Welcome to Fullerton. Instead of working for solid solutions to tough financial problems the city is pan-handling for Holiday Decorations to make sure YOU see/feel the pain for their malfeasance now that their Hail Mary Pass of Measure S got blocked and blocked hard.
I’d feel remiss if I didn’t point out that the city is asking YOU to donate to the government so they can decorate in the most politically neutered and poll-tested way possible. We all know they won’t be putting up any religious icons for fear of offending people around religious holidays.
Of course they want YOU to be more giving…
Good luck friends, here’s hoping our new council isn’t as ridiculously and cartoonishly incompetent as councils past that led us to this point. Well, except Zahra and Silva. There’s no saving those two corrupt clowns.
Because nothing says “holidays in the time of Covid” like your city government begging you for decorations to keep the empty locked down streets… festive.
When FFFF first introduced Andrew Cho to the Friends we noted that his list of “endorsers” was a veritable rogues’ gallery of political crooks, swindlers and liars. And now the collection is complete:
What do we have here?
It is right and proper that the Cho, the hapless stooge of outgoing Mayor-for-Hire Jennifer Fitzgerald should have the backing of “Democrat” Doug “Bud” Chaffee, the senile and incompetent clown who let Fullerton go to Hell even as he bought himself a job at the County. It’s also perfectly predictable. Lobbyist Curt Pringle, who employs Fitzgerald is a big fundraiser for Chaffee, obviously expecting favors in return. This is one of them.
And let’s never forget Chaffee’s better half Paulette Marshall, whose well-documented political hijinks and actual crimes, must have been well-known to hubby.
But the recommendation that bankruptcy lawyer Cho’s record in “financial recovery” is somehow an asset should cause even the dimmest wit to ponder Fullerton’s future with Cho on the council dais.
Driving around Fullerton’s District 2 the other day, I noticed a certain District 2 City Council candidate’s signs screwed directly into trees. Having never seen anyone do something like that and still mourning the loss of Sappy McTree to drunken wannabe bureaucrats, I had to figure out who Chuck Sargeant is and what kind of person would go around screwing Fullerton’s trees in such a way?
Yes, Fullerton has a long history of choosing foxes to guard the hen house that is our city budget. Yes, it’s so bad that they’re trying to raise our taxes. But even then, I was a tad surprised to find that District 2 candidate Chuck Sargeant had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1992.
And he didn’t pay taxes for 3 years and the state placed 10 liens against his property.
And then he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy again in 2012 (that bankruptcy didn’t clear until 2016, the same year he was running for council last time).
And I wouldn’t have even looked into him had Gnarly Charlie not gone and screwed his freaking signs into trees all over Harbor Blvd.
The last thing Fullerton needs is another council member like Ole Chuckles who spent money he didn’t have and screwed creditors to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. So there it is… Fullerton District 2 Council candidate Two BK Chuck.
Some recent commenters on our humble blog have wondered aloud who outgoing Mayor-for-Hire, Jennifer Fitzgerald was going to pick to be her choice for successor. Now we know.
Look familiar? Not to me, either…
Today a Friend forwarded some sort of statement (an English version) from a fellow by the name of Andrew Cho. Who is this person? Nobody I’ve asked today has ever heard of the guy; but, one thing is certain: he was chosen to be a reliable vote for all the things the Curt Pringle lobbyist Fitzgerald holds near and dear. I’d rather not slam the guy right out of the chute, but, hell, just look at who this mysterious person reports as his endorsers.
First, of course is the utterly unspeakable Fitzgerald.
Leaving Fullerton City hall a lot worse off than she found it…
If that weren’t bad enough, number two (and I really mean number two), the completely corrupt Dick Ackerman whose record running a fake non-profit to pay his wife, creating a fake address so she could run for the legislature in our district, and illegally participating as a lobbyist to promote the 2008 OC Fair swindle, have been well-documented on these pages.
Oh no, not again.
Next we discover Ling Ling Chang, our current State Senator who originally ran for office pretending to own a business and attending Harvard. Both were lies, but that mendacity didn’t seem to put a dent in her armor of shamelessness.
Ling Ling shocked by some new liberal outrage!
Then there’s the support of Young Kim, the bubbleheaded perpetual candidate and her slimy husband Charles, who foisted the incomprehhensible nitwit Julie Sa on Fullerton way back in 1992.
No there, there…
Of course poor Cho must not have a clue that these endorsements will do a lot more harm than good, and if he doesn’t yet, he soon will.
But the problem is that everything she says is a lie. Don’t believe me? Then read this self-satisfied “I’m Done” statement sent out this AM.
