Setting The Bar Low – Page 67 – Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 11, 2011Dead heads

When Sherri Met Bankhead; Close Encounters of The Jurassic Kind

Say what you like about Don Bankhead, but you have admit the old coot is a treasure trove of Recall campaign material. Here is King Bankhead objecting to having his image and words captured for posterity by Sherri, a Recall campaign stalwart. I guess if I were as dim as the King, I wouldn’t want anybody recording what I said, either.

Two great lines.

First: “I’m a private person when I’m not working or on duty.” On duty?! He still thinks he’s a cop, which explains where his first misplaced loyalties are. Of course his “duty” is to represent all of Fullerton, even the victims of criminal behavior by the police, not just the public safety unions who support his political campaigns.

Then: I still have public…private rights to live by.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? Bankhead’s sudden shyness never stopped this oaf from approving City spy cameras set up to take our pictures without asking our consent. More nonsense from Mr. Scrambled Eggs for Brains.

And finally, why is Bankhead parked in a handicapped spot? We know all about his fake “disability” scam, but really, his sense of entitlement, even fraudulently come by, is remarkable.

December 9, 2011December 9, 2011Behind Closed Doors

WHERE’S OUR MONEY?

by Mr. Peabody76 Comments

For years and years the City of Fullerton has been adding ten percent to the cost you and I pay for our water and re-directing this money to Fullerton’s General Fund; the fund that pays for City Councilmen Jones’ and Bankhead’s pay and perks, and that also pays for Fullerton’s pensions, including the mammoth pension pulled in by Councilmember and former Police Chief Pat McKinley.

Forget for a moment the fact that California’s Constitution prohibits governments from charging more for services than they really cost, and consider Proposition 218, passed by the voters in 1996. It says that the government can’t dress up taxes and call them fees. It requires justification of such charges and public transparency. Justification and transparency, two commodities in real short supply in Fullerton.

The 10% “in-lieu fee” that the City has been adding (and hiding) in your water bill total is, and always was a fraud, and illegal.

Don n' Dick — Who wants to put lipstick on the pig?

Coincidentally, our asinine councilmember, F “Dick” Jones was first elected in 1996. And that means for every year of his rude, loud-mouthed tenure on the Fullerton City Council he has been approving this rip-off. Of course his sleepy pal Don Bankhead was trudging right along side him every crooked mile of the way.

Since the gross rater revenue runs into the tens of millions every year, the 10% rip off has sure piled up. I estimate the total to be somewhere between $25,000,000 and $30,000,000 since 1997 alone. That’s a lot of dough, and I really have to wonder, will Jones, Bankhead and now McKinley offer the water ratepayers of Fullerton a refund of this misdirected money?

Why not?

December 9, 2011Dick Jones

It’s Been 5 Months Since a Man was Murdered by the Fullerton Police. Who’s Been Fired?

by Travis137 Comments

Ramos and Cicinelli, the two men charged in the murder of Kelly Thomas, got three months of paid vacation. Now they’re on unpaid leave, but they still have not been fired.

What about officers Hampton, Wolfe, Blatney and Craig who were accomplices in the brutal beating? Nope. Still employed. Still getting paid.

And the FPD management who allowed the six officers to collude on their reports? We still don’t know who’s responsible for that mess. But nobody was fired.

Chief Sellers, who went on vacation, returned only to hide under his desk, and then foraged up a doctors note to dodge his responsiblies while Fullerton suffered? Not fired.

How about Jones and Meyer, the city attorneys who have worked so hard to conceal the department’s criminal activity from the public eye for all those years? They’re still here. And they’re probably making more than ever.

And the City Manager, who’s supposed to be responsible for all city employees and their actions? Not fired. But he did try to give himself a raise.

And finally, the three councilmembers who’ve been overseeing this mess for 56 collective years, who did nothing but insult the murder victim and defend the police department responsible for his death? They’re still here, and they’re still deflecting responsibility for the actions of the city they’re supposed to be running.

Five months have passed and not a single soul has lost their job for their involvement in a murder under color of authority. That’s a pretty stark contrast to those of us in the real world, where people are often fired for showing up to work late or taking a nap on the clock.

But not in Fullerton. This year we have witnessed a demonstration of a power structure so perverse that it can insulate itself from the most heinous of crimes with almost no remorse or repercussions.

