Setting The Bar Low – Page 81 – Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 22, 2011May 23, 2011Setting The Bar Low

The Water District’s $571,400 Ethics Office

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is spending $571,400 to fund their internal Ethics Office according to the approved 2011 budget.

cat-underwater — Sometimes you've got to ask yourself "why?"

According to the District’s website, the Ethics Office “helps maintain an ethical culture at Metropolitan by enforcement of ethics-related rules and laws; education for directors, officers and employees; and enhancement by promotion of the District’s six core values.” Are MWD employees so unethical that they need this office? Maybe, but they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of educating employees and board members. I vaguely recall an attempt 2 years ago to get a 25% retroactive pension spike.

That’s $571,400 to “help maintain an ethical culture”.

The funds pay for one Ph.D. and two others identified as an educator and an administrative liaison. With failed overhead like this, it is no wonder the MWD Operations & Maintenance budget projects an 18.4% increase in salary and benefit costs as well as a 23% increase in construction related costs and a 23% increase in Water System Operations!

It’s also no wonder why Fullerton’s water rates are anticipated to nearly double.

This Monday, May 23rd, the City will be holding a public meeting with an ad-hoc water rate committee in the City Council chambers at City Hall (303 W. Commonwealth) at 6:30PM. I encourage ALL Fullerton water users to attend. You will be given an opportunity to voice your concerns and let committee members know where you stand.

If you would like a copy of the Fullerton Water Rate Study Ad Hoc Committee Briefing, please email me at GregSebourn@yahoo.com and I will email it to you.

May 19, 2011May 19, 2011Behind Closed Doors

County Human Resources Disaster

by Mr. Peabody26 Comments

Crater — You may have felt the impact...

Every government agency displays a tendency to circle its wagons, defend incompetent behavior and keep outside scrutiny….well, outside. A notable exception appears to be the County of Orange’s Performance Auditor, whose office just completed a scathing report on County executives gettting unjustified pay raises with the assent of the CEO, and just as bad, giving away the farm when it came to negotiating sweetheart deals with the other County “family,” er, union members.

And juxtaposed to this is the typical behavior County CEO Tom Mauk, who has presided over the disaster and who, rather than letting his HR director quit in disgrace, and fixing the catastrophe he helped create, has apparently talked the incompetent Carl Crown into staying on another year so he can “negotiate” another disastrous deal with Nick “Bullhorn” Berardino’s union. He’s circling the wagons, hard.

Here’s a good recap by the Register’s Kimberly Edds.

The real question is what are the County Supervisors going to do about this mess? In a Voice of OC(EA) post our Supervisor, Shawn Nelson seemed outraged. He should be. Let’s hope the Gang of Five will finally shoot straight – and get rid of their CEO, Tom Mauk.

May 15, 2011About Us

Admin Takes a Spill

by Travis36 Comments

May 6, 2011May 6, 2011Don Bankhead

Don Bankhead & The Crossing Guard

by admin35 Comments

I wonder how this woman felt after Mayor Pro-Tem Don Bankhead unleashed another creepy comment into the microphone, minimizing her work and possibly ruining her moment in the spotlight.

What do you think…embarrassing, innocent or inappropriate?

May 5, 2011May 5, 2011Education Uber Alles

Cirque du FSD

by Travis49 Comments

What kind of circus is FSD Ringmaster Lynn Thornley running? One that promotes kiddie antics and award ceremonies over legitimate board business.

The hyper-analytical Chris Thompson put together this chart of FSD meeting time spent wallowing in tomfoolery vs. legitimate school board business:

School-Minutes-Wasted — Now with 50% more fluff.

In Tuesday’s meeting, Thompson was fighting to bring an end to former Superintendent Cameron McCune’s laptop extortion scheme (thousands of dollars taken from parents by pressuring them to buy expensive Apple laptops.) But Lynn Thornley did everything she could to cut off debate and move to a quick vote HERE.

This haste occurred in meeting of which over an hour was dedicated to Cub Scout flag ceremonies, awards, various glad-handing, and a lady dancing around with a quilt over her head.

No joke:

The end result? Watch here as Thompson makes his case to end this boondoggle, debate is cut short and Trustee Berryman is run over, abstaining on an issue because she wasn’t given a chance to ask questions. The decision was rammed through anyway, leaving individual families to spend about $174,000 of their own money to keep this sinking technology program temporarily afloat.

Total time spent on legitimate discussion: 18 minutes.

May 3, 2011May 10, 2011Dead heads

Say What?

by Mr. Peabody24 Comments

Over at the Red County blog some dude named Walter Myers has been downplaying the egregious e-mail by Fullerton’s Marilyn Davenport that has made so much news recently. Today he did a post outlining the party’s real problem; and it’s not racism, really, but poor educational outreach to Latinos (he calls them Hispanics) and Asians. Apart from some completely specious demographic reasoning, he indicates that the problem is evinced by the fact that no Latinos or Asians stood up to defend Mrs. Davenport. Huh?!

