Setting The Bar Low Archives - Page 101 of 110 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 23, 2010April 23, 2010Dead heads

More Monkey Business at the Clerk-Recorder’s Office? Why did Tom Daly Hire Bruce Matthias?

Daly Really2 — A creator of jobs. Sidhu, are you paying attention?

While many County departments have to endure furloughs and layoffs big spender of our dough Tom Daly seems to be going in the opposite direction. I learned that he has just recently showed off his newly minted Executive Aide – Bruce Matthias, to his staff.

This new hire has to be costing tax payers a bundle. But most disturbing is that Matthias was recently released by the County’s Executive Office from his job as head of the County’s legislative affairs unit – a sort of in-house government lobbyist. Since Daly hired Mr. Matthias as an “at-will-employee,” he didn’t have to go through any sort of competitive hiring process to bring on board someone who was recently cut loose by the County CEO – in other words, pure cronyism. So what does Matthias know about running anything, let alone a Clerk/Recorder’s office? Just looks like typical jobs for the boys featherbedding corruption to me.

Tellingly, this recent addition to Team Daly used to be Chief of Staff to Assemblyman John Lewis during his first three years in office. Hey, wait! Isn’t the John Lewis Machine running Daly’s campaign? Hmm.

daly-and-lewis — Hey, this guy's got a mortgage.

Maybe Daly is returning a favor. Clearly the Matthias family is pals with Daly. Matthias’ wife Sonja Matthias contributed to Daly’s now abandoned campaign for Supervisor 2010. Or maybe Daly’s doing the favor for Lewis. Who knows?

All I know is that it is very depressing although not really surprising to see more and more so-called conservative Republicans finding ways to profit off of County government.

As for Daly, this blatant cronyism in a time of recession is just par for the course. Remember the $48,000 doled out to a political contributor to “study” a sports hall of fame? And the $1700 a month retainer to a Sacramento government consulting business? Or the $2.1 million flushed on the tear-down building on Civic Center?

We could hope that Matthias has been brought on board to end this cycle of Daly disasters, but what particular skill set he brings to solve any of his new bosses managerial shortcomings is unknown.

Wake up Orange County! We need to get rid of this free spending, incompetent career politician and return the Clerk-Recorder’s Office to a professional operation instead of what it has become – an unaccountable sinkhole of waste.

April 22, 2010April 22, 2010Dead heads

Carpetbagger Galloway Fundraiser Fail

by Joe Sipowicz15 Comments

It’s always ironic when your supporters begin to unwittingly advertise your failures. Such was the case when the Liberal OC’s Dan C posted about a recent campaign fundraising BBQ held at Lorri Galloway’s Address #3 in the 4th Supervisorial District. Dan added some fun photos that demonstrated how few people actually showed up for the party.

Empty house — We're gonna have a lot of food left over...

Dan seems to be really concerned about the fact that his Precious Princess is a carpetbagger and that people might think the house is nothing but a front. Claims Dan hopefully:

And there’s no question Lorri lives here. The home is covered with photos and personal items that clearly distinguish a home from a house.

Uh, yeah, right Dan. Anything you say. With the thirty-year old mismatched furniture and the cheap framed prints on the walls (courtesy of Galloway’s Eli Home thrift store) the place doesn’t even look plausible. Maybe Dan rifled the medicine cabinet and found some toothpaste or deodorant conveniently left for his discovery.

lorrisfortune — No one will be coming to your party...

Well Dan C. has good cause to worried about the carpetbagging issue. Galloway started her campaign cooking up a fake residency in an Office/Professional zone – which is illegal in Anaheim. After an abortive phony “stay” in a loft over a business Galloway had to “move” yet again to yet another cooked up address. That’s three bogus addresses since January, Dan. What tenacity!

The simple, unvarnished fact of the matter is that Lorri Galloway lives in the 3rd Supervisorial District, not ours. If she wants to be on the Board of Supervisors she should have waited until 2012 to run against Harry Sidhu for that seat.

April 20, 2010April 20, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Did Bankhead Shoot Self in Foot? Or have The People Really Spoken?

by Mr. Peabody4 Comments

A Friend just passed along the minutes from a California High Speed Rail meeting back in May 2008. The city of Fullerton “strongly supports the HSR project” per Councilman Don Bankhead. Hey, wait a minute. Did the City Council of Fullerton adopt a formal position on the HSR , and did they appoint Bankhead to be it’s official spokesman on the subject?

And if the Council really and truly already decided that we’re on board the HSR, then why bother with one of those idiotic “work shops” at tonight’s council meeting, and why have another one on April 26th at the Senior Center?

