At last night’s meeting the Fullerton City Council elected Ol’ Doc HeeHaw to be the political figurehead who leads Fullerton into the Teens. We have already gloated over the endless comedic possibilities this situation will afford council watchers and mean bloggers.
Mayor Jones. Let’s contemplate the advent of mirth.
And let’s consider a one-two punch of Jones and the increasingly distracted Don Bankhead as Mayor pro Tem. Is this really the best a city of 150,000 people that calls itself the education community can do?
It happened. As predicted. At the behest of the repuglican puppetmasters that helped put him on the Fullerton City Council, ex-police Chief and $215,000 a year pension puller-downer Pat McKinley bypassed Democrat Sharon Quirk-Silva for Mayor Pro Tem. Instead Fullerton’s former top cop and election winner by 90 votes went with the feeble octogenarian, Don Bankhead. Gotta keep that winning team intact, right?
Well, goddamit, the ‘pugs weren’t the only people who helped put McKinley on the council. They had help. As noted previously, many of the the Yellowing Fullerton Observers went for McKinley, too, including folks like Molly McClanahan, Jan Flory and….wait for it…Sharon Quirk-Silva! It cost Doug Chaffee the election.
Two years ago these same people helped put the cracker back in the cracker barrel.
Will councilman elect, retired chief pension plugger Pat McKinley support Sharon Quirk-Silva for Mayor Pro Tem at tonight’s council meeting? After all, she actually endorsed this guy. It’s up to Fullerton’s new three-man Repuglican crew, and things don’t seem too promising for Quirk-Silva.
Regrets are a part of life, my bad.
As we previously discussed, Policy #37 dictates who the next Fullerton mayor and Mayor Pro Tem will be. But the whole thing really boils down to pure politics.
As noted above, Quirk-Silva endorsed McKinley, which helped him beat Doug Chaffee by 90 votes. Will McKinley honor policy #37? Will he even be grateful to Q-S for his new source of income?
Just in case you missed Crazy Dick (our Mayor to be, per Policy #37) Jones’s battle of wits, here with a local resident the first time around, watch again as the poor guy gets the loop-a-doop brush-off by Dick, courtesy of our inebriated Video Alteration and Welding Department.
What kind of nitwit gets into a shouting match with one of his eccentric constituents who started to unravel a bit? Pea-brained Doc HeeHaw, that’s who. As our next mayor there can be little doubt: a youtube sensation is in the making.
Word on the political street is that Todd Spitzer, recently fired Deputy DA, former State Assemblyman, and former 3rd District County Supervisor is serious about running for his old job at the County Hall of Administration in 2012. How serious? Apparently he is locking up political consultants in order to dissuade potential opponents who are not already terrorized by Spitzer’s prodigious campaign warchest.
Lobby later...
Two of the consultants are said to be Dave Gilliard who recently worked for Shawn Nelson and John Lewis, who didn’t. You all remember John Lewis, the repuglican who managed the ill-fated Tom Daly campaign behind the scenes. And when that tub went down, he scrambled rat-like up the bow line of the SS Sidhu – that was already taking on water badly. Will Lewis be working for free like he did for Sidhu? Quite possibly. See, Lewis is a campaign guy second and a lobbyist first and foremost.
Say goodnight, honey...
More word on the street has it that ‘pug sweatheart Orange mayor Carolyn Cavecche has already run screaming into the night, with Kurt Pringle and Bill Campbell, her sponsors not far behind. Geez, that didn’t take long.
Will anybody dare take on Spitzer and his precipitous mountain of dough? He’s got a pretty shaky record on pensions and that’s big right about now. Even so, there’s really no chance. See, Spitzer is running to mark time until he can have at our do nothing DA in 2014. If successful the 3rd District seat would open up and the political bowling pins would be reset.
Yesterday the State Attorney General handed out an opinion that, yes, outgoing Anaheim Mayor-for-Hire, Kurt Pringle did indeed hold incompatible offices as the Chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority. For three long years. And that raises all sorts of questions about the ethics of Der Pringle’s votes on both HSR prioritization issues that benefited him and his clients, and City of Anaheim land use issues that benefited – him and his clients. You can read all about it in an LA Times article, here.
Well, we told you so. What will his mom say?
Interestingly the other day the Voice of OCEA did a story on an e-mail exchange between Herr Burgermeister Pringle and his former Director of the HSR, in which he attacks the “core competence”of the Authority’s engineers. The author misses the point, somewhat, in noting Pringle’s critique of the “experts” like so many others in California have done; but the real point is that his anger was based on their unwillingness to defy engineering realities to deliver the HSR line to his already designated ARTIC boondoggle. It certainly wasn’t lost on the recipient of his e-mail who noted dryly that he wasn’t sure if he was communicating with the HSR Chair or the Mayor of Anaheim.
