After months of wondering how Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, Curt Pringle, could get away with pushing through his high speed choo-choo on the folks of Buena Park, Fullerton, Anaheim, Orange County and all of California, I discovered a legal opinion from Legislative Counsel addressed to the Secretary of the State Senate that unequivocally opines that Pringle holds incompatible offices as Chairman of the California High Speed rail Authority, while simultaneously representing the City of Anaheim and the Orange County Transit Authority. He is breaking the law.
"A" is for...
Pringle has already directed the better part of $200,000,000 of Orange County transportation funds to Anaheim’s idiotic “ARTIC” facility, and that doesn’t even include more that will be necessary to accommodate his high speed boondoggle. Is it a coincidence that the first leg of the CHSR will be built in the least necessary or useful stretch of this concept – LA to Anaheim? Is it just as coincidental as Pringle’s lobbying firm being there to “consult” after hizzoner is out of office?
Mr. Curt? He up in the Big House.
Of course, Pringle is the heart and soul of Orange County repuglicanism: he runs the plantation and we all are just his cheap labor.
Yesterday I sent a letter by overnight delivery to our Attorney General requesting a quo warranto opinion from the AG, to wit: if the AG believes that the finding of the State Legislative Counsel is correct then the AG must take action to have the Pringle, and his LA Metropolitan Transit Authority counterflack Richard Katz, removed from their prior public offices to protect us regular folk from the sharks. Eric Carpenter of the register has written about my letter the AG, here.
It matters to Pringle. With a month left in office the influence he can still peddle at our expense is significant.
Last week you saw some grim pictures taken by a health inspector while the Chi clan was being rounded up for prosecution, which was instigated by a bunch of folks getting food poisoning after eating food from a supermarket in Garden Grove. At the time, Roland’s plea deal was an unknown, forcing us to speculate on how he managed to wriggle out of the criminal charges levied against him.
But now we know the whole story.
A businessman knows how to close.
In April Roland had struck a deal with the District Attorney that would allow him to escape the 5 counts against him, which added up to a frightening maximum sentence of 2.5 years in jail plus fines.
According to the barely-legible excerpt below, the charges against him were dropped because his co-owners pled guilty and Roland Chi agreed to provide a DNA sample for Rackackaus’ infamous DNA database.
The Orange County DNA database allows the District Attorney to keep track of the defendantly-inclined population by exchanging dropped charges for a personal specimen that could later be used to identify the suspect in the event of any future incidents.
Just think of it as a small donation.
Of course, the whole thing is pretty embarrassing for a candidate who keeps trying to cast his “business experience” as a positive for Fullerton voters. Heck, as far as I can tell, the only business Chi’s ever been involved with almost got him thrown in jail for criminal neglect, and then left a little part of him locked up in a vial somewhere, just in case he does it again. Chi must think the bar in Fullerton is really, really low.
The reaction was visceral. And not in a good way...
The other day Fullerton City Council candidate, carpetbagger, and food poisoner Roland Chi sent out a press release touting his “volunteering” to educate folks about some So Cal Edison program. Despite the hilarious lack of actually doing anything, or even thinking up anything for himself, Rolando decided to hop onto some idea barfed up by the power monopolists at Edison.
It didn’t take long for an unhappy citizen to respond to this vacuity. And fortunately they cc’d FFFF:
Sent: Mon, September 27, 2010 4:40:42 PM Subject: RE: PRESS RELEASE- CANDIDATE CHI VOLUNTEERS FOR ENGERY & COST SAVING PROGRAM
Dear Roland,
This is a joke, right? Are you seriously taking a tax and spend model based on a false premise of enviromental protection that this utility company has subscribed to and a.) claimed it as your own, and b.) trying to pass it off as pro-small business? Wow. That’s pretty crazy.
The “ratepayers” (residential and commercial) paid extra on their bills and then the company redistributes it by installing different lights, toilets, programmable thermostats, etc. in commercial buildings.
That neither shows “innovative leadership” nor “advance(s) business development locally.”
If you are looking for innovative leadership, try doing something that YOU came up with, not someone else. And if you are trying to help local business development, how about reducing the size and influence of government and quasi-government entities (i.e. utility companies) not encouraging it.
This seriously made me laugh. Keep the liberal policies coming.
