Setting The Bar Low Archives - Page 83 of 114 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 20, 2011May 23, 2011Behind Closed Doors

On the Water Gravy Train. Prima Ballerina Edition.

Last week the Register’s Watchdog Teri Sforza did a piece on members of the opaque Metropolitan Water District Board who had racked up huge travel expenses soldiering onward for you and me in the great water wars.

Who’s well up on the list? Fullerton’s representative, Jim Blake, for one. Another is Fullerton resident wannabe Linda Ackerwoman who lives in Irvine but tried to carpetbag her way to fame and forune as our Assembly representative. This egregious pair racked up bills of $18,302 and $13,356 respectively, in 2009-2010. The biggest line item was lodging in for both.

It seems that Mrs. Ackerwoman got up on her offended hinders to defend the indefensible – with the usual blather about how hard she works for us, and the rigors of travel to engage herself in all these hyper-complicated issues. Of course the real truth is that if this job were so damn complicated she couldn’t do it in the first place. More truth: these trustees are hand-held and led along by their staff upon whom they are completely reliant. Which is no doubt why Madame Ackerwoman voted to jack up by 20% the rates requested by the aquacrats in the spring of 2009. See, the relationship is pretty symbiotic.

The fun Ackerwoman quote from the Sforza piece? Here it is: “the whole world of water is ballet.”

Wow! Thanks for that, Linda. Now go slip into your swimsuit!

And lest we forget Jim Blake, who has been on the Board since before water was even created, isn’t it time to switch to a more reliable, less expensive model?

January 17, 2011January 17, 2011Repuglicanism

Repuglican, Junior Grade

by Mr. Peabody33 Comments

There has been some talk hereabouts regarding tonight’s election of officers for the OCGOP. Not being a Republican, I really don’t care much who these idiots elect to be their “leaders,” a funny description of what amounts to little more than a kleptocracy (thanks, nipsey). Scott Baugh, the top dog who is running for another term, has been an overseer on the plantation for years, using his political connections to get a huge lobbying contract from the County of Orange. His official bootlicker, Matthew J. Cunningham, was rewarded for all his lackeydom with a six-figure-a-year deal with the most liberal agency in California proving that the plumbers are right and shit does run downhill.

But this post is about a chap named Jonathan Fleischman who is running for 1st Vice president (or some equally lame title) really sets the the gold standard for repuglicanism. His pals like Cunningham love to tell you about how The Flash has labored in the trenches doing God’s work, blah, blah, blah. What he omits to mention is that Fleischman was crooked Sheriff Carona’s apologist for years – while on the public payroll, and all the while running his real business, an ad factory blog called The Flash Report.

You are called upon by Cunningham to believe that underneath the oleaginous surface Fleischman is true and pure, a real Tea Partier. Examples are shown to demontrate his rock-ribbed conservatism and willingness to go after even bigger crooks than he. But check the dates: Fleischman’s behavior only got tough when he was no longer on the government payroll, the S.S. Carona was sinking fast, and he evidently saw his main chance in burnishing his alleged conservative credentials.

carona — Psst. Fleischman's left the reservation...

But the true ‘pug in Fleischman re-emerged in fine form in the fall of 2009 when he promoted the carpetbagging scampaign of the utterly lame Linda Ackerwoman over Chris Norby. See, that episode was all about the do-re-mi, too. And that’s what repuglicanism is all about: getting government influence through specious claims of conservatism and then peddling it as hard as you can.

January 10, 2011January 10, 2011About Us

Subpoena Squashed

by Travis8 Comments

The Friends won a minor victory in the courtroom today as our motion to (s)quash a subpoena was granted by an Orange County Superior Court judge. The subpoena would have compelled us to reveal identifying information of a blog commenter to an Anaheim city employee, who is suing an anonymous John Doe for defamation.

burger-squashed — Quash. Such a cool word.

A series of arguments filed just before the hearing centered on the inherent nature of Friends for Fullerton’s Future itself. Is it a business, an unincorporated association, a global shadow conspiracy, or just an Internet domain? The judge didn’t want to go there. And really, who can blame him?

So we won on a technicality and the plaintiff vowed to serve the subpoena again. Outside the courtroom we implored her to focus on the nasty stuff left on other websites and drop the case against FFFF’s comparatively mild missive, leaving it to whither away into Internet nothingness where is just may well belong.

Will she listen? Doubtful. She seems as hardheaded as we are.

