Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Our uninformed (and often uniformed) critics are always saying nobody reads our humble blog. Well, somebody in City Hall does. Please note the “after” images of two construction sites we identified that had illegally blocked public sidewalks. And not a whimper from anybody in authority.
Now that’s better.
An alert Friend sent in this image of a guy recognized as Orange County District Attorney investigator, Abraham Santos, at the scene of the Memorial Joe Felz Crash Site. Well, now we know that the DA is indeed involved in this mess. What sort of crime he might be investigating and how he is investigating it, are far from clear. No one was ever arrested, or charged. We aren’t even sure if anybody got a traffic citation for reckless driving. Could the DA be investigating the behavior of the Fullerton cops? For some reason that idea provides no consolation. But the sooner the deal is whitewashed, the sooner we can get the video recordings made by the cop cams.
Also please note that Sappy McTree has been removed.
Poor Sappy McTree. So young. So promising! Thy youthful branches had hardly begun their embrace of the sky; thy roots had hardly delved into Fullerton’s loamy fundament.
Thou verdant thing, thou honorable creature of God. Thou hast passed in the mere twinkling of an eye on a moon-dark night.
We miss thee, O Sappy.
We’ve all seen Fullerton cops texting on the job – on motorcyles, in patrol cars, and at Starbucks, when in fact they are supposed to be protecting us from evil, hippy dope-smokers.
But wait a sec! What’s this? Chief Danny texting during a Fullerton Council meeting?!
Well, I guess FPD “Detective” Ron Bair will soon be making another “Brown Act” record request!
In a campaign that has been long on issues and short on joy, I thought it would be hopeful to post a couple of the sweetest images I have seen in this campaign.
Travis’ little girl, Selah, exalting in unbridled joy at the sight of her dada on a door hanger:
and Sean Paden’s beautiful daughter sitting next to her mommy and taking a picture of her daddy making a speech. Sean is a winner no matter what happens in this election.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: This post was published a little over a year ago. The title, “Just A Matter of Time” was spot on; another example of what happens when city funding for things like trees and such get diverted to things like public employee pensions and the obscene debts that they cause:
Original Post, September 8, 2010:
In allegedly tree-friendly Fullerton, trees are more a liability than an asset when the city has no funds, or no inclination to prune the trees. Let’s consider the case of Valencia Dr. (Redevelopment area, of course) between Harbor Blvd. and Highland Ave., where the residents of this block, which features 70 year old jacaranda trees have recently witnessed a near fatal accident when a huge limb broke off and almost squashed an innocent woman and her two kids while she was driving down the street.
Unfortunately for barrio residents and motorists, there’s no money in the Redevelopment budget to trim the trees after the Agency blew its wad buying up all the low income apartments just 2 blocks to the west. And similarly, the City blew its wad on its public employee retirement plan that pays guys like Fullerton City Council candidate Pat McKinley and former disastrous Planning Director, F. Paul Dudley, over a hundred thousand bucks per year just to stay at home and watch “As the World Turns” and “ALF” reruns.
It’s only a matter of time before both the jacaranda trees along Valencia and the public employee’s retirement fund comes smashing down causing loss of life, liberty and the of pursuit happiness.
Remember the hilarious “meandering” sidewalks created by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency in downtown?
Here’s the encore. Be careful walking down this public sidewalk in front of the city-owned Costco parking lot.
This is a recollection of the day when 11 Fullerton PD units saved us from a plastic gunfight.
We were living on the North side of Dorothy Lane at this time. I would not have allowed this if I were home, but my son Riley and his three buddies had an Airsoft war in the front yard. There was one kid with an automatic Airsoft rifle and the other 3 had cheesy plastic handguns with orange tips.
My very cool neighbor Paul, who was working in his front yard, told me later that he knew the cops were going to come because some of the people driving by were watching pretty intently.
Obviously, a dumb idea. At about dusk, three or four Fullerton cops came screeching up, pulled their guns and told the boys to freeze, drop their weapons, etc… I’m fine with all of this. They’ve got to protect the community. Within a minute or two there were 11 units on scene. One of the boys’ girlfriends pulled up while it was happening and took these pictures.
At that point, my neighbor, who is about 56, very articulate and grew up in the neighborhood, told one of the cops near him that the boys were just playing airsoft and that it’s OK.
Even after the cops were informed that it was an airsoft game, they made the boys put their hands on their heads, back toward them, lie on their stomachs, handcuff them and put them in one of the cars. My neighbor began chewing this cop’s ear that he could not believe they were not putting an end to this event, now that they knew what was going on.
The 8oz clear plastic guns were lying on the ground near where they had the boys lie down. There were real guns pointed at the four boys the whole time. After the cops got all the kids in the car, they sent officers with shotguns down either side of my house, into the backyard and then asked for permission to search the house… which my handcuffed son gave them.
When I talked to some higher ranking guy at the station the next day, he told me that he once was on a bust in Fullerton where guys were out front with Airsoft guns while there were real bad guys with real guns, pistol whipping the homeowners inside. He declined to get me the details of that incident.
I will say this: Once the boys were in the back of the car and the crime scene was secured, my son told me that the police did NOT condescend to them, berate them or generally act like power hungry jackasses. I was told that the boys having their shirts off had something to do with the reaction. It seems that speed freaks are particularly fond of going shirtless. Well, so are boys that practice for Eastside’s High school Worship Group in my garage when it’s 90 degrees outside. Plus, it’s more fun to shoot somebody with an Airsoft gun when their shirt is off.
This happened more than a year ago and I was torn as to whether or not to allow FFFF to post the photos. After this much time has passed, I figured it was worthwhile just to point out that Fullerton is adequately staffed to have 11 units show up to a plastic gun fight.
Suspicious wires run into a window at OCFA station 6, Irvine, CA.
Just when I thought it would be a good idea for me to hang it up from Fullerton politics, this sign showed up in and around Fullerton.
Good grief! Someone really took the time to make and plant these comical things. And that got me to re-thinking my role in Fullerton. Geez, thinks I, if these people believe I’m so powerful that they are willing to give me this sort of free publicity, maybe I should leverage that celebrity in the future.
And so I have decided that I must and will stay involved. There’s too much at stake and my gang and I are having too much fun. I guess it’s a calling!
Oh, and just a reminder: Chris Thompson was the #1 top vote getter in all Fullerton races including city council.