December 8, 2011Dead heads

FPD Alerts Public On Sex Offender

by The Fullerton Harpoon277 Comments

Well, here’s the information provided by Andrew Goodrich & Co. about some dude who needs to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Everybody’s supposed to be scared. At least this loser did his time.

Too bad Pat KcKinley’s boys never bothered to alert the women of Fullerton that a serial molester of women, Albert Rincon was prowling the streets of Fullerton preying upon precisely those women McKinley would characterize as not credible. See, Rincon was one of Fullerton’e Finest. Really.

And he was actually put back on the streets after a little sensitivity training.

December 4, 2011December 4, 2011Behind Closed Doors

You Said What You Said

by Mr. Peabody147 Comments

Politicians are forever saying asinine things and then denying they said them. Small time politicians like our own mutton head Don Bankhead have been getting away with this sort of thing for years. Televised council meetings have helped expose the intra-noggin confusion that exists in minds like Bankhead’s, but youtube has really been invaluable.

A while back we ran a post that highlighted Bruce Whitaker rightfully taking Bankhead to task for sharing his opinion that Fullerton would be ghost town without Redevelopment. No, no said Bankhead, testy-like. He really said “downtown Fullerton.” Forget that neither would be a ghost town without Redevelopment – that’s just Big Gummint Bankhead passing along all the lies he’s swallowed over the years, and of course his own campaign literature year after dreary year – taking credit for “revitalizing” DTF over and over and over and over and over again.

Here’s what Bankhead really said, verbatim, an insult to the hundreds of businesses in DTF and in the rest of the city that never took a nickel of Bankhead’s largess:

Or, to put it another way:

December 2, 2011December 2, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

For The Next Council Meeting – A Public Reading

by The Fullerton Shadow63 Comments

FPD — The City's eyes were badly "bloused." Again.

I strongly urge each and every Friend of Freedom in Fullerton to take with them a copy the most recent OC Weekly to the next Fullerton City Council meeting, on December 6th.

Why? To read!

A speaker should begin reading aloud and into the record Marisa Gerber’s excellent exposition of the Fullerton Police Department’s Culture of Corruption. Pick up where your predecessor left off when his three minutes are up and the mike gets shut off. Keep going until you have made the Three Blind Brontosauruses and their Rotarian claque listen to the whole damned article.

At the end I would challenge any sane, honest person not to acknowledge the undeniable evidence that Pat McKinley’s police force degenerated into a sinkhole of corruption; and that that Bankhead and Jones are guilty of letting it happen as they abandoned their sworn responsibility to the citizens of Fullerton.

It’s very clear. They sold us out to their pals in the police union. Let’s be sure to remind them why they are being recalled!

November 27, 2011November 27, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

We Get Mail

by Mr. Peabody274 Comments

Here’s a little message we got at FFFF Central Ops today. This seems to be the talking point of law enforcement trolls in the Kelly Thomas matter. Blame dear old Dad for neglect, and now for wanting to cash in. This writer actually tries (without success) to redeem his/her ignorance and appalling spelling and grammar by admitting that the cops who murdered Kelly should be punished (well Hell, that’s mighty big of ya).

Name:
Email:
Privacy: You may publish this, but protect my identity

Subject: mr thomas’s alterior motives

so kelly thomas’s father threw kelly out of the house, put him on the street, and put him in an arm bar to force him onto a psych unit. hiis son was starving and homeless for years, but now all of a sudden mr thomas cares about him? he just wants millions out of this..yes the officiers should go to jail but mr thomas put his son out there in those volatiile condiitons simply because hiis son did not want to take his meds…if mr thomas cared about kelly’s wellbeing so much he would not put him on the streets you would think that that would be more dangerous for someone’s health than being off a drug

Of course we have been all over this ground before and if you believe that Kelly’s parents had the legal or practical ability to restrain their boy and force him to take medication you are a damned fool. In any case this simple, inescapable, unavoidable truth remains: if Ramos, Wolfe, Cicinelli, Blatney and Klein had not killed him, Kelly Thomas would be be alive today.

As far as a big payout is concerned, I’m wondering if advertising Ron Thomas’ greed is going to be the tact taken by the Three Recalled RINOs and their misbegotten backers, in an attempt to deflect criticism for their own dismal failures, before and after the murder.