January 7, 2011January 7, 2011About Us

The Subpoena: Will It Quash?

by Travis22 Comments

Let’s hope so. FFFF filed an emergency motion to quash a subpoena this morning in the case of Cheryl Sanders vs. John Doe, a defamation suit filed by an Anaheim city employee against an anonymous commenter in which the Friends were compelled by court order to release private records. Our little hearing is scheduled for Monday at 1:30 pm at the Central Justice Center.

View the motion to quash subpoena

Journalists have a right to protect sources who allege corruption within government offices, and we believe that right extends to bloggers, too. Lucky for FFFF, the courts in California seem to agree. Given that, we’d rather punch our own groins than divulge the identity of a potential whistleblower who partakes in the raging digital discussion that happens here.

Here’s the bottom line: Friends for Fullerton’s Future won’t surrender any of our anonymous commenters’ private data to anybody (especially a public employee) without a fight.

January 3, 2011January 4, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Another Pringle Undertaking

by admin20 Comments

Cemetery1-300x225 — Der Pringle is dying to get in...

The OC Cemetery District sure seems to have a morbid fascination with failure.

Last year we reported on how the Orange County Cemetery District had employed Anaheim’s mayor-for-hire, Kurt Pringle as a consultant. Pringle was getting 6,000 bucks a month to find a new cemetery site, do PR, and act as a cemetery developer. Which was really pretty funny since Pringle is not a realtor, is not a landscape architect, and all the publicity the Cemetery District has gotten lately has all been bad.

PringlePower-300x225 — We have something really nice for you in mahogany.

Pringle’s been on the Cemetery District’s payroll for two years now, which seems like ample time to have accomplished a lot. Well, something. Anything.

But in these opaque, special districts nothing succeeds like failure, apparently, for tomorrow the Cemetery District Board of Trustees is being asked by their staff to extend Der Pringle’s contract even though so far he has accomplished virtually nothing for them. Part of the problem is that the Cemetery Board is independent of any real oversight; and the average age of the Board is something like 969 years old, so there seems to be zero sales resistance.

Renew!!?? Sweet Jebus! The Board ought to be suing Pringle and his Associates for breach of contract!

January 3, 2011January 3, 2011About Us

Subpoena from an Anaheim Employee

by Travis59 Comments

The OC Sheriff’s department staked out an FFFF outpost last week to deliver a subpoena demanding that fullertonsfuture.org produce information identifying one of our anonymous commenters.

Cheryl Sanders, currently a “Real Property Specialist” for the City of Anaheim, is suing (see complaint) one or more John Does who allegedly defamed her in anonymous comments on FFFF and a few other sites. The blog comments claim that the Anaheim planning department is taking bribes under the table, call for an investigation and state that Cheryl Sanders should be “brought to justice.”

anonymous — Faceless Internet meanies strike again

Of course, Sanders’ suit against the commenter claims that all of these statements are false and were made with the intent to emotionally harm her.

But back to the matter at hand: Cheryl’s initial demand for FFFF to identify the commenter was denied. We don’t disclose our logs to anyone. So what should we do with the subpoena?

View the subpoena

The Friends have a soft spot for the anonymous horde of commenters that visit our humble blog and we’d hate to see any of them get pushed around by a litigious public employee. On the other hand, making false statements with the intent to harm is a legal no-no, and the alleged victim should have her day in court. But the actual comment that was left on FFFF was vague, uninspired, and hardly defamatory in my professional opinion (it was removed pending the outcome of the case, but that was pointless since you can now view it on the last page of the subpoena.) Truthfully, this blog is disinclined to acquiesce to the court’s request, but we’d like to consider the opinions of the armchair attorneys that frequent our blog before we proceed.

And it’s worth noting that in over two years and 350,000 words, none of our own bloggers have ever been sued for libel. Why not? Because you can’t sue if it’s true.

December 30, 2010December 31, 2010Arts & Architecture

Fullerton SRO Developer Under Federal Investigation; Is It Even Safe?

by admin12 Comments

Ajit Mithaiwala — Some day we will all have a cup of coffee and laugh about it...

Last year we posted a magisterial, five-part history about one of Fullerton’s greatest Redevelopment boondoggles, the so-called “City Lights” single-room occupancy project. Our series started here.

As we related, here, in October 2010, questions were being raised about the financial dealings and records of the developer, Ajit Mithaiwala, and the federal government was investigating.

Once again, according to a recent article in LA Times, here, Mithaiwala and his company ADI, are accused of sticking it to the City of Glendale, but good. More evidence is presented suggesting that ADI defrauded the Glendale housing agency out of millions, possibly building substandard po’ folks housing while receiving millions in public subsidy. To top it off, ADI was greasing the axles of local government real well, too, as demonstrated by contributions and favors to city councilmembers in Glendale.