And here’s the text of the comical “press release:”
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
Contact: Roland Chi, Fullerton City Council Candidate
Office: (714) 889-8880
E-mail: RolandChi4Fullerton@gmail.com
CANDIDATE ROLAND CHI ASSISTS FULLERTON
BUSINESSES IN SAVING MONEY AND ENERGY BY
VOLUNTEERING TO INFORM OWNERS OF FREE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON INITIATIVE
*Chi is running for Fullerton City Council’s 2-year seat
FULLERTON – City Council Candidate Roland Chi volunteered to inform Fullerton business owners of Direct Install, Southern California Edison’s (SCE) new, energy-saving program. Chi’s efforts in conjunction with the City of Fullerton and Fullerton Chamber of Commerce to facilitate the awareness and participation of local owners in such programs, demonstrates his innovative leadership and commitment to advance business development locally.
As Fullerton continues to experience economic hardships, it makes it especially challenging for small businesses to profit, let alone survive. As a local business owner, Chi understands what owners are facing by having to cut costs and operate cautiously due to continuing revenue loss. To revitalize local business, Chi’s new ideas, initiative, and strong “blueprint” are necessary for short-term local economic improvement.
SCE’s new initiative seeks to lower energy costs for small-business owners by recommending and installing up to $10,000 worth of energy-efficient products at no cost to owners. For a business to qualify, it must be nonresidential and within SCE’s service territory. Direct Install is funded by California utility ratepayers and is administered by SCE and will remain available to business owners until all funds are exhausted. The program is available to any qualified business whose monthly earnings are less than $100,000.
Chi, SCE, and the Fullerton leadership organizations who participated in this imitative, understand the benefits of programs like Direct Install, which foster active dialogues and partnerships between businesses and government, establishing an openness and trust that enables more efficient City improvements.
“I chose to volunteer for this program because this initiative aligns with everything my campaign is about which is improving the business climate for local business owners here in the city of Fullerton. This program directly improves the bottom line of small businesses which is what I seek to do on the city council.” Chi’s business-minded approach will enable local owners to re-invest, prompt growth, generate revenue, and attract new business, thus creating new jobs.
Chi’s participation in Direct Install demonstrates his dedication to advancing local economic interests by fostering open dialogue with owners, integrating new ideas, and utilizing all available resources. “I will ensure Fullerton’s remains a great place to live, work, and raise a family.” For more information about SCE’s Direct Install please call (800) 736-4777. Further information about Candidate Roland Chi is avai lable at www.rolandchi.com or by e-mailingroland4fullerton@gmail.com. VVV
Last week we presented this hilarious dialog between a distraught taxpayer and a union firefighter, which became an instant hit across the country. While the clip had no problem making it onto the workstations of public agencies far and wide, we also had many requests for a G-Rated version.
Despite our concern that self-censorship may inhibit the fine directorial talents of our anonymous Oliver Stone, he was happy to oblige:
Of course, most will probably prefer the original profanity-laced version here: Stop the Madness Now!
After reading the Desert Rat’s pithy and mordant post about the likelihood of having three antiquated and liberal repuglican geezers on the Fullerton City Council, I felt compelled to respond with my own message – a message of hope and good will to those who can only contemplate Ed Royce’s RINO triad with a sense of gorge-rising horror.
No, I will not dwell upon the morbid actuarial statistics for the American male. Rather I invite the Friends to contemplate, along with me, the New Reality. My grandfather Frank always admonished us to seek out the proverbial silver lining in bad news; and so we shall. The Economic Recession that has hit so many in the private sector, and that so far has barely affected the public sector at all, will, in 2011, deliver its overdue bill to government employees.
Can Obama keep cranking out money fast enough to preserve all the government jobs it has protected so far through the comically named American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? The answer to that is likely no. Not after the November election. And even if he could, California had received barely 10 billion through the end of the last fiscal year – not nearly enough to grease all the bureaucratic skids in our dysfunctional state at the various levels. The presses just can’t print that fast.
The chances of raising local taxes, like Don Bankhead did (and McKinley and Jones would have likely joined him) in 1993 seems dim. Nobody’s going to stand for it. Not even the ignoramuses who voted them in.