The bullshit was piling up so fast we needed wings to stay above it…
First let’s celebrate this announcement, if actually true. It means everybody’s life is going to get better in Fullerton as the sticky webs of self-interest entangling Fitzgerald and the taxpayers are cut.
And now let’s examine the stockpile of dishonesty this statement contains.
No, Ms. Fitzgerald, you did not “comprehensively” reform a corrupt police department. In fact, you permitted the fester to continue with zero accountability and more massive legal settlements. When anybody tried to uncover your malfeasance, you used public resources to sue them into submission. Even that failed.
No, Ms. Fitzgerald, you did not discover stable sources of revenue to address water and sewer. You continued the rip-off of the water fund by diverting a massive amount of money to pay for general fund expenses. And as you passed out more pay and pension increases to your union friends, you told everybody the budgets were balanced, a reckless lie that led Fullerton toward insolvency.
No, Ms. Fitzgerald, you did not increase road repair in your 8 long years. The roads in Fullerton are now the worst in the county according to your own pals at OCTA.
No, Ms. Fitzgerald, Hilcrest (sic) Park is not rehabilitated. It’s landscaping is still a disgrace and dying faster than ever, retaining walls and paving are deteriorating. Instead you wasted millions on poorly built, ramshackle woods stairs and a ceremonial bridge that nobody uses.
Yes, Ms. Fitzgerald at the behest of your developer buddies you are personally responsible for adding thousands of “housing units” – mostly in the form of massive, overbuilt tenements-of-the-future that made a mockery of Fullerton’s zoning and have placed an even greater burden on our frail infrastructure.
Yes, Ms. Fitzgerald you sure did prioritize “downtown revitalization,” if by that you mean running interference for scofflaw bar owners like Florentines and the douchebag Jeremy Popoff; defending a scene of nightly mayhem that cost the citizens $1.5 million more per year than it generates in revenue. Your “improved working relationship” with business owners meant directing staff and the City Attorney to ignore serial code violators and even to tolerate forged official city documents; and to harass people who didn’t fling themselves at your feet.
Sorry, dear, but nobody is going to be unhappy to see you go, if in fact and at long last you are finally telling the truth. You may feel “immensely proud” of all your alleged good works, but that’s just obvious self-delusion. Your constituents almost without exception – at least the ones paying attention – are feeling immensely relieved at the happy prospect of your departure; and immensely disgusted at your legacy of putting the interest of you and your friends above the interest of the city.
We’re all used to politicians who can lie on demand. Then there’s our own councilcreature/lobbyist Jennifer Fitzgerald who has turned lying into a virtual cottage industry. Here’s a repost from 2017 telling a story that I promise is going to haunt our ethically devoid Mayor come election time, this fall.
She probably hopes that Fullerton citizen have either forgotten or are unaware of this issue. If either is the case, some of us will work to rectify that.
In March of this year our lobbyist-council person Jennifer Fitzgerald began to receive the typical council pay check, plus 100 bucks a month to not enroll in the City’s health insurance plan.
“So what?” you may be saying to yourself. Well, here’s the problem. In her self-promotion for political office in 2012 Fitzgerald got way up on her high horse about refusing compensation for “public service.” She even made a promise!
And that’s not all. Enjoy this lecture on the high moral ground Fitzgerald stakes out for herself in 2013. She made a big deal about her refusing compensation when she first joined the council. Could the moralizing get any thicker?
Between 2013 and now a lot has changed for Ms. Fitzgerald, most notably a vice presidency at Curt Pringle and Associates, the notorious lobby shop where no public asset is too valuable for cheap disposal. It may very well be that Fitzgerald now has a completely different attitude toward “public service” than she did five years ago.
Fullerton just “separated from employment” 150+ non-union part-time staff. Why? Because despite years of Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald’s lies about a “Balanced Budget” and our mythical reserve fund – we had no plan for a rainy day.
During meetings, myself, David and others warned the City Council that a downturn was likely in the future and with CalPERS continually raising our pension costs we needed to be smarter financially.
Fitzy & Flory wanted none of that and spent like floozies in Vegas throwing every dollar we had at every uniform in sight with Silva, Chaffee and so on along for the ride.
Now here are we looking at a month of limited tax revenue and 150+ people lost their jobs with the city. 150+ positions aren’t being eliminated – no no no, they’ll tax us more to fill those again later and cry about not being to staff the libraries and parks to justify the new taxes/fees and whatever added costs to us they can cook up along the way. But 150+ people are now wondering how they’ll pay their bills.