According to the articles ADI has been involved in 40-50 projects across the Southland, so the enormity of the problem is, well, potentially enormous, if in fact, the Glendale experience proves typical.

Which brings us back to Fullerton. When the SRO was built in the late 90s, peculiar construction techniques and prolonged inspection difficulties had some scratching their heads. And now with stories of possible substandard work in Glendale circulating, we are well within the bounds of reason asking our city officials if, in fact, the building is really safe for occupancy.

Where is Mithaiwala? These articles do not say. Maybe the FBI is looking.

And just for fun backwards salute, here’s a timely quote from our current mayor, Ol’ Doc Heehaw who, when the SRO was being proposed in 1997, shot off his big yapper, got threatened with a personal lawsuit by Mithaiwala’s henchmen, and then cowardly changed his vote:

“The city would be at great, I underline great, financial risk if it did not proceed with this project,” Jones said before casting his vote for the settlement. The threatened lawsuit was “a loaded gun against the head,” Jones said.

Risk. Thanks Mr. All Hat and No Cattle.

December 29, 2010December 29, 2010Downtown Fullerton

The Bright Lights of Soco

by The Fullerton Savage17 Comments

Have you noticed the ever present searchlight in the sky above downtown each night? Could you possibly miss it? Anyone curious enough to follow this beacon to its source will find it right outside of Joe’s restaurant in Soco:

Say, do you think Joe’s has some kind of permit for that thing? If they do, I’ll bet they didn’t tell anyone they were going to park it in the middle of a sidewalk, blocking access for everyone, including people in wheelchairs. I’m guessing they probably aren’t supposed to have it set up in front of a handicapped parking space either. And I’m pretty sure they aren’t supposed to cable it to a natural gas meter pipe!

And while you’re there be sure to turn around and wish Rosco’s a Happy New Year!

December 20, 2010Dead heads

The Tongue Bath

by admin5 Comments

We knew it was coming, of course. The last obsequious tribute of the ultimate repuglican lackey to the ultimate repuglican puppeteer. Still, it’s pretty gross even when you knew it was coming.

No mention of incompatible offices, or of directing hundreds of millions to pet projects, or of do-nothing contracts with opaque organizations like the Children and Families Commission and the Cemetery District; no mention of a financial interest Form 700 that’s over 60 pages long; and no mention of “freedom-friendly” up-zoning that cleared out huge swaths of light industrial employers and employees to make way for high-density condos built by buddies.

Well, what did you expect?

December 19, 2010December 19, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Hey, Lucy, Where’s the $75,000?

by admin29 Comments

Back in September, the OC Board of Supervisors approved yet another feel-good layer of government – something called the End Homelessness by 2020 Commission. They even allocated $75,000 towards one (1) executive director; another $75,000 was supposed to come from the “private sector.” The thing was trumpeted as a “public/private partnership” and all the do-gooders were feeling pretty good. Lucy Dunn, head of something called the OC Business Council was there to make sure everybody knew that the business community was on board and meant business.

Lucy-Dunn-300x280 — We were this close to raising a nickle!

Flash forward to December14. On their agenda, the BOS had a agreement with the Children and Families Commission to front the other $75,000, and not only that, but to “recruit, hire and house” the executive director. What was sold a s a public/private deal was now wholly public; and the supes were asked to let another agency recruit and hire a contractor who is supposed to report to them!

Of course Ms. Dunn was there again to shamelessly blather on about her “time and treasure” even though there was none of her treasure, or that of her members, in evidence.

Supervisor Shawn Nelson would have none of it. He had the strange idea that words in a staff report should actually mean something; “show me the money” was what he had to say, indicating his acknowledgment that in almost a year the private sector hadn’t coughed up so much as a nickle and everybody on the inside knew it.

Led by John Moorlach, the crew approved this arrangement 4-1, and provided yet another example of how supposed conservatives in OC can’t throw away your money fast enough. And the Children and Families Commission has new roles – employment agency and homelessness advocates.Wanna bet to whom the executive director will answer? That’s right, Mr. $327K a year Mike Ruane, who runs the OCC&FC “do tank” and who will probably ask for a raise.

And what will happen in 1n 2020 when homelessness is not ended and the Commission has a staff of 23? Well, Hell, that’s easy! Just rename the commission. 2030 will be right around the corner!