Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Harry Sidhu has been on the go lately, but the story of his peripatetic wanderings is damn-near keeping up with Harry himself.
Here’s a fun post from a blog called donpalabraz that puts a new spin on Hide-N-Seek Harry’s sortie into the flatlands, and his drive to establish street cred therein. And it’s from a uniquely Latino perspective: el Sidhu loco! We like it.
An FFFF shout out to donpalabraz ‘n them.
Those rascals in the white van have been hard at work lately. Or a least that’s what they keep telling us; and we keep providing them with vicodin tablets and Everclear.
Our narcotic investment seems to have paid off the other day for the boys have provided us with the the transcript of a conversation between members of the Tom Day for Supervisor campaign and a blogger from what used to be known as “Red County.” The conversation here seems to be about how the latter can help the former. Believe it or not.
John Lewis: Okay. Chris are you with us?
Chris Jones: Yeah I’m here.
JL: Okay, good. Raining up there? Aw, who the hell cares. Okay. Matt Cunningham is, um, here too.
CJ: Yeah. Hi Matt.
Matthew Cunningham: inaudible, high pitched squeak.
JL: Okay. Let’s get to it. We need some blog presence to go after Nelson, right?
CJ: Yeah. I’ve been trying for almost a year, you know, anonymous comments here and there. No traction, you know.
MC: And you got busted for that.
CJ: So did you, Jerbal.
JL: Forget it. Cut it out. We’re supposed to be working together. You both screwed up. Okay. What we need is a real person to start hitting Nelson on Red County.
MC: We’ve gotta be careful, not too obvious. Chip might pull the plug. He’s not too smart, but I think he’s starting to get, you know, um, suspicious.
CJ: Yeah, but it’s gotta be a real person. Then we’ll start commenting under different names.
MC: I can’t do it. What about Gordon?
JL: Gordon? Who the hell is that?
MC: Some dummy that used to blog for Pedroza. From Santa Ana. Doesn’t know his ass from from a pothole on 5th Street. He doesn’t know anything about the 4th District.
CJ: Perfect. Can he write?
MC: No. Well, sort of. You’ll have to write it for him.
JL: He may not want to attack a Republican. Will he want something?
MC: Dunno. He’s not too bright but he’ll probably want something. We can tell him he’s getting even with Pedroza for something. That’ll work. If he wants something you can offer him a, um
CJ: A banana?
(general chuckles)
JL: Okay. Jones writes the thing up then stupid puts his name over it. Great. Good. Okay. Then Jones and you can add to the threads anonymously. You’ve both had practice with that. If, er, whats’ his name?
MC: Gordon?
JL: Yeah, Gordon. If he wants something we’ll tell him Daly’s gonna give him a job if he gets in.
MC: Hey wait a minute. What about, you know, Laura? How many jobs is Daly offering around?
JL: Oh hell don’t worry about it for chrissake. Nobody’s gonna hire…
MC: Gordon?
JL: Right. Gordon. He’s just a plausible…you know…
CJ: Stooge?
(more general chuckles)
JL: Okay. Lets get, um, him on the phone.
MC: Gordon?
JL: Yeah, him. Hmm, looks like the cable company’s working outside the office again. Okay let’s make the call…
At this point transmission was disrupted by interference, rendering the balance of the transmission inaudible.
Gone. Poof.
For the past six weeks I have been visiting the Fullerton Collaborative website periodically to determine when, if ever, the Collabricorns were actually going to put any activities on their calendar. It was a complete blank. For the whole year. And that was interesting because the blurb above the calendar ever so earnestly solicited public participation in the many upcoming Collaborative events.
I couldn’t figure it out. The Collaborative has a well-remunerated Executive Director, Pam Keller, and surely that type of administrative chore would fall under her job responsibilities. Having no calendar of events didn’t look too good. Was Keller just too darn busy? Too lazy? Does the Collaborative really not care much about public participation? Or was there just really not much going on?
Now we may never know. On my visit to the website – www.fullertoncollaborative.org – yesterday, I was immediately shuffled off the the Collaborative’s “Facebook” page. Now that looks pretty bush league for a non-profit to suddenly take its website offline.