But let me drive this home for you some more – the city is suing myself, David and this blog because we allegedly clicked some Dropbox links in an account they sent us and told the world about in PRRs. Remember, according to Kimberly Hall Barlow this isn’t about publishing or the 1st Amendment – this is about alleged theft and “hacking” because we allegedly clicked some Dropbox links.
In the process of investigating that alleged crime, the city found out that their network (which has fuckall to do with Dropbox) was incompetently setup and they hired an outside firm to fix it. This was the reason they claimed they waited to sue us for months on end – that they had to secure their network – which again has fuckall to do with Dropbox.
The firm they hired, Glass Box Technology, has a contract with the city for $60k/month not to exceed $500k.
So far, according to the City Council approved Check Register, they’ve paid Glass Box $541,451.25 to date which is $41,451.25 over their “not to exceed” limit.
That’s over half of a million dollars SO FAR because the City found out that they suck at running their own network as a BYPRODUCT of suing us which has nothing to do with what they allege we did. This was an unnecessary expense that has to come out of next year’s General Fund because it’s yet another major cockup for which nobody will be held accountable.
How many of those 150+ people wouldn’t need to be unemployed right now were it not for sheer incompetence in City Hall? Seems that $500k+ would have covered quite a few part timers.
Then we have the expense of our idiotic City Attorneys, Jones & Mayer. Since this nonsense started back in June with their Cease & Desist letters, the city has paid Jones & Mayer $891,074.49. We have no way to know how to split that up or what to attribute to the lawsuit against us because City Hall has a long history of lying about funding and hiding expenses in the wrong accounts. Just because something is coded to the Library, might not mean it has anything to do with the Library.
But if we assume that just 5% of their work product can be attributed to the lawsuit against us, and considering the reams of paper they keep filing with the courts we know their billable hours are stacking mile high, we can attribute approximately $44,553 to this stupid lawsuit. Seems to me that’s a few more part timers who could still be employed were it not for the malicious lawsuit being pursued by Fitzgerald, Flory, Silva and Zahra.
We don’t know how much the city has paid their other experts or consultants in their pursuit of the evil “hackers” who allegedly clicked Dropbox links – some with my name on them – but so far we know it’s pushing $500k+.
Where there’s smoke…
Remember this come election time & demand answers from these idiots on council who would rather spend your money, and it is your money, attacking us over their own stupidity than spend it providing the very services they’re elected to oversee in our city.
Shame on Fullerton. Shame on Mayor Fitzgerald. Shame on the City Council for always squandering your money pursuing their egos instead of your best interests. Sure, they’ll blame the need to “separate from employment” those 150+ people on this “global pandemic” – but that’s only because they constantly spend all of your money elsewhere while lying to you about our “balanced budget”.
There is a certain personality profile that is so narcissistic that it can’t conceive of the reality enjoyed by others. And that sobriquet must certainly apply to Paulette Marshall, the erstwhile candidate for County Board of Education who was so thoroughly trounced at the March 3rd election that she came in 5000 votes behind a candidate who spent 1/300th of what Marshall did.
If you need any evidence of this disconnect with reality, here’s Exhibit #1, an image harvested from Marshall’s Facebook page the day after the election:
Such delusion in a normal person might be cause for a certain amount of pity from folks. But this is not a normal person. This is thief, a liar, and a fraud. Pity would be misplaced. “Who cares now?” you may ask. You should. Because I predict that Fullerton hasn’t seen the past of Pilferin’ Paulette. Just wait and see.
I just took a quick tour of the required Form 460 campaign documents for the “committee” that is pushing for the $190,000,000 Fullerton Elementary School Bond measure on next Tuesday’s ballot. Sure enough, Schedule A, the contributor list for mid-January to mid-February was studded with district contractors, architects and other commercial hangers-on whose livelihood depends upon the goodwill of the administrators who no doubt illegally leaned on them to pony up. It was also turned in grossly incomplete and hopefully isn’t representative of the quality of homework turned in required by students in the district.
The list was also remarkable for the relatively few district employees willing to drop their proverbial dime to the cause a few dozen. Remember that the district has hundreds of employees who pull down $100,000 or more, annually. In some cases, a helluva lot more.
But what really caught my attention was Schedule G, a page of which I faithfully reproduce below:
Mardi Gras came early…
Here we see an “independent agent” named Rob Coghlan dishing out $3500 for fundraising parties at a couple of downtown restaurants. How amusing. Well, hell, I like a good time as much as the next Irish-American, but really, $3500 to try to to raise money? Or maybe it was just to recognize previous camp follower donors. Who knows? But I do know that Robert Coghlan is an administrator in the school district. I sure hope he hasn’t been working during company time to lean on district contractors or employees for donations to his cause; or that maybe he really likes depositions.