So far the Three Tree Trunks have adamantly refused to even admit that there is a Culture of Corruption that runs through the police department – a culture created by McKinley’s incompetence (or worse) and nurtured by Jones and Bankhead’s sleepy and grumpy indifference. So why not cast about for a somebody else to blame?

November 27, 2011December 8, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

Who Will Be the Next Mayor of Fullerton? (Improved with Fun Pictures!)

by Joe Sipowicz53 Comments

Friends, it’s that time of year when the Fullerton City Council selects one of its number to be the voice and face of Fullerton to the community, and beyond.

Some folks say the title of Mayor is really only just a name for another voting member of the council; the person who just manages (or mismanages, as the case may be) the meetings, and signs documents approved by a council majority.

JonesMouthOpenFor Business — Ah resemble that remark, bah golly!

But consider this: how might the world, the nation, the State and the County have perceived Fullerton, if, as the Kelly Thomas police murder saga unfolded, Fullerton’s mayor had been other than the cantankerous southern-fried buffoon who, by all appearances treated the whole event as an annoying inconvenience on his way to a ribbon-cutting.

Which brings us to the December 6th vote. Last year Pat McKinley weaseled out on supporting Sharon Quirk-Silva for the number two spot, as he, at the behest of the repuglican establishment, joined Bankhead and Jones in keeping the Democrat Quirk-Silva out of the rotation.

Three-Councilmen — What happens when age overtakes IQ.

Well, as they say, that was then. Under normal circumstances the Ed Royce/Dick Ackerman crowd would love to cut her out again. But this year is different all right, and the Slush Fund Gang can’t afford to alienate any more voters, especially a significant liberal-leaning crowd who may very well relish yet another reason to sign a petition, and then vote to recall the Three Blind Brontosaurii.

The fact that many of these folks also qualified a referendum on the Coyote Hills development issue will cause The Three Silent Sloths’ handlers cause to pause: when the Recall signatures qualify the Fullerton lefties will have two swings to reverse the Chevron entitlements approved by Jones, Bankhead, and McKinley.

tricky dick — Heh heh, I'm pretty savvy. If you don't count that Ackerwoman campaign.

Ackerman isn’t stupid (although he has recently made some horrendous underestimations of the electorate). The anti-recall campaign has made a deliberate attempt to woo Fullerton’s liberal/schools/feel-good cadre by attacking a real conservative, FSD Trustee Chris Thompson. Well, okay, maybe Ackerman isn’t smart at all: Thompson out-polled every other candidate in every Fullerton ballot in 2010, so let’s see how that works out for The Dickster.

Still, wait and observe how Quirk-Silva is quietly selected as Mayor by the same bastards that refused her the Mayor Pro Tem job just a year ago.We may even hear lame explanations about last year’s vote

How would that be for cynicism of the lowest kind?

Upon further consideration, I believe this post should address the solitary figure of Bruce Whitaker, a principled conservative who is worth ten armies of Jonses, Bankheads, and McPensions. By virtue of his intelligence, stability, and ethics, Whitaker should be the next Mayor Pro Tem, and Mayor in 2013. If that happens I’ll unscrew my right arm and throw it across the room. The Three Silent Slugs will never let that happen. And one more great reason to Recall them.

November 23, 2011February 7, 2012Arts & Architecture

Another Redevelopment Fiasco That Refuses to Die

by admin49 Comments

Friends of Fullerton’s future have read many pages on this site dedicated to cataloguing the manifest failures of Redevelopment and all the attendant boondoggles it brings with it. Blind support for these disasters is one of the reasons The Three Blind Brontosauruses are being recalled. One of the biggest disasters-in-the-making is the lamentable “Amerige Court” project, another gigantic monster to be plopped down into Fullerton, and a totally staff-created and driven mess.

Naturally Bankhead and Jones have supported this gross example of corporate welfare that we end up paying for. McKinley is bound to go along for the ride. When he does we’ll be sure to let you know about it. Here is an update.

By Judith Kaluzny as published in The Fullerton Observer

The Amerige Court proposal is not dead yet. The council will vote December 5, 2011, whether to extend a Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA) first approved February 7, 2006, the third amended version having been approved by council March 4, 2008.

Since then, two extensions requested by developer Pelican Laing /Fullerton LLC (a Delaware corporation) were granted by staff June 2010 by Rob Zur Schmiede, executive director of the Redevelopment Agency (RDA), and April 1, 2011, by Joeseph Felz, acting executive director.

