, where we learn that the Observer boasts a whopping 598 paid subscribers and a monthly online distribution that rivals FFFF’s daily hits.

Next we have an objection filed by OC Register attorneys, which finds fault with the notice that Kennedy filed for her own hearing. The Register sums up the problem by saying “It is ironic that the Petitioner [Fullerton Observer] is seeking to publish important legal notices, yet cannot even publish its own Notice correctly.”

OC Register’s Objection

Kennedy pushed out her hearing to the end of July. I suspect she will drop it all together rather than suffer further embarrassment.

Bottom line: Kennedy’s dying cause here is to get the Fullerton Observer onto the city payroll. We’ve already demonstrated the paper’s inability to criticize city staff, engage in any kind of investigative journalism within city hall or participate objective reporting all while claiming that it is a legitimate newspaper. It’s hard to imagine any of these conditions improving should Kennedy’s paper wind up on the taxpayer’s dole.

June 10, 2010June 22, 2010MSM Falls on Face

Norberto Talks About the Voice

by admin6 Comments

We don’t sell advertising because of conflict issues… instead we take money from Nick Berardino and the OCEA.

“There is no fluff. We’re very very focused on ‘what is the product that we offer?'”

Video courtesy of Barbara’s Bits.

June 9, 2010June 9, 2010Harry Sidhu

And Now For Some Real Comic Relief

by Joe Sipowicz12 Comments

The Voice of OCEA, Norberto Santa penned this gem yesterday about a gathering of useless RINOs, government parasites and supposed “insiders.” The thrust of the story is that these creeps predicted a Sidhu victory. Why?

Just check out this image borrowed from The Voice of OCEA site:

Yep, there’s the useless pension spiker Bill Campbell on the left standing next to another useless pension spiker who actually did it twice, the pathetic Tom Wilson, former Supervisor of the 5th District.

Good God! What a collection of RINOs and repuglicans of the worst kind: the ones who champion Redevelopment, and who use other tools like Matthew J. Cunningham to pitch the delusion that discretionary land use entitlements are some sort of “property right.” Hey there’s Lucy Dunn who backed the Hairball, too.

Of course Campbell supported Sidhu as part of his and John Lewis’s master plan to get rid of both Nelson and Hairball.

Apparently Curt Pringle, Anaheim’s sleazy Mayor for Sale was hand to prop up his tottering boy Sidhu; but talk about too little, too late! Pringle sure took it on the chops yesterday, and making fun of the party chairman Scott baugh ain’t gonna win him any Brownie points for that High Speed Rail merit badge he’s been working on for so many years.

Of course for Santana, a last minute, pro-Sidhu piece tinged with a little gratuitous anti-Nelson shit is par for the course. Poor little Norberto! He wants people to think he’s a real journalist instead of what he really is: a toady to a union boss with no reportorial integrity or scruples.

June 2, 2010Fullerton City Council

Let Me Put This In Recognizable Terms

by Mr. Peabody16 Comments

John Lewis told me to move — You're right Julie, these people are suckers

I first became dimly aware of Fullerton politics back in 1993 when I saw a performance of then councilwoman Julie Sa. Sa was incapable of communicating in English, understood nothing, and was completely at the mercy of the City Manager, Jim Armstrong. The worst part of her reign of error was the evident truth that she was just using the office to promote herself.

In 2000 she was busted for not living in Fullerton and she gave up on running for third time. Fullerton had set the bar so low that any idiot with money could get over it. But at least Sa was gone.

So why am I bringing up Sa now? Because those folks who remember Sa have a useful frame of reference to assess the potential of one Harry Sidhu, who wants to be our Supervisor.

Like Sa, Sidhu doesn’t live in the jurisdiction he wants to represent. Sidhu cannot communicate his thoughts to his would-be constituents in English. Although I presume he can read English better than he can speak it, his grasp of simple grammar doesn’t portend a great understanding of the language. His well-documented manglings of simple statements has been nothing less than embarrassing – not for him, he doesn’t seem to possess the faculty of shame – but for those of us who have been subjected to it. His public admission that he didn’t know the impact of defined benefits was pitiful; his statement that he wasn’t taking union money was the closest thing to a million dollar lie that you will ever witness.

Sidhu’s self-interested supporters just love to accuse his critics of racism; nuh uh. Like Sa, Sidhu is an immigrant who made some money in the fast food business – more power to ’em (although Sa went bankrupt). But this economic success in no way qualifies Sidhu to run for elective office, and it certainly doesn’t make him immune from honest assessment of his abilities – or lack of same.

In 1992 the unknown Julie Sa ran for Fullerton council by sending out a bunch of slick, well designed mailings that masked the fact that she was utterly unqualified for any public office; and her subsequent performance proved this assessment true. In 2010 Harry Sidhu is running a vicious and hollow campaign lubricated with a million dollars of union money to in an office that he is patently unfit to hold.

Let’s not make that mistake again.