Wow. It’s sort of weird. I spend a few months in eastern Nevada and when I get back it seems like nothing has changed. It was way back in February that Joe did a recap on the doings of Pam Keller – and what a recap it was. We had over 130 comments, most from some pathetic Keller apologist calling him/herself 4th SD Observer.
And today I learned from a pretty reliable source that last night the Fullerton School Board renewed the Keller/Collaborative contract. You remember, the contract that permits Keller to be an FSD employee while in actuality she goes gallavanting around Fullerton, latte cup in hand, hobnobbing with other professional do-gooders, and taking credit for real philanthropy performed by others.
Anyway, I gather that the vote was 3-2, with Bev Berryman and Lynn Thornley, to their credit, dissenting. As usual Ed Royce liberals Hilda Sugarman and Ellen Ballard voted yes; and of course our old friend Minard Duncan had to go along, too. That figures. He has popped up here occasionally to inform us of how hard Pam works.
One of our observant friends passed along this iridescent pearl from Rob Reiner’s under scrutinized Tax and Redistribute OC Children and Families Commission:
July 15, 2010
The Children and Families Commission of Orange County was awarded the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). This achievement is the highest form of recognition among government finance and is given annually to promote high quality finance reporting in the public sector. More than 3,500 governments participate in this program each year.
This self-congratulatory item was no doubt scribbled by Chief Commission Wordsmith and $200 an hour toothbrush hander outer, Matthew J. Cunningham, and is typical of government accountants passing out accolades to each other.
Doing well by doing good!
Too bad nobody has done a real external performance audit, including investigating how exorbitant PR and lobbying contracts are being handed out to Commission member Bill Campbell’s political running buddies like Curt Pringle and Cunningham himself.
Well, not to worry. Something tells me that come 2010 Fringie Award time we’ll be recognizing the Commission with our own special brand of recognition.
Last year a few downtown Fullerton property and business owners lobbied the City Council to impose an tax assessment on downtown Fullerton. The purpose of this “Business Improvement District” was to raise money to clean up the mess introduced into Downtown by the numerous booze joints and illegal dance clubs.
The first step was predictable: hire yourself a “consultant” who will tell you what you want to hear. But the price tag was too steep and the promoters couldn’t get a clear majority of the Council to go along.
But apparently now Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva has changed her mind about hiring a consultant to meet and greet and spread the BID propaganda.
The direction here is all too clear: build up some momentum toward the idea and then rely on the self-interested parties to vote their interest and hope that the other property owners don’t catch on.
Well I think this stinks. Why should all the downtown property owners pay to fix the problems caused by the bar owners and their out-of-control customers, not to mention a City policy that has enabled all these problems? And let’s not forget – former police chief and council candidate Patrick McKinley who liked to look the other way.
And why should the taxpayers keep footing the bill?
As quickly as you can, Grasshopper, snatch the park from its owners...
When it’s Fullerton’s Hillcrest Park, of course. Then it’s a resource of a different kind: an opportunity for City Staff to play upon the sentimentality of Fullerton’s park and history lovers to destroy the very resource that is ostensibly being saved.
They did it 15 years ago and they are doing it again.
I went to Saturday’s latest public meeting to “save the park” and witnessed something quite remarkable. Just like last time the City staff has employed a consultant to remake the park in its own desired form, replete with new facilities it can market or operate, while ignoring the true needs of the old girl.
But this time the ludicrousness of the whole operation became apparent immediately. A representative of the landscape architect hired to foist the exploitative plan informed us all what was wrong with Hillcrest Park. It has badchi. And all these years we just thought it was neglect by the parks and police departments. Chi. Hmm.
So what’s the solution to clean up the chi and get things all aligned, nice and proper?
A restaurant, for one thing, down by the duck pond; and a new park entrance; new retaining walls along the Brea Creek and an abandonment of the interior roadways might just get that troublesome chi back in balance, we were informed.
I don’t know how much we’re paying these yahoos to further destroy our park, but I’ll bet it’s a lot. And I’ll also bet that Redevelopment money is picking up at least part of the tab. And ultimately the only way to pay to comprehensively destroy this historic resouce is to use big piles of Redevelopment money to do it. Redevelopment destroying historic resources. That’s not a new theme.
Hillcrest Park is on the National Register of Historic places but nobody seems to treat it like it were. Only last year the City embarked on massive alterations to the north slope of the park without review by the Landmarks Commission.
Well, good luck Hillcrest. And in the meantime may the chi be with you.
…that somebody is loading you up with a pile of road apples?
Be sure to pour it on nice and thick...
Good thing Sharon Quirk-Silva knows when to call for a tow. Had it not been for Quirk-Silva the city may have broken the law (again). Watch and see for yourself when Mayor Bankhead asks the police captain how he is supposed to break the law after the tow truck drivers explained to the city council the state law pertaining to private parties towing vehicles.
The city attorney Elena Gerli sure expends a lot of words, but she manages to evade the main issue: her proposed code amendment was created in a vacuum.
So how much per hour are we paying for this mumbo jumbo?
Attorneys are expensive for a reason… they’re supposed to be smarter than the rest of us. But once again our high-priced legal experts from Jones and Mayer have failed to impress.
In haste to find a new revenue generating scheme, the Fullerton Police Department worked with Jones & Mayer attorney Elena Gerli (of former bicycle nuisance fame) to draw up an ordinance that would raise towing fees and create a new “franchise opportunity” within the city. For Fullerton motorists, that translates to more fees for the same ‘ol service. But I digress.
