Setting The Bar Low Archives - Page 95 of 110 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

June 2, 2010Fullerton City Council

Let Me Put This In Recognizable Terms

John Lewis told me to move — You're right Julie, these people are suckers

I first became dimly aware of Fullerton politics back in 1993 when I saw a performance of then councilwoman Julie Sa. Sa was incapable of communicating in English, understood nothing, and was completely at the mercy of the City Manager, Jim Armstrong. The worst part of her reign of error was the evident truth that she was just using the office to promote herself.

In 2000 she was busted for not living in Fullerton and she gave up on running for third time. Fullerton had set the bar so low that any idiot with money could get over it. But at least Sa was gone.

So why am I bringing up Sa now? Because those folks who remember Sa have a useful frame of reference to assess the potential of one Harry Sidhu, who wants to be our Supervisor.

Like Sa, Sidhu doesn’t live in the jurisdiction he wants to represent. Sidhu cannot communicate his thoughts to his would-be constituents in English. Although I presume he can read English better than he can speak it, his grasp of simple grammar doesn’t portend a great understanding of the language. His well-documented manglings of simple statements has been nothing less than embarrassing – not for him, he doesn’t seem to possess the faculty of shame – but for those of us who have been subjected to it. His public admission that he didn’t know the impact of defined benefits was pitiful; his statement that he wasn’t taking union money was the closest thing to a million dollar lie that you will ever witness.

Sidhu’s self-interested supporters just love to accuse his critics of racism; nuh uh. Like Sa, Sidhu is an immigrant who made some money in the fast food business – more power to ’em (although Sa went bankrupt). But this economic success in no way qualifies Sidhu to run for elective office, and it certainly doesn’t make him immune from honest assessment of his abilities – or lack of same.

In 1992 the unknown Julie Sa ran for Fullerton council by sending out a bunch of slick, well designed mailings that masked the fact that she was utterly unqualified for any public office; and her subsequent performance proved this assessment true. In 2010 Harry Sidhu is running a vicious and hollow campaign lubricated with a million dollars of union money to in an office that he is patently unfit to hold.

Let’s not make that mistake again.

June 1, 2010June 1, 2010Orange County Government

IS TOM DALY BUYING HIS STAFF’S VOTES?

by admin19 Comments

We were looking through Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly’s campaign expenditures and stumbled upon a very interesting expenditure or shall we say “more monkey business”. In his statements, Tom listed a $275.37 payment to current Clerk-Recorder employee Rosa Chavez for “refreshments for 80 staff” since he knows they hate both him and his minion Assistant Clerk-Recorder Rene Ramirez.

This payment is very suspicious and it appears that Daly is working his staff for votes. Why would he pay an employee out of his campaign funds for something that was done at his work place? As we all know, campaign activity is to be kept out of your county work place especially if you are the elected official. Someone call Shirley!

The more interesting thing is that since this payment was made to Rosa Chavez, she has been promoted to a supervisory position. Is Tom Daly rewarding Rosa Chavez so she can rally the troops to vote for him? This is a total conflict and disregard for all the rules.

Or perhaps this is a desperate attempt by “Manager of the Year” Tom Daly to win over his staff who is praying that he gets voted out due to his lack of leadership and commitment to the department. After seven years of neglecting his staff and hiring his friends, Tom Daly is now realizing that he has dropped the ball. Like your typical career politician on election year, he is now trying hard to win over a staff that has little respect for him and his assistant Renee Ramirez. Has he acted late? I guess he will know the answer this June 8^th.

May 29, 2010May 29, 2010Dead heads

CRA Funny Times – What A Difference 2 Years Makes

by Mr. Peabody32 Comments

Here’s another pearl from a recent Sidhu mailer, purportedly penned by some guy named Karl Heft, who revels in the title of Vice President of the CRA (California Republican Assembly):

“…Harry is a candidate we can trust to uphold our conservative Republican values.”

Um, gee, Karl, what values would those be? Carpetbaggery? Perjury? Perpetual public office hunting? Clearly the CRA endorsement, for what its worth, can be obtained by anybody. And just to enjoy the hypocrisy of the bestowers and the receiver, read on.

Harry'sFriend — I did not take it personally...

