Apparently this invitation is making the rounds. Please do attend.
Anybody who reads this blog knows that I have had a running battle with the Fullerton Redevelopments Agency, even going so far as suing the Agency to block its bogus expansion attempt into areas of west and east Fullerton that had no blight. That was just a fraudulent attempt to divert property tax revenue from legitimate recipients.
Now that Redevelopment has been killed off by the Legislature and the Governor, I really have to wonder what has and will become of that small army of government economic planners, boondoggle promoters, bribers, bagmen, design guideline perpetrators, and the rest, whose job it was to gin up sales tax revenue and property tax increment (usually at the expense of somebody else) while dictating land use development in Redevelopment project areas across California.
Lest anybody think I’m just grousing about an abstract problem, consider an article here in the OC Register that points out the exorbitant amount that Fullerton Redevelopment Agency wasted on administration.
Anyway, these folks were in the business of playing developer without taking any of the risks, and with a compliant city council there was never any fear of them being held accountable for their manifest failures.
Some of the former Redevelopment employees will be kept around to close things out. The rest? Who knows? In Fullerton, some of them have already been absorbed into the regular bureaucracy, to be supported by the General Fund – as if these people were simply interchangeable and indispensable parts. The message that move sent to the citizens of Fullerton is a really bad one – that the government has no appetite to shrink, even though a specific purpose has been ended.
I keep hearing on the Fullerton grapevine that Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz, doggone it, just can’t get one of the recalled Three Bald Tires to show up to validate the June 5th Recall election. Without at least one of these clowns there is no quorum and a meeting can’t be held. Apparently they have been individually agreeing to show up then later, suddenly have other plans.
This could go on for quite awhile, and if left to their own devices, these miscreants may actually file to run for election in November before they’ve officially been run out of office.
Well, this might explain why it’s been three weeks since the election and the new councilmen Kiger, Sebourn and Chaffee have not been sworn it yet. That’s pretty reprehensible, if you ask me, and it begs the question – how much longer is this farce going to go on before somebody goes to a judge and gets a court order validating the election?
I remember well in 1994 that the three recalled councilmembers simply refused to schedule a replacement election (different laws then) until ordered to do so by a judge. Then as now, the incompetent, arrogant Old Guard refused to go quietly into that good night. And Don Bankhead, recalled the first time, got himself elected again.
And here’s a final thought for you Fullerton water rate payers. Every single day that passes costs you all another $7000 in an illegal tax that is still being collected.
Are you angry yet?
If you think about it, anti-recall managers Bennett, Ackerman and Ellis really screwed the pooch (and I don’t use that phrase lightly).
The Three Bald Ties put their reputations in the hands of Amateur Hour.
Remember the stupid rescission cards fiasco? The embarrassing website that just reproduced damning posts from FFFF and nonsense from Fullerton’s delusional gerontocracy?
And the of course there was the idiotic Stop Bushala campaign, ultimately doomed to fail since the name Bushala did not appear on the ballot.
Stupid door hangers, stupid mail piece, stupid signs. Remember that awful video they touted as “hard hitting”?
These assclowns found the Recall team waiting for them with knives drawn around every corner as they kept pitching thousands of dollars into old school repuglican moneypits like Jim Bieber and Adam Probolsky.
And they lost by thirty points.
True, the Three Dead Batteries put almost none of their own money into this disaster, perhaps showing the greatest wisdom of which they were capable. But even so, somebody should be asking for his money back.
Yesterday the world was treated to the moving words of love and respect that Slidebar Rock ‘N Roll Kitchen proprietor Jeremy Popoff had for Kelly Thomas, the homeless man who was beat to death by members of the Fullerton Police Department last July.
Poor Jeremy! It must indeed have been heartbreaking for him to lose somebody he had known for years. Especially since he now acknowledges that the call that summoned police to the scene was instigated by a call from his establishment.
(Horrible screeching sound as needle is dragged across the LP)
Here are a few choice quotations from a Fullerton Stories article dated July 23rd 2011 about the Kelly Thomas affair featuring some trenchant observations by Mr. Popoff himself:
“I feel guilty having ever had any contempt for this guy, but if you had asked me about him a month ago, I’d have nothing good to say about him,” Popoff said. “I don’t want to say that it was justified, what happened. But man, Kelly scared people. We …. were always having to kick him out of our bathrooms or tell him to leave customers alone. Then he would yell at us.”
“He had long matted hair and a matted beard that stuck to his body,” Popoff said. “I wish there was something I could do or could have done a long time ago. My manager was in tears when she called me that night. She was really shaken up by it. “
Popoff said that the police have been good to the homeless in the area near his bar. “The cops have been really lenient with him and other homeless. He was allowed to get away with a lot more because he was homeless. The cops gave him a lot of breaks.”
“We’ve given him lots of stuff,” Popoff added. “[He was] not allowed to be here anymore because Kelly did not respect our customers.”
