Setting The Bar Low – Page 84 – Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 31, 2011February 1, 2011Behind Closed Doors

The Voice of OC(EA) Shoots; Scores!

SantanaHeadShot — Hell, yes! Pookas 'n everything...

Okay, we’ve had some harsh criticism of the Voice of OC in the past, but today Norberto Santana came out with a great expose about OC Fair-employed lobbyist Dick Ackerman, husband of former carpetbaggress Linda, both of whom are residents of Irvine.

tricky dick — I told the DA everything was on the up and up. And that's what he went with!

Last year our do-nothing DA whitewashed Ackerman’s role in the ’09 OC Fair sale matter, saying he didn’t lobby the Legislature in violation of State law. How did the DA reach this conclusion? It wasn’t through investigative work, that’s for damn sure. Naturally, Amen Corner repuglicans like Matthew J. Cunningham crowed when the whitewash came out, but they’ll be eating crow soon enough. See, Santana got hold of Ackerman’s Nossaman Law Firm’s original billing records. And even though those records were laundered through some “environmental” consulting firm called LSA, the details prove what we here at FFFF have known since the fall of 2009: Ackerman was acting as a lobbyist and that in 2010 the DA was covering it up. The Nossaman billing records show phone calls to members of the State Legislature at $500 an hour. And that was illegal.

fartboy — I gotta eat the feathers, too?

We didn’t have the billing, of course. We just had Dicky-boy’s own words:

“In order for the fair to be sold, it would require budget language to authorize the state to sell it,” he said. “I did some preliminary work to get the language in the budget.”

Preliminary work? Well, that’s one way of describing it; and that pesky budget language sure wasn’t going to jump into the bill all by itself, now was it?

Well, Friends, don’t expect any legal remedies anytime soon. Just remember the name: Ackerman. When you hear it, or read it, or smell it, you can bet some monkey business is afoot.

January 30, 2011January 30, 2011Harry Sidhu

Carpetbaggin’ Rhamadu. Separated at Birth?

by admin8 Comments

This picure was just too fun not to give a second pass. Enjoy the image of two eerily look-a-like carpetbaggers and scampaigners.

January 27, 2011January 27, 2011Harry Sidhu

Illinois Court Sides with FFFF on Carpetbaggery

by admin26 Comments

We just received the following note from a visitor named “Otis T. Jacksone”:

In a belated blow to Linda Ackerman and Assclown Sidhu supporters, the Illinois court ruled that residency requirements are enforceable and Rahm Emanuel is therefore ineligible to run for mayor of Chicago. After years of rulings that created all sorts of loopholes in the 130 year old Illinois law, the supremes employed a little common sense and removed Emanuel from the ballot due to the fact he had lived in D.C. for the prior year. Illinois law requires a candidate to live in the district for one year before the election.

California should take note. The California constitution has long required a candidate to be a resident of his district one year prior to filing. The Sidhus and Ackermans of the world have ignored the law feeling it was unconstitutional. Maybe Illinois is on to something. No Carpetbaggers!

January 25, 2011Fullerton City Council

Bruce Whitiker?

by Jan Florys Dog11 Comments

Looks like the City recently purchased some fancy letterhead. Too bad they spelled Bruce Whitaker’s name wrong. Jerry Brown probably won’t know the difference, but we do.

D’oh!

More on Crazy Doc Heehaw’s letter to the Gov later…

Read the letter

January 21, 2011January 21, 2011Big Brother

The Red Light Skeletons of Harbor Boulevard

by Travis35 Comments

Several years ago this blog documented the shameful saga of Fullerton’s red light cameras, which were shut down after a judge declared that the city had been operating them illegally. That was an embarrassing moment for the mystified members of city council; even more so for the city attorney who lost in court and then stuck us with the bill.

The cameras were removed, but the poles and strobes still hang over Harbor Blvd today.

Should the city take them down?

Nope. Please leave them up forever as permanent monuments to magnificent and expensive failure, driven by a desperate quest for new revenue. Ah, wonderful new revenue streams… usually that means some gimmick conjured up to extract more money from the beleaguered public, promoted by tireless staff (and in this case, an eager red light camera salesman) and then executed by council with little regard for external consequences, all to avoid dealing with the real problem: excessive spending.

Any way, I see no sense in tearing down those poles. None at all.

January 20, 2011May 23, 2011Behind Closed Doors

On the Water Gravy Train. Prima Ballerina Edition.

by admin7 Comments

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!