Well, our boy Pringle is days away from being off the OCTA and out of City Hall (except as a lobbyist to his hand selected replacements, of course). But what about his Chairmanship of the CHSRA? Can the new guv keep him? Hard to imagine why Jerry Brown would keep on the HSR a repuglican who has soiled himself and the Authority so badly, if he had a choice.
It’s that time of year again when Fullerton council selects one of its own to preside over the crackpot, klutzy and expensive meetings it holds.
We count on the hare-brain, corn pone braying of F. Richard “Dick” Jones to supply us with the material we need to keep our ratings up. And so to the question of whether the hot-headed Jones should take up the gavel and lead us into the teens we say: Hell yes!
The entire genus Equus, approves...
And let’s not forget that like us, Jones, too, received Weekly OC recognition, but not in a good way.
As a teaser we provide this council-clip of a constituent of marginal competence; it culminates in the inevitable ravings (Ahma Colonel) and crazy gesticulations of Dr. Dick, in response. Rather than let the poor bastard have his say and go away, Heehaw leaps into the breach to defend the honor of…well, of something. He ain’t gonna take no shit from some whacked-out dog face, nuh-uh, noooosirree!
Last week a judge stepped in to slow down the sale of the OC Fairgounds to a private developer as reported by the Voice of OC(EA). Seems hizzoner wants some time to look into all the allegations of hanky-panky that have been swirling around for the past year.
I have no evidence that that guy over there lied to me, and I don't intend to look for any.
More allegations of monkey business at the fair that creates a pattern of obfuscation, disingenuousness, and misfeasance that goes back well over a year.
But wait, hasn’t Tony Rackaukas already blessed the doings with his benediction? Yep, but despite our do-nothing DA’s whitewash of the entire 2009 Summer of Fair Love, lots of people have lingering questions about the role of some of OCs leading repuglicans in this whole mess.
Those doubts are fueled by a guy named David Padilla, a Fair trustee who apparently didn’t go along with his colleagues who were busted trying to create their own entity to acquire the property. As reported in the Daily Pilot, here, and the Voice, here, Padilla, who was recently removed from the Board by outgoing Governor Schwarzenegger, still has lots of unanswered questions himself. And even a few assertions.
One of the most intriguing parts of the story was this:
Among the things the board does not know are details of the activities of the law firm of Nossaman LLP through former State Sen. Dick Ackerman as well as the activities of the county’s lobbyist, Platinum Advisors, which has close ties to county GOP Chairman Scott Baugh.
Padilla was the only board member to respond to public inquiries and records requests for information on the role of both individuals. Padilla said earlier this year that he was told Ackerman was only paid $19,000 for his work.
“I have recently determined, after months of inquiry, they were paid over $150,000 for services I have not been able to get answers for,” Padilla said. “It was my intention to continue to press for the details on both these issues.”
A repuglican warrior does battle on the steps of the Capitol...
We know that the DA has found nothing untoward in Ackerman’s behavior, despite Ackerman’s own morphing tale, but $150,000 grand would pay for a helluva lot of schmoozing with the Guv, and it’s about time the public found out exactly what Dickie Boy was up to in Sacramento during those long hot summer days of 2009, including billings, invoices, and diaries.
You remember a fellow named Jon Fleischman, don’t you? Well, of course you do. He starred in the now historic 2007 holiday visit video to Dick Ackerman at the latter’s house inside a “secret, gated community” in Irvine.
I still owe Fleischberg for that. Heh heh.
An alert Friend just forwarded a post that was published on the completely hackish blog-for-sale, The Flash Report, of which Fleischman is proprietor. It’s a rousing condemnation of the practice of bogus non-profit, public benefit corporations staging legislative love-ins at plush resorts on Hawaiian islands. The things are bought and paid for by lobbyists who get to corner state legislators at fraudulent “conferences” that are nothing more than schmooze fests, golf and cocktails on the veranda. The Sac Bee gives more info on the latest scams, here. At the end you’ll read about “The Pacific Policy Research Foundation” that just perpetrated its annual scam on Kauai.
Sound familiar? It should.
Oh, no. Not me again.
We reported about the scam over a year ago, here. And the biggest offender of course was the hideous Linda Ackerwoman, bogus 72 AD candidate, who participated in the sham front known as the Pacific Policy Research Foundation that got her and husband, Dick Ackerman, annual junkets to Hawaii. And of course Ackerwoman was an officer of the bogus “charity.”
And to close the circle we have to recall that Fleischman was a big Ackerwoman cheerleader. Ackerwoman. No record, no accomplishment, no residence, no sale. What a difference a year makes.
Here is Anaheim community leader Amin David at Kurt Pringle’s public going away party letting Der Pringle know that not all of the Anaheim Volk are happy Volk. Specifically he slams Pringle for his latest Platinum Triangle do-over and deficient EIR.
Did you enjoy the shot at Sidhu as Pringle’s puppet-monkey and Hernandez as a dim-wit? I did.