Back to Popoff: “The last thing I want is to be anti-PD or anti-Kelly. We live here, I’m a father. We support the PD and the residents and the community. Literally, most of my staff was very scared and intimidated by him. They were reluctant to ask him to move along,” says Popoff. “Two or three days before [the arrest] he was bumming cigarettes and the manager said to him ‘Kelly you can’t’ do that here, you gotta move on.’ And Kelly screamed back at him ‘don’t call me by my first name!’”
For almost a year now rumors have been swirling around the role of Fullerton’s Slidebar in the death of the mentally ill homeless man, Kelly Thomas, last July. Specifically, did a Slidebar employee at the behest of his or her boss, owner Jeremy Popoff, make a phony call to the cops to give them a pretext to roust Thomas.
Despite all of his protestations of innocence and donations of canned food to the homeless, Popoff’s story never quite rang true.
A couple days ago the other shoe finally dropped: a lawsuit for wrongful termination by a former employee named Michael Reeves that goes into elaborate detail about what happened on the night of July 5, 2011, and the cover up that followed.
The guy claims the fateful and false call to the FPD that triggered the events leading to the murder of Thomas was made by Slidebar manager Jeanette DiMarco at the behest of owner Jeremy Popoff.
Later, when he wouldn’t play ball, Reeves claims he was demoted, then fired. The guy is suing for $4,000,000, a tidy sum, to be sure.
Well, there you have it. Is any part of this tale true? I don’t know. But I do know that the other, even more sinister part of the story is still looming on the horizon like a nasty weather front; and that’s the disturbing possibility that the bar was in cahoots with one or more of the police before hand, complicit in a criminal conspiracy to deprive Kelly Thomas of his Constitutional rights and even his physical well-being.
We now know that the DA has decided to look the other way in his haste to kiss and make up with the Fullerton cops, but the possibility that the attack on Thomas was per-arranged does indeed explain the antagonistic behavior of Wolfe and Ramos, and perhaps even the seemingly inexplicable violence of Cicinelli.
All this is now bound to come out in the civil proceedings against the City by Ron Thomas and Garo Mardirossian. The latter may be pressured to cut a deal to avoid embarrassing the City too much in a public trial, but the new council needs a vehicle to get all the facts on the table once and for all. A trial is just the thing.
Chris Nguyen, who runs a blog called OC Political, says recently recalled Fullerton City Councilman Don Bankhead has just been initiated into a very exclusive club. According to Nguyen’s research (and I can’t vouch for that) only two men in American history have ever been recalled twice from the same job.
The first is some guy named James W. Holley who was mayor of Portsmouth, Virginia from 1984-1987 and again from 2008-2010. Each stint was punctuated by a recall. And now, with trumpets blaring and drums rolling, enters the august personage of Donald T. Bankhead, Fullerton City Council 1988-1994 and 1994-2012.
And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that if Nguyen is accurate, then Bankhead is the only office holder in the 162 year history of California to be recalled twice from the same office. And that’s a damn impressive accomplishment.
A Friend forwarded this e-mail purportedly sent to Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz. Personally, I don’t mind having a beer or four for lunch before returning to the gun store, but I don’t wear a badge.
To: citymanager@ci.fullerton.ca
Subject: Misconduct on oct 18th
Mr Felz,
Please look into allegations that officers of the Fullerton police attended a training class on Oct. 18th, Tuesday and during their lunch break drank beers at Roscoe’s in Fullerton before returning to training.
Officers drank beer in front of LT Crum and his Sgt’s and none of them took any action for this obvious policy violation..
I apologize for the anonymous email, but I’m afraid of retaliation.
Bottoms up!
Here is a fun e-mail sent out Wednesday by Fullerton cop union boss Barry Coffman. Yes, indeed, Barry is singing the blues, as well he should be. On Tuesday he discovered that the city he thought his union had bought and paid for just wouldn’t stay bought. Here’s Barry’s sob story:
Dear FPOA Member,
Last night we witnessed that the City of Fullerton can be bought. The citizens of Fullerton, or a least a small percentage of them, have spoken and decided that a change was needed. By now I’m sure you’re all aware of the city council recall and know what I’m talking about.
I suspect that besides the changing of the guard on the city council, there will be many other changes that will affect the city’s employees from the top all the way down to the bottom of all the bargaining units. The new city council will want to establish some sort of reform with us to save money.
Of course it’s still too early to tell what these changes will be but there are some ideas that are floating around that aren’t out of the realm of possibility of happening. First and foremost, our contract takes us through 2014.
Remember we added an additional 1 year extension that only WE can choose to utilize if we so desire that would make us safe through 2015. My guess is that we will probably pull the trigger on the extension but we’ll wait and see how things are two years from now.The city could also ask us to re-open our current contract and renegotiate. I’m fairly certain their reason wouldn’t involve us getting a raise or some other increased benefit. I would always be open to hear what the city has to say but we signed a contract and I feel the city should honor its end of the deal as we would.