It’s indeed illuminating to recall what the folks at the CRA had to say about Hide and Seek Sidhu less than two years ago, when the perennial candidate was running for State Senate – yet another job he wasn’t qualified to hold.

May 28, 2010May 28, 2010Harry Sidhu

News From Nevada

by Joe Sipowicz3 Comments

You know it’s funny, but when you get away from the big city and get out into real America you really get a great perspective on politics in places like Orange County. And what I mean by perspective is a much better sense of the stupid ambition of no-talent assclowns and fence hoppers like our good friend Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu.

Aw, c’mon, Joe, you’ll be saying, Sidhu’s just like the rest of them, and anyway, by June 8th he’s just going to be a rancid memory. Well, that’s not altogether true. Creeps like Sidhu never go away. They’re always there waiting for the next opening to worm their way into. And that really stinks; almost as much as the existence of weasels and varmints like Bill Campbell, and Janet Nguyen and all the other slug-suckers who want to grease their way into some trough or other and think they can do it by following the money. Well, I guess nobody has taught them yet that they can’t. Oops. Don’t want to forget the other repuglican slimers like John Lewis and his boy Matthew Cunningham who likewise follow their own interests and principle be damned.

Then there’s the lazy local media that wouldn’t recognize a real story if it bit ’em in the ass.

There are lots of places in this great land where Sidhu’s carpetbagging, perjuring, ignorant boobery would be an absolute non-starter politically. We’ve seen it all: the fake addresses, the incoherent statements, the lame and never-ending attacks on a candidate of real ability by Sidhu’s stooges and paid lackeys.

Well, too bad for us that apparently Orange County isn’t one of the places that an ignoramus and no-talent clown like Sidhu can make a plausible candidate out of himself.

But no matter how high you stack it it’s still bullshit.

May 27, 2010Harry Sidhu

Sheriff’s Union Sends Sidhu a Dictionary

by admin5 Comments

Harry cant spell — How do you spell "pension?"

It looks like the Sheriff’s union has been watching the same video clips that we have. You know… the ones where Sidhu stammers incoherently and fails to answer simple questions about union pensions.

That must be why they sent out this mailer with a photo of Harry sifting through a dictionary, as if to tell voters “Harry knows pensions. See, he looked it up!”

What a bumbling buffoon! It’s no wonder county unions can’t wait to sit at table with Harry Sidhu and negotiate their next pension spike.

May 26, 2010May 26, 2010Orange County Government

The No Account County

by Grover Cleveland5 Comments

One of the things we here at FFFF stand for is the idea of government accountability.

So naturally we were pretty sore when we saw the memo from County CEO Tom Mauk to the Board of Supervisors downplaying the disastrous purchase of the money pit at 433 W. Civic Center Dr. here.

Dark-Clouds-looming-500x375 — Those clouds seem to be getting darker

Mauk finally produced the smoking gun—three years too late—an RDMD analysis estimating the needed cost to make the building functional. The amounts reached into the millions but for some reason this critical information, which was known to staff in June 2007, was withheld from the Board. Any guesses as to why?

View the memo

Evidently Mr. Mauk is not interested in accountability. But we are, so please take note of the names of the people in the County Clerks office and the RDMD who were copied on this June 2007 memo. They are:

Phil Brigandi, Paul Lanning, Jean Pasco, Bob Wilson, Clark Shen, Mark Browning, Tony Ferrulli, Tony Mason, Michael Stein.

See any familiar names ? Jean Pasco in particular stands out since she was the clerk employee who acted as liaison with the Board in the matter of the building at 433 W. Civic.

This is not the story of an inadvertent error; no this was a deliberate attempt to mislead the Board of Supervisors and the evidence lies in the statements contained in the staff reports that deliberately mischaracterized the condition of the building and that were in fact untrue.

Hopefully the Board of Supervisors will be more interested in finding out what really happened and why crucial information that staff had been aware of for many months was intentionally withheld from them.

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010Orange County Government

CLERK-RECORDER TOM DALY LIES (AGAIN) TO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY CEO

by admin6 Comments

In a May 12^th memo sent to the Board of Supervisors by County CEO Tom Mauk, it was confirmed by Mauk that Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly was less than truthful with regards to the acquisition of the $2.1 million money-sucking building that he decided splurge on with tax payers’ money.