This guy also has gone out of his way to defend the watermelon patch on the White House lawn e-mail that got Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose into so much hot water a couple of years ago. Surprisingly, no Latinos or Asians stood up to defend that cretin.

Well, okay Walter, de gustibus non es disputandum.

And here’s some fun commentary at the end of today’s post , starting with an intro by Fullerton religious zealot and anti-Islamic crusader, Zonya Townsend:

Marilyn Davenport and the OC GOP

Submitted by Zonya Townsend (not verified) on Mon, 2011-05-02 05:37.

I can’t write too much right now because I must to get ready to leave for work but must say this much. Marilyn Davenport is the woman that reached out and encouraged me, Zonya Townsend to run for OC CC several years ago. Her activism and concern for our nation fueled my interest in leadership positions in various organizations, including but not limited to the California Republican Party and the Women’s Federated. This whole email situation is a tragedy and misunderstanding that did not need to happen.

To Zonya

Submitted by waltermy on Mon, 2011-05-02 14:22.
Thanks for sharing that, Zonya, which is excellent information and insight for those who don’t know Marilyn. I wasn’t aware of that myself. This is a very unfortunate situation, and as I have always maintained, we need to provide grace towards Marilyn, who made a mistake that she apologized for, and determine how to best move forward as a party. The question now that this has gotten out is how we will respond as a party because we know what the perception of the party is now. We clearly have some work to do. My hope is that this entire situation motivates the party leadership to take our brand seriously and does the outreach that we so need to do in order to grow the party and truly be the party of Lincoln and Douglass.

Tragedy. Misunderstanding. Um, yeah, right, Zonya.

Walter’s wrong about the shape-shifting “apology,” but he is right that the GOP needs to be motivated and has work to do. But get this: he thinks the GOP is the party of Lincoln and Douglass. Forget the fact that Lincoln stood for almost NOTHING allegedly promoted by the modern GOP (except for neocon war and big government), Stephen Douglass was a freakin’ Democrat!

* As a reader points out, the Douglass referred to might have been the abolitionist Frederick Douglass! If so, my apologies to Mr. Myers for insulting his knowledge of American history, although I’m pretty sure FD would not recognize today’s GOP as “his” party.

April 24, 2011April 24, 2011Dead heads

Well, At Least We’re Not Alone

by Mr. Peabody57 Comments

If that provides any satisfaction.

It seems that downtown Huntington Beach suffers the same dysfunctional symptoms as downtown Fullerton: drunk driving, rowdyism, vandalism, etc., etc. The cause? Too many bars churning out too many inebriated patrons. Sound familiar?

DT HB has even more bars than DT Fullerton, apparently, and that’s saying something. Looks like some citizens are finally fed up with the trouble and the reputation all the bars bring to town. The City has no idea how to fix the mess they’ve made.

Here in Fullerton we have the answer to the problem: declare victory, legitimize the troublemakers and subsidize their fire sprinkler infrastructure. Why? ‘Cause this is the New West, dagnabit, ‘n we’re open fer bidness!

April 22, 2011April 22, 2011Setting The Bar Low

That’s A Lotta Pasta

by Travis11 Comments

Today the Register is reporting that Union officials for the Fullerton-based Teamsters Local 747 are taking heat for wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of union money on luxurious junkets and personal expenses. Even International Teamsters leader James P. Hoffa called the expenses “excessive.”

Amongst other abuses, union officials and employees were exposed for blowing $102,399 at Spadra, an Italian restaurant on Commonwealth in Fullerton (formerly Il Ghiotto, now closed).

Wow, a hundred grand sure will get ya a big pile of spaghetti. I’ll bet there was a little booze involved, too.

spaghetti-shovel — Your diet coke will be out in a moment.

Alright, so this fiasco doesn’t involve any public employee unions. But fraud, abuse and excess has plagued the leadership of public and private collective bargaining organizations since the glory days of union thuggery. Maybe this is just just a good reminder to union members: you ought to be checking up to make sure that your glorious leaders aren’t living high on the collective supply.

April 22, 2011April 22, 2011Parks and Trails

What Could Be Worse Than a McDonald’s in Hillcrest Park?

by Fred L. Olmsted32 Comments

How about a taxpayer-subsidized McFullerton to compete with non-subsidized local eateries. It’s Fullerton. it’s Redevelopment. It’s not impossible.

Seriously, could our city council really be contemplating a commercial restaurant in Hillcrest Park as part of the new Master Plan?

Well, why not? They’ve shown a total disregard for the park an historic resource over the years; for the Community Services Department Hillcrest Park “revitalization” has merely been an exploitation opportunity over the years, much as Downtown Fullerton has been for the Redevelopment Agency employees. So why not?

April 18, 2011Boohooism

Out of Context?

by admin35 Comments

Matthew J. Cunningham is scurrying around the internet trying to plug the holes in his sinking conservative reputation. Amongst other things, he has accused the Friends of posting portions of his invoices “out of context,” whatever that means. Of course he refuses to explain the details of his activities and continues to do the old “look over there” routine.