Setting The Bar Low Archives - Page 112 of 114 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 11, 2010Fullerton BooHoo

Fullerton Collaborative Website Vanishes Into E-mist

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.

malevich_black-square — Mick said to paint it black...

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.

February 10, 2010February 10, 2010Dead heads

The Hypocrisy Deepens at Mauve County

by admin34 Comments

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.

DalyFundraiser — The union bosses and lobbyists arm wrestled for front row seats...

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.

February 9, 2010February 8, 2010Dead heads

Transportation Boondoggles Belie Sidhu’s Self-applied Stick-on Labels

by Joe Sipowicz3 Comments

Harry'sFriend — It's all about #1, baby!

“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.

Pringlepug — Pringle on his knees again...

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.

February 8, 2010February 8, 2010Dead heads

Hide and Seek Harry On The Move Again. Claims New Address

by admin10 Comments

coackroach — Adios, Harry. We hardly knew ye.

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.

HarrysHome — Let's hope Harry got the Manager's Move-in Special

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.

February 8, 2010February 8, 2010Harry Sidhu

Sidhu’s Wacky News Tribune Ad

by admin4 Comments

Sidhu-Frauds-News-Tribune-2 — But he doesn't even live in our district, does he?

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.

February 6, 2010February 7, 2010Harry Sidhu

Oops. Sidhu Did It Too.

by Grover Cleveland7 Comments

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.

February 4, 2010February 4, 2010Dead heads

The Pitfalls of Carpetbaggery

by Joe Sipowicz12 Comments

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.

lorrisfortune — You will soon be asked many embarrassing questions...

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.

February 3, 2010May 6, 2011Dead heads

Beauties And The Beast – Redux

by The Fullerton Shadow16 Comments

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?

bankhead_4th_july — "Never any brass knuckles around when you need 'em" almost garnered a coveted Fringie Award.

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.

February 2, 2010February 2, 2010Dead heads

Just Let it Alone, Will Ya?

by Grover Cleveland9 Comments

Pam Keller4 — Let's collaborate some more on my being mayor.

As Christian noted here, tonight the Fullerton City Council will address the issue of how somebody gets to be mayor. It’s Item #7. Ho-hum. Seems some Fullertonians just can’t seem to bend their collective mind around the fact that Pam Keller got passed over for mayor. Boohoo.

The topic of mayoral “rotation” has been kicked around since last September when the Yellowing Observer sensed trouble was a comin’ for their gal. They were right.

Here at FFFF we’ve been saying the same thing all along. The person who deserves to be mayor is the one that can earn the confidence and support of two other colleagues – one way or the other. Keller couldn’t do that. Too bad for her. Politics? Shame, shame, shame!

So why is the issue on the agenda now? Must be because Keller wants it there. Hard to imagine anybody else wanting to whip this dead mule anymore.

One of the interesting things about this item, and one that may fall under the heading of unintended consequences, is that the City Clerk staff called around and found out that of the twenty-eight cities in OC that do not have an elected mayor only one has a mechanism for ensuring everybody gets to be mayor. One. That comes out to less than 4%, and that gives the lie to Sharon Kennedy’s weepy assertion that Fullerton was somehow different from other cities that share the mayor job. Fullerton is in fact exactly like all of the other cities in OC (except one, apparently). But of course we already knew that.

The final wrinkle in the issue comes with the City Clerk raising the possibility of an elected mayor in Fullerton, and how much it might cost. Who asked for that? How will that ensure mayoral rotation – or is it simply an alternative? Election only happen every other year so it seems like an odd idea to say the least.

Anyway, if you want to watch Pam’s Political Whatevers get up and make chimps of themselves again be sure to tune in tonight. Or better yet, go in person.

February 1, 2010February 1, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Anti-Democratic Idea Being Considered By City Council

by The Desert Rat10 Comments

jones-gone-wild1 — When council members attack...

As reported earlier by Christian, the Fullerton City Council at its meeting tomorrow will discuss moving “Public Comments” to the end of meetings rather than at the beginning – where they are scheduled now. It’s item #6 on the agenda.

Apparently agendizing this concept was the brainchild of the brainless Dick Jones, author of a million malaprops and febrile, southern-fried bozoisms.

Up until about fifteen years ago the Public Comments were indeed held at the end of the meetings – right where the old guard wanted them – at 11:00 pm, or so, by which time all the malcontents and troublemakers had gone home. You see, they really liked the idea of all that wasted time up front handing out their parchments, gold stars and blue ribbons to happy citizens, but didn’t care to have any negativity go on the record.

Not coincidentally, these were the same folks that fought for years to keep the meetings from being televised.

The system finally was reversed ’round about the mid-nineties in an effort to appear more transparent and actually do something that would be convenient for the citizens and taxpayers. It was a good decision.

So now a decade and a half later there is evidently a move to go back to the old method of silencing public input. Why? Is Jones just tired of staying up so late? If so, maybe he ought to just start keeping his big bazoo shut. That alone will get him home 45 minutes earlier.

Let’s remind Jones and the rest of the Council that sometimes democracy is a bit messy, and that they and their staff work for us – not the other way around.