I spoke with our attorney Rob Wexler about the city trying to null and void our contract before it expires. He said that the only way for this to happen is if the city declares bankruptcy. This very thing happened in 2008 with the City of Vallejo, CA. They filed Chapter 9 bankruptcy citing one of many reasons being employee contracts and their inability to pay them along with retirees. Their POA took the city to court stating the city purposely created a fiscal crisis to break their contracts with the association. The POA lost and now has a new contract with fewer employees.
Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
There has been a lot of talk about the Orange County Sheriff’s Department coming in to take us over as a contract city. It’s my understanding that the sheriff’s department would want to have a legitimate city council vote or city manager requesting a cost pricing for their services. They will not do a pricing just because someone asks them to. Again our contract will come into play since they would not want to interfere with it and get involved with what would surely be a fight between our association and the city.
Another issue would be the City of Fullerton trying to become a charter city. I don’t know all the pros and cons or intricacies of a charter city but my understanding is the rules change somewhat when it comes to local versus state control regarding local affairs. The City of Costa Mesa has been trying to become one. They want to be able to control their employee’s wages by outsourcing much of their city services to private companies or other agencies at usually lower cost.
Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
If you haven’t been following the news in San Diego and San Jose, you probably should. The voters in San Jose successfully passed a measure that would help curb retirement cost. Employees would be required to contribute significantly more towards their current retirement formula or choose to opt out to a retirement plan which would offer fewer benefits. San Diego voters passed a ballot initiative that would replace guaranteed pensions with 401(k) style plans for most new hires. I’m sure both ballot measures will be challenged in the courts and we’ll have to wait and see how they turn out.
Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
No one really knows what will happen over the course of the next few years. A few of the soon-to-be city council members have made it perfectly clear that they want to put our associations in check and have us pay more towards our retirements and anything else they can. Depending if they want to play by the rules and meet and confer as required, we could see ourselves tangled up in a legal battle like many associations across the state.
So as I close this message of doom and gloom, I don’t want to create a panic. We are a professional organization and we still have a job to do. Let’s keep up the great work we do and not fuel the argument that we are just running amuck out there. We know that’s not true and no other agency would be able to provide the same level of service to the citizen of Fullerton.
If you have any questions or concerns, you know how to get a hold of me.
Be safe out there,
Barry
fpoapresident@gmail.com
—
Barry Coffman-President
Fullerton Police Officer’s Association
Reform of a corrupt police department? Could something like this happen here in Fullerton? Maybe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
Echoing the sentiments of his boss and apparent mentor, Acting Police Chief Dan Hughes, Fullerton cop union leader Barry Coffman says those who characterize the FPD as having a corruption problem are misinformed. Here are his exact words from a Register article.
“I think they are misinformed,” Coffman said about anyone saying the department has had corruption. “They don’t know what corrupt is. … They take this Kelly Thomas incident and say there has been a cover-up. Just because they didn’t get information when they wanted it, they conclude there is corruption.”
Predictably, Coffman chooses to gloss over the long string of malfeasance perpetrated by members of the FPD, mostly card-carrying members of his own union. See, Barry is suddenly confronted with the very real possibility that Fullerton might consider outside offers to take over policing in Fullerton, offers that could save as much as $10,000,000, annually.
Well, Mr. Excessive Horning has a selective and self-serving memory. I don’t. Here’s what I remember from just the past year:
Albert Rincon – Accused of multiple sexual assaults. City styles two cases for $350,000.
Todd Major – Fraud. Ripped off Explorers.
Kelly Mejia – Grand theft.
Miguel Siliceo – misidentification of suspect. Wrong guy spends 5 moths in jail.
Vince Mater – Charged by DA with destruction of evidence in jail suicide case.
Manuel Ramos – Accused of assaulting disabled man in June, 2011.
Kenton Hampton – Accused of battery and false arrest against Veth Mam and Edward Quinonez. Cooked up story to attempt to convict Mam. Jury acquits Mam.
Frank Nguyen – bogus testimony in Mam case.
Robert “Go home or go to jail” Kirk – Threatens law abiding citizens with jail for watching the FPD at work. Later spotted in the “excessive horning” debacle.
Perry Thayer – accused of roughing up downtown visitor
Cary Tong – ditto
April Baughman – stole from the FPD property room for two years before getting caught. Hmm. No accomplices? No inventory?
Andrew Goodrich – peddled falsehoods about the Kelly Thomas killing that were never retracted.
Barry Coffman(!) – proud participant in Dan Hughes’ excessive horning scam.
Tom “Tango” Basham – allegedly the watch commander the night of the Thomas murder, and player #1 in the subsequent cover up.
Christopher Wren – off the hook in the Rincon assaults, but plead no contest to “false imprisonment” against some kid in the IE – bargaining down battery charges. Anger management took care of his legal problems. Ours are still pending.
Dan Hughes – boss of all the above
Etc., etc.
Of course the “incident” with Kelly Thomas stands in a class by itself for malicious, incompetence, and murderous thuggery. We will always remember the names Ramos, Wolfe, Cicinelli, Blatney, Craig. Oh and let’s not forget our old friend Hampton.
Say, Barry, tell us again who is misinformed?