Anyway check this out:

CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY/ MEETING MINUTES / MAY 14, 2008

The meeting of the California High-Speed Rail Authority was called to order on May 14, 2008 at 9:30AM at Anaheim City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd in Anaheim, CA.

Mr. Bankhead stated the City of Fullerton strongly supports the HSR Project. To date the City, CalTrans and OCTA has invested millions of dollars in public transit services at the Fullerton Transportation Center. Mr. Bankhead stated Fullerton has the busiest rail station between Los Angeles and San Diego along the LOSSAN corridor. In addition, the City of Fullerton is working with CalTrans and OCTA to construct a new parking structure to accommodate up to 1000 rail passengers. There would be a platform adjacent to the parking structure that could accommodate high-speed rail. Mr. Bankhead stated the City of Fullerton supports the Authority’s budget request for $103M towards the development of high-speed rail. Mr. Bankhead stated on behalf of the City of Fullerton that the Authority consider a stop in Fullerton which would serve the region and build upon a previous transportation investment.

April 19, 2010April 19, 2010Dead heads

The Lorri Galloway Residency Comedy Rolls Along

by admin23 Comments

At the WAND candidate forum the other day Lorri Galloway asserted that she has lived in our district for seven months.

Not quite right. According to her voter registration she only started carpetbaggin’ the 4th District a mere 5 months ago. So who cares? She’s a politician and they just love to fuzz up the facts.

GallowayatDoor — Hi, I'm your new neighbor. I know I haven't been around much.

But wait. The really fun fact is that she began her so called 4th District residency by “living” in Anaheim’s O-P zone – on the corner of Lincoln Avenue And East Street. And even if she did actually reside there, which is extremely doubtful, that residency was illegal per Anaheim’s zone code; she was busted (by us) in January and she had to “move.” So even if the most credulous person believes that she is now actually living in the “5 Points” area, she’s only been a legal resident of the 4th District for a couple of months.

April 17, 2010Behind Closed Doors

What Are They Hiding at Anaheim City Hall?

by admin10 Comments

Over three weeks a go we made a public records request of the City of Anaheim to produce the phone log, the work product, and e-mails of a woman named Annie Mezzacappa.

Now you may well wonder who this individual is and what this has to do with anything pertinent. Ms. Mezzacappa is the personal assistant to Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu and she is a part-time public employee. It is rumored that it is she, not the virtually unintelligible Sidhu who scripts his performances. Yet, she is also his campaign employee and she is the contact person on all those e-mail blasts Sidhu sends out touting his endorsement by some dude or other from Stanton. See the potential problem? We were kind of curious to see if a public employee might just be doing Sidhu’s campaign business out of the Anaheim City Hall, and even on company time.

Harry'sFriend — I tell you this is nothing but candidate intimidation...

Anyway, our Intrepid Travis just got a letter from the Anaheim Deputy City Attorney. Mezzacappa’s phone log is ready. But after 24 days they are denying the request for 6 months of emails and work product because:

“The request is vague, overboard and uncertain in that it fails to request an “identifiable” record.”

Total BS. They seem to be saying that unless you can tell them exactly the document you want they’ll just say screw you. And they get to determine what is “overboard.” And that really defeats the purpose of requesting public records, doesn’t it?

We’ll be picking up those phone logs and let you know if anything fun pops up. In the meantime, we aren’t giving up on those other records, either.

April 17, 2010April 17, 2010Behind Closed Doors

More Register Fail

by Grover Cleveland4 Comments

Here’s a link to a Register article by Tony Saavedra that starts out with the breathtaking news that the OC Cemetery Board voted to hold a meeting to talk about raising it’s stipend 5%. That’s 5% of $100 per meeting, or a whopping five bucks per member. If they meet once a month that would total a mammoth $300 per year. Thanks for that earth-shattering news, Tony.

In the meantime, not a squeak about this opaque public district paying Anaheim mayor and general fixer/influence peddler Curt Pringle $6000 per month to locate a new graveyard site for the boneyard boys that we reported about here; a task that could have been handled by a realtor for the price of a commission paid by the seller. Of course Pringle was also supposed to grease the skids – which seems to be his only marketable job skill. No word yet on whether he accomplished anything at all, although this seems not to be a requirement to get a lucrative contract with one of these little known but apparently well-heeled public agencies.

But Saavedra seems to think his readers are more interested in the $5 per month scandal that’s he’s trying to brew up into something potable. Sadness.