Mauk says that “…it has become apparent to me that the Board was not provided with all the information known to staff at the time given the June 29^th RDMD A&E memo among RDMD and Clerk-Recorder staff.”

In that sentence, Mauk confirmed what we have known for a very long time… that Tom Daly is deceitful and that he believes it’s OK to lie to the public and the Board of Supervisors.

Tom Daly lies so much that he can’t keep his lies straight. For example, in the same memo Mauk was told that “Since the acquisition of the property, the thirty-four spaces have been utilized and saved the County approximately $26, 100 a year due the ability to reduce the number of parking spaces the County leases from the private sector.”

We received several calls from Clerk-Recorder employees indicating that only one Clerk-Recorder employee parks at that parking lot. Guess who it is? Low and behold, it’s the wife of Disneyland’s Manager of Government Relations Chris Lowe. As reported in a previous blog post here, Disney has contributed to Tom Daly’s campaigns since 2002. Apparently the scampaign contribution not only led to a job for Lowe’s wife but also prime parking space. This has several long-time Clerk-Recorder employees fuming.

The truth about the parking lot is that it is being leased by Daly to a private company. The parking management company leases the parking lot and pays the Clerk-Recorder Department about $1,500 a month to manage the lot for profit. Any revenue above the $1,500 mark is kept by the company.

Does this sound like a fair trade off? Daly spent $2.1 million of tax payers’ money for a return of about $18,000 annually and 34 parking spaces. The math doesn’t add up! Daly is really putting his English major from Harvard to work here.

Look at the photos. The lot is clearly marked for public parking for $5 a day. This is a blatant lie to the Board and to CEO Tom Mauk.

The other baldfaced lie is that according to the memo, the department has reduced the number of spaces leased from privately owned parking lots for its’ employees. Since 2008, Tom Daly has been leasing about 17 spaces from Mike Harrah’s parking company Sycamore Parking Concepts to the tune of about $1,200 a month or $14,400 a year. This lot is located behind the run-down YMCA building on Civic Center Dr.

The best outcome for the money sucking building is that it be sold. If the tax payers are lucky they will recover the cost of the property and break even. However, the condition of the building is horrendous, per the memo. So I find it odd that Tom Mauk would say that “…having the property in our inventory is a positive outcome.” Is Tom Mauk covering for Tom Daly? Or did good-old friend of Tom Daly, Rob Richardson, write this memo without clearing it with Mauk or even verifying the information given. All Mauk or Richardson had to do was take a little stroll to the parking lot across the street and see that it is public parking.

Tom Daly is a red-faced liar and deserves to be voted out of office. Daly and company are running a misinformation campaign not only to voters but to the public, the Board of Supervisors and CEO Tom Mauk. Supervisor John Moorlach needs to call for audits of the Clerk-Recorder Department to see what other lies are uncovered.

May 21, 2010May 21, 2010Dead heads

Hide and Seek Sidhu On Public Employee Unions

by admin36 Comments

UPDATE: I came across this earlier post today as I was thinking about all the political mail paid for by the “public employee unions” telling you what a great guy Harry Sidhu is and what a bad guy Shawn Nelson is. This video is worth a replay. Sidhu has an almost limitless capacity for clownish behavior — a perfect fit for the union circus.

Here’s another classic “what did he say?” mumble moment brought to you by Harry Sidhu at the GOP Central Committee meeting last week. We think he believes in public employee unions, but not in his ability to say no to them if they give him dough (directly) – so Honest Harry says he hasn’t and won’t take it. Even though he has been taking it ever since he first got elected in 2004!

In any case he says he won’t ‘take their money now. But just a few days before he had gone hat in hand to the Sheriff Deputy’s union to get their endorsement – and a big monetary expenditure via their IE, and he knows he got it. This is perfectly consistent with the profile of a politician without an ethical fiber in his being.

And that makes him a first class hypocritical hair ball and a worthy candidate for the John Lewis crowd to support.

What a guy.

May 19, 2010Behind Closed Doors

A Tale of Two Toms

by Grover Cleveland27 Comments

mauk-200x300 — Anybody can juggle one orange.