Meantime, the Laing portion of the Pelican-Laing developers, had been purchased in June 2006 by a company in the mideast country of Dubai, and Laing subsequently filed for bankruptcy in February 2009.

“Amerige Court,” described as “mixed-use development with up to 124 residential units and as much as 30,000 square feet of commercial area” was to be located on the north and south parking lots in the 100 block of West Amerige. At one time, the project was to be nine stories high on the south side of Amerige, with a five story parking structure on the north side of the street.

A Draft Environmental Impact Report was prepared in 2008 and concluded that there were “no potentially significant impacts that cannot be mitigated.”

Richard Hamm of Pelican Properties said recently, “It has been impossible to make any progress with the project since the State has attempted to end redevelopment. Of course, the economy has not helped.

“We have four companies waiting in the wings to join us in Amerige Court. We want to get the extension to the DDA as well as a few details worked out with Redevelopment before going forward with a new partner. Amerige Court is still a great opportunity. Downtown Fullerton is still a great place (despite the recent events).

Points in the original contract included:

-Giving $5.5 million from a $6 million bond issue to Pelican Properties to build the parking garage. The bonds were to be paid back by the residents and businesses in the new development. That will cause the businesses to cost $1.93 per square foot more than any other retail space downtown according to the city’s consultant, Keyser Marsten Associates, which advised the city to do “more due diligence” before they entered into this contract.

-The land Pelican will be given the by the city was not appraised, but agreed as being worth $8 to $8.5 million.

-A guarantee of 10% profit to Pelican on the project. Pelican can submit a new budget before escrow closes. If that does not show they will get a 10% profit, they can withdraw from the project. However, at that point, the redevelopment agency can volunteer to pay the required profit to Pelican. The Executive Director of the Redevelopment Agency can do this without further input from the city council/redevelopment agency.

-Tearing down the historic properties on the southeast corner of Malden and Amerige Avenues.

[The DDA and amendments are a maze of turgid language: The Third Amendment provides for a “future amendment,” but if “a Future Amendment is not approved by Developer and the Agency Board (city council) by April 5, 2009, or such later date as may be approved by the parties in the sole and absolute discretion of each of them, either party shall have the right to terminate the DDA… .”

[The third amended DDA also includes the following language: “However, the Entitlements have not been approved as Agency has not approved the Project or any other project for the Property. The parties acknowledge that this Third Amendment does not constitute the third amendment that was contemplated under the Second Amendment.”]

Begun in 2001 with a “rendering” commissioned by Paul Dudley, then Director of Development, and shown to city council members in closed session, it has been said that this was a scheme to get more parking for the bars/restaurants downtown. (In December 2002, restaurants downtown were exempted from having to provide parking or to obtain conditional use permits.)

FFFF has argued for years that this grossly subsidized monstrosity should be killed outright. As I noted, above, the extension of this agreement will become another issue in the upcoming recall campaign: a perfect example of corporate welfare of the type that has characterized massive subsidized apartment blocks in downtown Fullerton already approved by Bankhead and Jones over the years.

November 19, 2011November 20, 2011Orange County Government

Jerbal’s Back in the News!

by admin213 Comments

After we outed him as one of the biggest hypocrites in the history of OC repuglicanism (and that’s saying a lot), it looks like my old punching bag Matthew J. Cunningham is in the news again.

According to the New Santa Ana blog, Supervisor Bill Campbell looks to be hiring Cunningham’s wife as chief of staff in a new make-work project for which the RINO 3rd District Supervisor is becoming notorious.

Campbell is mercifully (for the taxpayers) termed out at the end of next year and so a rat is apparently leaving the sinking ship. Mrs. Cunningham must need a job, and what better way to misdirect a six-figure income to one of your loyal co-parishioners than give them the job running your office? Mrs. Jerbal, like her husband has close ties to the lobbyist/political handler John Lewis, so they’ve got that going for them, too.

The fact that Mrs. Cunningham ran the Latino outreach for the bigoted and unconstitutional Proposition 8 campaign seems not to be an issue for Campbell who is known as rabidly Catholic: he is the guy who also appointed the pedophile-priest protector Monseignor John Urell to some dopey County commission. Oh yeah, this was the same guy who Cunningham created a support group for after he bugged out of his sex-abuse case deposition and fled to Canada.

Nice folks.