And this leaves us with the spectacle of the public employees fighting among themselves for their share of the diminishing fiscal pie. And to that I say: Amen! Competition is good. It causes us constantly to assess our priorities. It’s true that the cops and emergency service providers will have the advantage, standing, as they already do, at the head of the line. But will the public stand for library or park closures in order to fund these people? The RINO mantra of “public safety” can only take its chanters so far. Sooner or later reality demands a check.
And hovering in the back of the room, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy is the specter of municipal bankruptcy, Vallejo-style – the game changing possibility that all public administrators and employees should want to avoid like a plague. But the public may have reason to be more ambivalent about that prospect.
That’s what members of Fullerton’s police and fire unions get from us.
Almost all of the candidates are talking about pension reform now, but they don’t quite have their figures right. According to the city’s HR Director, public safety employees currently pay 2.557% of thier salaries towards their multi-million dollar retirements, while taxpayers pick up the rest. This year, we’re paying an additional 29.752% of their salaries towards their retirements, and it’s set to shoot much higher.
In private-sector terms, that’s equivalent to an employer 401(k) match of 1200%. That’s twenty-four times the average out here in the real world.
Plenty of bad ideas were tossed about at the candidate at the forum on Monday night, but this one from council hopeful Doug Chaffee takes the cake:
So according to Chaffee, doubling the hotel tax in the middle of a recession will bring more hotels and visitors into the area. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of logic behind his idea, but perhaps that’s why he calls it “magical.”
Chaffee pushes the idea further by suggesting that Fullerton should “generate” (aka subsidize) a new hotel to compete with Disneyland, the most famous theme park in the entire world.
Gee, another one?
Of course we’re later reassured by Chaffee that the tax would only be tacked on to “other people” who make the mistake of taking brief refuge in our city. That’s the old divide-and-conquer tax scheme that’s plagued California businesses for a long time: levy heavy taxes against each industry, one at a time. Who’s next?
Hey Doug, a tax is a tax, and there has never been a worse time to raise taxes. And quit trying to convince us that we should be more like Anaheim.
The charges leveled by the OC DA Tony Rackauckas against Roland Chi were as long as your arm, and stemmed from the tsunami of flagrant and persistent health code violations at a Garden Grove market. The case appears to have finally culminated in a plea agreement reached last April.
The dining experience was not world class...
An alert Friend calling him/herself Vic Tayback noticed that our hapless DA, just a few short months later, has lent his name to the Chi Fullerton Council campaign as an endorser! Wow, that’s setting the bar pretty low, even for Rackauckas, and of course not only makes you wonder what T-Rack’s endorsement is worth, but also to contemplate the composition of the man’s moral fiber – if any exists.
Jesus, it's not like he actually killed anybody...
Rack has been criticized in the past for his inability or unwillingness to pursue political corruption in OC – like Harry Siduh’s blatant perjury. Now it appears he is willing to endorse just about any kind of misfeasance.
The folks who write stuff for the Fullerton Observer are either really dumb, or really….
Aw, Hell I can stop right there.
Here’s a bit from page 5 of the recent edition of the bird cage liner noting the reconstruction of the McDonald’s outlet on Chapman and noting that the Council’s failure to blow six million bucks to move it a couple hundred feet has caused the Fox Block project to go belly up and implies that somehow this put the renovation of the Fox Theater in jeopardy.
Wrong! The council finally acted responsibly last summer when they pulled the plug on an emergent disaster of their own creation. And wrong about the “renovation” bullshit, too. Notice how the Observer casually insinuates the idea of “renovation” into the “Fox Block.” Apart from the theater there is nothing to renovate, of course. But the two things were never tied together – except to manipulate the under intelligent.
The whole monstrosity was tied to the Fox Theater restoration to tap into the emotional support for that and gin up support for another downtown monstrosity of corporate welfare. Of course the crew of the S.S. Observer is devoted to the idea that keeping Redevelopment bureaucrats and parasites employed is job one, and common sense be damned.
What? I can't hear you.
Added to the unintentional high-larity is the writer’s assertion that the developer “spent hours” designing a new Mickey D’s that matched the FHS architecture. Well, he may very well have spent a few hours. The product looked like it.
Instead of bewailing the loss of a sure-fire failure, the Observer should be asking what sort of accountability is going to be demanded of the idiots who cooked up the Fox Block mess in the first place – bureaucrats and electeds, alike.