And by the way, here’s a choice nugget from The Register’s OC Watch Dog, Teri Sforza, inviting whistleblowing news tips that I recently stumbled across. Maybe the Register reporters should (re)read Ms. Sforza’s stirring words. Here’s the kicker: “…we’ll put together a blogroll of local muckrakers like ourselves.”

Yeah. Right. Anything you say, Teri.

April 16, 2010June 13, 2010Harry Sidhu

Thanks, Krusty!

by Joe Sipowicz23 Comments

A commenter calling himself “Krusty” (among other assorted names) asked this morning how come we hadn’t posted anything about some lawsuit filed by some disgruntled investor who bought out Shawn Nelson’s stake in a Brea lounge.

And that reminded me that I did indeed want to post something about it. A story was posted by the Fullerton News Tribune replacement for Barbara Giasone on April 14th about this lawsuit. This intrepid newshound is called Adam Townsend.

I found it very odd that one of the Register’s do-nothing employees would suddenly become interested in Nelson’s personal business affairs, especially during an election campaign. After all, they have serially ignored real stories of political and management malfeasance like Tom Daly buying a 2.1 million dollar money pit or the fact that Harry Sidhu perjured himself twice on voter registration documents; or that Curt Pringle made a small fortune looking for a new graveyard site for the Cemetery District. Nary a peep.

The other shoe dropped this morning (it took a couple of days), when Mauve County blogger Jubal Cunningham, the “conservative” hypocrite who makes his living sucking at the welfare state teat, put this two-day old post on the top of his “Today’s top stories in OC.” Well, okay. Cunningham is just a limp tool who takes his orders from John Lewis and Lewis works for Hide and Seek Sidhu. So I guess for him and Lewis it’s a “top story.”

But why would this Adam Townsend guy let himself get used by the Sidhu campaign to publicize a private business deal of Nelson’s during a campaign – especially when he seems unable to get his keyboard to tap out the words: Harry Sidhu carpetbagging perjuror? Can he really be that dumb? Sadly, it appears so.

Either that, or something fishy going on here. And I really wonder – can we ever expect this Townsend guy to start writing about real public issues in Fullerton?

April 15, 2010Dead heads

Sidhu Admits Perjury At Candidate Forum!

by admin6 Comments

He didn’t mean to. It just came out. Asked about how long he had lived in the 4th District Harry Sidhu admitted “two-and-a-half months.” That’s ten weeks, folks, and takes us back to February 1st when Sidhu cooked up his second 4th District address. The one on Lucky Way.

Seems Hide and Seek Sidhu has conveniently chosen to forget his alleged residence at the beautiful Calabria Apartments in the month of January – the one he swore to twice under penalty of perjury. Well, he may pretend to have forgotten have, but we wont!

And of course we will be sending this video to the District Attorney to further support our case that Mr. Sidhu is a perjurer.

April 14, 2010April 28, 2010Harry Sidhu

City of Orange Votes to Kills HSR; Wake Up Fullerton City Council, NOW!

by admin11 Comments

On Tuesday night, the Orange City Council, led by Councilman Denis Bilodeau (left) and Jon Dumitru, took a bold first step supporting Dianne Harkey’s AB2121 bill here that would put a screeching halt on the high speed rail (HSR). The HSR is perhaps the biggest boondoggle in the making in the history of the United States.

On a 2 – 1 – 1 vote the Orange Council supported AB2121 with Mayor Carolyn Cavecche abstaining. Apparently, Cavecche the former Chair of OCTA said she needed more information, sure she does.

The HSR as currently planned would cut a swath through southern California wiping out untold numbers of homes and businesses, and will leave us and our descendants a massive debt. With our state on the verge of bankruptcy we cannot afford the damage or the cost, especially when the promoters of this scheme like Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle don’t even have a business plan.

Well, Pringle has his own private business plan, as usual – income from consulting contracts, no doubt. Just in case you don’t know what Curt Pringle does with his time, then you should read this, this and this post.

When will Fullerton citizens and business owners get our chance to provide input into this HSR boondoggle, when it’s too late? Probably never. Remember this is Fullerton where good manners dictate that you sit down and shut up.

April 14, 2010April 13, 2010Dead heads

More Evidence of Sidhu’s Perjury

by Travis21 Comments

Wow, that Harry Sidhu sure is a frugal guy. Or a perjurer.

A useful utility bill shows that the Sidhu’s apartment generated a $7.04 electricity bill in January 2010 – the month that he claimed to have lived at the Calabria Apartments on two voter registration forms.

84 kilowatt hours might be enough to run a 100 watt light bulb for a month. Or maybe he sat there in the dark and listened to the radio.