Will it be back? I sure hope so because I want to keep the dark calendar meter running – 35 days and counting.
Over in the purpling swamp of what used to be the “Red County” blog, Matthew J. Cunningham just topped himself, hypocrisy-wise.
Cunningham has been throwing out backhanded support for Tom Daly, a Democrat, in the campaign for 4th District Supervisor for a year now. Lately he has employed a pro-Daly blogger to actually promote Daly outright. That struck some people as odd for an allegedly “right of center” blog. Of course we know that Cunningham is just a gofer for John Lewis, the political impresario and lobbyist who is the mastermind of the Daly effort. That explains a lot. Including the lame post the other day by some fat-headed goon called Thomas Anthony Gordon attacking the race’s only real conservative – Shawn Nelson. And of course Daly’s campaign manager also chimed in, again using different aliases, to try to reinforce the theme.
Cunningham has been spinning the whole Daly thing by proclaiming that his is not a Republican blog, just a right of center one. When (and if) you get past the obvious discordance of a right of center blog supporting a union-backed Democrat and attacking a real conservative, you’re likely to find some real hypocritical treasures – as an alert Friend did today.
Opining in a comment in post thread about the Mission Viejo recall of RINO Lance MacLean, Cunningham has the nerve to criticize the recallers for causing the replacement of a Republican with a Democrat!
Say what?
Isn’t that exactly what John Lewis & Co. are promoting in the 4th Supervisor campaign? Replacing Republican Chris Norby with a County employee union backed Democrat – Tom Daly. For fun, check out last year’s Daly’s fundraiser host committee.
Lest you think a Democrat can be a real conservative just take a look who’s backing Daly – County union bosses Nick Berardino (OCEA), Wayne Quint (AOSD), and Joe Kerr, head of the County OC Firefighters. Of course they could be backing Daly because of his fiscal conservatism, huh?
Oh well. It’s not as if this were something we didn’t already know. Still, the hypocrisy is quite remarkable.
“Tough-minded advocate for streamlined efficient government.”
That’s how 4th District Supervisor candidate Harry Sidhu describes himself in that dopey Fullerton News Tribune ad he bought last week. We also read that Sidhu claims to have “fought to eliminate excessive and wasteful government spending.”
No examples, of course, to support the statements; evidently we are expected to accept Harry’s word for it.
But let’s make a quick visit to Sidhu’s campaign webiste. Under the “Transportation” issue heading we discover stuff all dressed up to look like an accomplishment that in reality gives the lie to Harry’s claim to be anything but an irresponsible public spendthrift.
Turns out Sidhu is a big cheerleader for the California High Speed Rail scam, a boondoggle on which hundreds of millions have already been squandered in “studies,” and with a gargantuan $50 billion price tag that ridership will never pay for. And of course he beats the drum for the jaw-droppingly expensive ARTIC plan in Anaheim, presumably hoping that if you build the southern terminus of the HSR a choo choo will have to show up sooner or later. A trip to the ARTIC website “benefits” page makes things crystal clear: $180,000,000 (yes, Friends you read that right) for a make-work government jobs program – mostly paid for with Measure M funds that everybody in the County has to pay through sales tax. Hardly the behavior of a fiscal conservative, is it?
Our Friends in Anaheim tell us that Sidhu is all gung-ho for this titanic fiasco to grease his relationship with outgoing Mayor Curt Pringle, who is neck deep in the HSR rip-off and who is looking for a soft place to land.
Pringle, not coincidentally, is supporting Sidhu’s carpetbagging run for Supervisor (he supported Ackerwoman, too) and has been raising money for him. Symbiosis. And we get stuck holding the empty sack. Typical.
Sidhu is “tough-minded” about one thing: perpetually running for political office. On matters involving our tax dollars he’s about as tough as a mildewed marshmallow.
Not to be outdone by fellow 4th District Supervisor campaign carpetbagger and multiple address occupier Lorri Galloway, Harry Sidhu has pulled up stakes again and abandoned his address at the beautiful Calabria Apartments, #106. The Registrar of Voters verbally confirmed the switcheroo this morning.