It’s not easy to look like you’re taking responsibility for some screw up or other when in reality you’re trying to spin as fast as you can to avoid accountability. But that’s exactly what seasoned bureaucrats do, and that’s precisely what County CEO Tom Mauk is up to now. It’s same old song: mistakes were made (passive voice, no subject of sentence), but corrective action is being implemented.

I have gotten hold of Mauk’s report to the Board of Supervisors about the massive fiasco in the County’s acquisition of the money pit at 433 West Civic Center – at the behest of the other Tom, County Clerk Tom Daly.

View the full memo

It would seem that the Board was never given crucial information about the true costs of remodel and remodel/expansion of the building. This data is shown in Attachment A to Mauk’s report, and is damning. Mauk doesn’t really even say he’s sorry for not passing critical cost information to the Board. The projected amounts developed by the County RDMD were significant – in the millions – and congruent with the ultimate figures presented by Kishimoto Architects, hired by Daly after the sale went through.

What information the Board was given was rosy: work on the building would be relatively minor, that the building was “reasonably maintained,” and that renovation would be done by Daly.

Wrong on all counts.

But everything is still okay, see, because the County has been using the lot for parking and has saved a whopping $26,000 a year. Mauk wraps up his report with this whopper:

“In the meantime, it does appear that having the property in our inventory is a positive outcome.”

Well only in government bureaucracies is wasting $2,100,000 on a near worthless property considered a positive outcome. I can only hope some Supervisor who really wants to supervise something will ask Mauk to quantify that statement. Mr. Moorlach?

Mauk may choose to do the Texas two-step around the truth, but I won’t. Check out the list of people CC’d at the bottom of that RDMD memo. The County Clerk was well aware of the millions needed to make that building functional and yet disclosed none of it to the Board; neither did the RDMD staff who created it. How come this happened? Mauk doesn’t bother to inform his readers. Hopefully the Board will be curious.

Was Daly hoping his $60,000 investment in Townsend and Associates was going to pay off with a big State grant that would cover the true costs to relocate the archives? If so that idea sure bombed big time.

What is inescapable is the conclusion that both the Clerk’s Department and the RDMD deliberately withheld the true financial implications of this acquisition in order to get the Board to go along with it. Is there another explanation? It would also appear that Mr. Mauk would now like the whole thing whitewashed.

So that’s the story. Now, who’s going to do something about it?

May 19, 2010May 19, 2010Hidden Government Agencies

“MANAGER OF THE YEAR” TOM DALY MANAGES TO WASTE OVER $70,000 OF TAXPAYER MONEY ON REMODEL. OCEA IS M.I.A. –AGAIN!

by admin8 Comments

While several county departments have to endure furloughs and layoffs, “Manager of the Year” Tom Daly seems to be on a mission to continue to waste public money the taxpayers be damned. We recently learned that a remodeling project for a “marriage ceremony and passport application acceptance room” is near completion. The cost to tax-payers: $73,000 plus change. For a remodel. Of a room. I’m pretty sure we won’t hear a peep from OCEA and it’s head thug, Nick “Bullhorn” Beradino. I’m still hoping Nick misplaced the bullhorn in some nook or cranny and is frantically looking for it..

I would like to invite OCEA members and the general public to come and see for themselves how this wastrel continues to shove his crazy spending down the taxpayers’ collective throat. From the looks of it, no expense was spared. But you be the judge.

The location is: Old Orange County Courthouse, 2nd floor
211 West Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana, CA 92701

And while you are at it, drive by the $2.1 million money pit Tom bought 2-years ago for his Sports Hall of Shame, at:

433 Civic Center Drive
Santa Ana, CA 92701

After you soil yourselves in anger, call Tom Daly at (714) 834-2248 and let him know how you feel about this wasteful spending.

I am providing the address because I want to make sure that the OCEA and Nick Berardino don’t get lost on their way to protest this wasteful spending just like they did the Board of Supervisor’s remodel last year.

Nick, if you need to borrow a bullhorn let me know. OCEA needs to tell Tom that this has to stop. The voters need to send Tommy boy a strong message this June. Vote career politician and free-spending Tom Daly out of office!!

By the way, it would interesting to know what the Board of Supervisors know about this latest misadventure. Wanna call up and ask?