Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Dear Friends: The issue of Pension Abuse continues to dominate the National, State and local scene. If you haven’t already heard Jack Dean with Pension Tsunami speak on this important topic, hopefully today is a great relaxing day to do just that. Happy August 1st, 2010!
Dear Friends, the video clip below is another in the series in the “must watch” category. Please watch and listen to Leslie Dutton of Full Disclosure Network interview Orange County Supervisor, Tax Fighter and Friend John Moorlach on the topic: Will Unions Destroy California?
The Voice of OC is reporting on a plan by County Board of Supervisors Chair Janet Nguyen to create a redistricting committee of which she will be Chair, and Supervisor Bill Campbell, Vice Chair. The remaining three positions will be filled by appointment by the other Supes.
Apparently this little plan was not well-received by the three dissed supervisors – for obvious reasons. Although Brown Act issues have been raised, the real question seems to be how the Empress thought she’d ever get this ticket validated: the Census won’t be complete and published until 2011 when she won’t even be Chair any more; she is also running for re-election in 2012 and the idea of her manipulating this process to shed unwanted Latino votes from her district must have occurred to just about everybody.
Supervisors Shawn Nelson and John Moorlach proposed the redistricting model pursued in 2000 which seems to have been the only one in recent memory that avoided legal challenge, and in which supervisor’s staff members participated with the public in designing new districts.
This issue isn’t over. Next week the County Counsel Nicholas Chrisos will report back on Brown Act implications and the full Board will take up the matter again.
The north part of Orange County has a notorious lack of parks and open space. And while the County of Orange spends millions on its park system annually, including vast tracts of parkland in south county, and even on the Harbor Patrol in the wealthy enclave of Newport Beach, us taxpayers up north get almost nothing. We have Craig Park and Clark Park which total about 130 acres; meanwhile the County controls around 60,000 acres of park and open space counting the new Irvine Company “gift.” Now that’s just wrong.
Former 4th District Supervisor Chris Norby kept talking about this unfairness, but he never actually accomplished anything to fix the inequity. Norby’s successor Shawn Nelson also made this topic a campaign issue. Will he be able to succeed where his predecessor tapped out? Let’s hope so. The opportunity for additional parkland, and even bike trails in utility rights-of-way are there. It may not be easy, but some of us voters expect elected folks to do the hard stuff.
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The following commentary was sent to us by a friend who is concerned about a questionable Metrolink service expansion from Fullerton to Laguna Niguel.
A fourth track is currently being built at the Fullerton Station, exclusively for Metrolink’s new Orange County service — dubbed Metrolink Service Expansion Program (MSEP) by the folks at OCTA. I believe the concept is flawed from the start, and last I heard it is costing taxpayers at least $417 million.
I’ve asked numerous people at Metrolink how OCTA justifies the demand for this service. Nobody has an answer. Since it will run between Fullerton and Laguna Niguel only, it’s totally useless for commuters needing to get to Los Angeles. In my experience riding Metrolink, there are very few passengers riding such short distances in Orange County. If a person can afford $14 for a round-trip ticket Fullerton to Irvine and back, there’s a very good chance they already have a car and won’t bother to ride the train.
Furthermore, this service won’t appeal to bus riders unless OCTA drastically reduces the fares. That won’t happen… they just raised the fares again on July 1st. OCTA’s pipe dream to operate this service “every 30 minutes” makes a stupid idea all the more ludicrous.
There’s an angle to this which will affect the Fullerton Station (and the surrounding area) in a big way. Since the northbound trains terminate at Fullerton, the station area will become a layover terminal (akin to an airport) for people needing to get to Los Angeles. Suppose somebody takes the wrong northbound, thinking it goes to Los Angeles, and finds themselves in Fullerton having to wait HOURS for the next train to Los Angeles. There will be people sleeping on benches, sleeping on the ground, leaving their trash all over the place, etc, etc. The local restaurants will have to deal with freeloaders using their bathrooms. It just won’t be a good situation.
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.
The much-maligned and much-praised Human Relations Commission is still alive, although life signs may be diminishing.
On Tuesday, as part of its annual budget process, the County Board of Supervisors voted to eliminate an unfilled position in the department, thereby reducing its budget by about $100,ooo.
Without anymore editorial comment I have to note that many of the organizations that sent in their kudos for the good offices of this Commission, consistently refuse to contribute a dime from their own budgets to support it.
Don’t feel so bad. The consultants, lobbyists, con men, and other assorted rip-off artists are pushing the multi-billion high speed rail in other places, too. Here’s an article from the Fresno Bee that tells all about how the local gentry are trying to grab their share of the HSR gravy that they think will be a big deal for the raisin capital of the state.
The common denominator, of course, is Anaheim’s termed-out Mayor-For-Hire, the irrepressible Curt Pringle who figures to make big bucks as a “consultant” for this boondoggle when his days as a conflicted politician are over. The Fresno crowd wined and dined hizzoner and he was clearly impressed with the show of unanimity – much more than he’s getting down south these days. He even promised them a 2012 start for the project.
Come December Pringle will be out of office, and will no longer be able to pull the strings at OCTA either, although it sure looks like he’s getting his ducks in a row, puppet-wise there and at Anaheim’s City Hall.
By Friend Helen Logan.
Our $300,000 tax dollars a year working hard for us?
I found this article in the PR Newswire, United Business Media dated 17th June 2010.
“This was an invaluable opportunity for our mediators to experience the common physical and emotional challenges that are a part of the aging process,” said Mike Finkle, Human Relations Specialist for OC Human Relations. “For awhile, our mediators were able to, nearly literally, ‘take a walk in the shoes’ of seniors and others who live with such challenges every day.
To simulate experiencing the difficulties of living with arthritis, for example, program participants were asked to don heavy, clumsy gloves and then button their shirts or open medication bottles and handle small pills. Participants also put popcorn in their shoes and walked around to simulate the feeling of painful joints.”
The Orange County Human Relations Commission, a dinosaur agency foisted upon tax payers for thirty years, again shows how negligible its services are to our community.
Orange County Human Relations Specialist Mike Finkle, an employee of this commission, earns his tax dollar subsidized paycheck by walking around a room with popcorn in his shoes and attempting to button his shirt and open pill bottles while wearing, thick, clumsy gloves.
When will our county government leaders wise up to this sham agency and pull the plug on funding this silly tax dollar subsidized commission and its executive director who pulls down a six figure salary.
Our economic crisis that experts predict will be a double-dip recession, forces our county government to cut needed police and fire protection to Orange County’s residents. Yet, our county’s board of supervisors is afraid to stop funding this piece of fluff called the Orange County Human Relations Commission.
I believe most will agree with me when I say I would rather have more police or fire protection in Orange County than a person walking around with popcorn in his shoes who puts on thick, clumsy gloves to button his shirt.
For our county board of supervisors to have credibility with the voters, they must sensibly act and trim the real fat from government by cutting funding to the Orange County Human Relations Commission.
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.