Was it the proximity to the bowling alley or the pool hall? Was it the complete lack of landscaping? Or was it just the sheer impossibility as the residence for a rich man like Sidhu, whose carpetbagging was getting a lot of attention anyway. It sure was a great image and just the sort of thing to burst a political bubble.
Some of Harry’s campaign blog monkeys have been hinting recently that Harry was now living in a house he owns in the 4th District – a lot more plausible than the Calabria, to be sure, but in no way mitigating the fact that HARRY SIDHU IS A CARPETBAGGER! Whether or not Harry will even pretend to live in his new home for the next four months is an excellent question, the answer to which we will no doubt be pursuing diligently.
Ah, well. Thus endeth Harry’s flirtation with the common man. Wonder if he ever even got to meet his neighbors.
I came across this sort of goofy Harry Sidhu political ad in the News Tribune the other day, repeating the mantra of his paid blog monkeys that Sidhu has “represented” 40% of the 4th County Supervisorial District by being on the Anaheim City Council.
Harry and his “team” must be really concerned that the carpetbagger label is sticking. It is, and it will, because that’s what he is. But that’s only part of the problem. The other issue is whether Sidhu even lives in the District at all.
Please also note that the ad uses the simple title of “Mayor Pro Tem.” Why no mention of Anaheim? Harry can’t be dumb enough to think people in our city are ignorant enough to believe he’s Mayor Pro Tem of Fullerton, can he? Or is it just more sloppy work by his “team.” We already know that he holds Fullerton residents in such low regard that he dodged the Supervisor candidate forum held by NUFF a couple weeks ago. Sad.
The text of the Sidhu ad is even more pathetic. Experience? Harry doesn’t identify a single thing he’s done to make Anaheim government more “streamlined” or “efficient.” He says he fought to eliminate “excessive and wasteful government spending” but doesn’t give a single example of his fiscal conservatism. Wonder why?
Apparently Sidhu and his handlers also hope that voters are ignorant of the fact that the County government has almost no involvement in any sort of job creation schemes; and owning fast food franchises seems to be Harry’s only job creating calling card. More sadness.
Too bad for Harry that constantly running in political campaigns isn’t a job skill that voters hold in high regard.
Nothing to talk about and seemingly unaware of real County issues – that’s the campaign. And that’s a bad combination.
A few days ago I did a post about how Tom Daly’s campaign for 4th District Supervisor received a contribution from Sharon Quirk’s campaign account and how the County Code prohibits that.
Turns out Harry Sidhu was the similar recipient of a fellow politico’s largess. On August 16, 2009 he received $250 from “Marty for Brea City Council.”
That would be Brea City Councilman Marty Simonoff.
The Register’s Jennifer Muir reported on 4th District Supe fundraising yesterday and pretty quickly got onto the topic of a salient campaign expense in Lorri Galloway’s forms: $850 to Taormina Properties – the guy who was supposedly providing the 3rd Distict resident Galloway with a plausible 4th District address.
This item has already caused speculation as to whether Galloway was trying to fob off rent for her fake address in the Colony District as a campaign expense. Not so says Galloway. The $850 was for campaign space rental that just happened to be in the same building as her “residence”! She declined to tell Ms. Muir how much she paid in rent for her alleged living space.
Well that’s sort of embarrassing – more amateur campaign follies, and all due to her political ambition and office-lust that has caused her to dummy up a fake residence in our district.
Another interesting fact from the campaign finance reporting documents is that her landlord, Bill Taormina, has given Galloway the $1700 limit though his company “Clean City.” And so we immediately start to wonder whether Galloway is paying full market rental on her Taormina-provided campaign space, and, of course how much she is paying for her Taormina-provided newly new address in Anaheim’s “Five Points” area, farther west out along the #42 OCTA bus route.
We caught some flak awhile back for our posts on the subject of old geezers getting all touchy-feely with the tender young Miss Fullertons at Chamber of Commerce mixers, here and here. Some of our readers thought the practice was harmless or trivial.
Whatever one’s perspective, the images were pretty fun. Remember?
Naturally when the Miss Fullerton contestants went on display at the council meeting this past Tuesday we thought it was a likely source of entertainment. We were right: The proceedings did not disappoint.
Enjoy our debonair mayor in action. Quite frankly he was almost dumbfounded.