A series of tow operators gave detailed testimony that passing the ordinance would be a violation of several state laws. The City Attorney then gave a sketchy rebuttal (more on this subject in a future post) that failed to mitigate the council’s concerns, Sharon Quirk-Silva quickly took the lead in sending the attorney back to the drawing board and calling for a study session to prevent another legal mess for our city.
Was our attorney outsmarted by a group of tow truck drivers? It seems like it. We’ll find out in a few more weeks, but not until they’ve squeezed out another round of billable hours.
Why do I feel like we’ve been here before? Let’s see… a bureaucracy’s insatiable desire to increase revenue combined with poor legal advice, leading to eventual lawsuits and thus diverting any potential “profits” into the welcoming arms of Jones and Mayer.
We thought you might get a kick out of the list of repuglican losers who decided that backing the despicable carpetbagging scampaign of Linda Ackerwoman in 2009 was just not enough; they decided to double down on the comical carpetbagging perjuror, Hide and Seek Sidhu in 2010. The common denominator? Hard to tell – personal ambition, fear, stupidity, and complete lack of ethical compass all seem to be motivators for these people:
Fullerton Councilman Dick Jones
County Supervisor Bill Campbell
County Supervisor Janet Nguyen
Assemblyman Jim Silva
Congressman Dana Rohrbacher
Anaheim mayor Curt Pringle
Placentia Councilman Jeremy Yamaguchi
Former County Supervisor Cynthia Coad
Brea Councilman Roy Moore
Yes, it’s a pretty exclusive crew, if a bit motley around the edges. It’s not easy to find a collection of folks whose ambition is only outweighed by stupidity or cupidity, so you’ve got to give them some credit of a sort.
There may also be other members of this club. If you can think of any be sure to let us know.
What valuable piece of manpower is worth paying over $200,000 per annum not to do anything?
I'm your man...
If you guessed former Fullerton Police Chief Patrick McKinley you’d be right on the money. If there was ever a poster boy for out of control police pensions it would be Chief McKinley. See, the big guy pulls down a cool $96K a year from his old job at the LAPD that he’s been collecting since he left 17 years ago; then there’s the $118,000 he now rakes in from CalPERS, presumably from his time as Fullerton’s top cop.
Yipes! $215,000 a year in pension receipts; or about $18,000 a month; or $4100 every single week. More than he ever earned actually working. For the rest of his freaking life. If he lives another 20 years that’ll add up to $4,300,000 on top of what he’s already got, not counting cost of living increases.
Why is this important, apart from the obvious illustration of public safety pensions run amok? Because the word on Commonwealth Avenue is that Mr. McKinley is being promoted for City Council appointment to replace Shawn Nelson by Don Bankhead and Dick Jones – two other public pensioneers, one of whom is also a former cop.
In the RINO world of Bankhead and Jones this sort of thing is just hunky-dory. But for a lot of people – liberals and conservatives alike, the thought of this massive double dipper making pension decisions that affect Fullerton taxpayers is reminiscent of the fox guarding the hen house.
The other day at the self-righteous Blue County Blog, Boy Reporter #1 Dan C-somethingorother, put up a post defending himself in the dust up between him and the OJ Blog’s Art Pedroza. The funniest comment came from our old pal, Boy Reporter #2, Matthew J. Cunningham, the biggest hypocrite in Orange County – you remember, the creep who by day is a mild-mannered Welfare State teat-sucker, but who at night transforms himself into some sort of uber-conservative super hero. Here’s some of what he had to add to the comments thread:
Well said, Dan. As you make clear, “the blog war” is just Pedroza code for the LOC lawsuit against him — and that’s what he wants ended, not the poisonous atmosphere in the OC blogosphere the he, Tony Bushala and others have created.
And Pedroza’s claim today that he doesn’t allow personal attacks on me — that’s just an out-and-out lie. But typical, when you consider the source.
Oh boy what a guy! Somehow it’s my fault that this slime ball who pretends to be some sort of social conservative is actually the biggest, most liberal, whole-village rearing apologist and pond scum skimmer in Orange County, and we’re letting folks know about it. And that’s a personal attack? Funny how I’m “poisonous,” and yet this free loader still hasn’t got the balls to explain to his readers at the Red County blog about his day job passing out toothbrushes at $200 an hour.
You can't hurt me. I've got friends in high places...
My run in with this clown began over a year ago when the supposed conservative paragon started doing his typical lame song and dance for liberal spendthrift and serial mis-manager, Democrat Tom Daly. Then came his back-handed promotions of the carpetbaggers Ackerwoman, and Hairball Sidhu; and the efforts to undermine the campaign of a real conservative – Shawn Nelson.
Well here’s a news flash: I’m going to do my best to clean out OC of its repuglican hypocrites, pharisees, and plantation overseers no matter how long it takes and no matter how much it costs. And that’s a promise.
A quick perusal of the OC Children and Families Commission meeting for July 7, 2010 might be a bit misleading. Item six talks about a Strategic Communications Work Program and lists the “consultants” – really lobbyists and promoters whom we’ve seen before – Pringle and Associates, and O’ Haren, and the comically named White House Writers Group, that are lining up to line their pockets at the expense of hungry kids.
However, it’s not until you actually look at the agenda item staff report that you see our old friend Matthew Cunningham from Suite C described. Hiding something? The budget item is for “on call” services for a total of $30,000. I’m not sure what on call services amount to, but clearly Cunningham is still to be employed doing whatever it is he does for the Rob Reiner Tax and Redistribute Commission at the princely rate of $200 an hour.
The somewhat ambiguous phrase “a no-cost extension will be executed, and as necessary, modifications within the contract and budget authority” is appended. Apparently “Final” FY 2010-2011 budget actions take place in October.
