Sharon Quirk Archives - Page 15 of 21 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

November 29, 2009December 28, 2009Behind Closed Doors

Is Pam Keller Qualified to Be Mayor?

Yes. At least based on the abilities of those who have preceded her. People like Dick Jones, Don Bankhead, Mike Clesceri, Leland Wilson, etc., etc. Well, you get the point. To use a Harpoon line: a ling cod could do the job.

Yes, Friends it’s that time of year, when the largely brain-dead city council selects one of their own to preside over their meetings as they habitually rubber stamp what’s put in front of them by their staff. And so we pose the question in our title.

But let’s refine the question to address the idiot woman who showed up with Pam’s Pamette posse last week, and who insisted on framing the issue in gender terms: is Pam Keller qualified to be mayor because simple because she is a woman and it’s her turn? Here the whole thing breaks down into a pathetic little skirmish to see who can produce the stupidest reason for doing something.

If a food fish could do it, so could Pam, we think...

The Ed Royce/Dick Ackerman team that recently crashed the Ackerwoman dirigible in a Raymond Hills fireball, will no doubt have been working hard behind the scenes to keep Keller out, using the same, brainless argument they always have: Fullerton is Republican so the mayor shoud be too; forget the fact that every RINO Royce and Ackerman have foisted on us in the past 20 years have virtually identical voting records with the handful of Democrats on the council. They probably will work the very two RINOS they have backed in the past – Bankhead and Jones to keep Keller out.

It wasn't pretty when she went down. Oh! The humanity!

Counter that with the petulant fulminations of The Yellowing Fullerton Observers and the dopey gal at last meeting’s mike whose only recourse is: it’s her turn (hands clasped in fervent prayer, eyes transfixed on acoustical ceiling)! These alleged innocents proclaim their freedom from nasty political interests but never mention the fact that using the title “mayor” in her campaign propaganda will help Keller get re-elected.

We don't know our cloaca from a hole in the ground.

Yech.

Apart from the fact that these cretins generally deserve each other, we will repeat the same thing said elsewhere on these pages: the person who can get two other votes is the one who “deserves” to be mayor.

October 30, 2009October 30, 2009Dick Jones

Fullerton City Council Term Limits – Who’s For and Who’s Against

by admin38 Comments

UPDATE: Here’s a post from last winter, published again to remind the Friends that Fullerton’s decision-makers promised to put the term limits issue on the next available ballot. Of course that opportunity came and went with the 72nd Assembly Special Election primary. It could still be done in January 2010 if the Special Election itself is required. In any case there is a General Election primary election next June. So let’s all remember!

In dramatic fashion our friends on the Fullerton City Council decided on January 6^th that the voters of Fullerton should decide whether a twelve-year term limit for council members is right for Fullerton.

Pam Keller joined campaign promise keepers Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk in placing the issue on the first available ballot, which should be in June, 2010. Predictably, antediluvian councilmen Don Bankhead and Dick Jones opposed the motion believing that you can never be around too long, be too hidebound, too boring, and too inert to serve the public.

As usual, the good government types (i.e. we know what’s good for you so sit down and shut up) like Jan Flory were on hand to oppose the idea, knowing as they do that the longer you are in office the more likely you are to identify with public employees instead of constituents. These folks pretend to defend the public’s right to choose who their elected representatives are even though they don’t seem to trust the public to do much of anything else without government intervention.

We strongly support term limits. We believe that public choice will be enhanced by term limits because the well-financed incumbents will be forced to give way to new representation that might actually give people of real talent a chance to participate in governance, people who now largely acquiesce to the inevitability of incumbency. Fortunately, a majority of the council seem to agree.

The outstanding legal issue is whether the limits can be applied to previous years in office. The final wording of the plebiscite will have to address this. Let’s hope it works out so we can end the Age of Dinosaurs in Fullerton.

October 9, 2009February 7, 2012Behind Closed Doors

The Status of the “Amerige Court” Monstrosity; On Life Support – Pull The Plug!

by The Fullerton Shadow9 Comments

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the good folks at City Hall to provide a public update on the drawn-out Amerige Court saga. They would just as soon you don’t know while they work out a deal behind the scenes.

Well, if they won’t we will. To that end we sent out our crack team of investigative reporters and found out a few things.

As many of the friends doubtless know, the original partnership – Pelican/Laing – that was getting all of the Redevelopment gravy: free land, super-high density, etc. etc., is no more. John Laing Homes went into receivership. But we have been informed by our sources that before they declared under Chapter 11 they managed to offload their interest in the Amerige Court project to their erstwhile partners, Pelican. We suspect that they sold out for pennies on the dollar to salvage something before a bankruptcy court judge could lock things up.

The possibility of a kickback to former Laing employees is hard to ignore, and we hope that this thought will occur to the bankruptcy judge, too. The City granted entitlements were and are, worth millions to somebody who can actually seal the deal.

The Redevelopment Agency staff is aware of all this, and rather than start over will no doubt push hard for the Agency to accept this new arrangement, if they haven’t already. It’s hard to see the Pelican boys getting financing to build a birdhouse these days, but many options are open including selling off the whole mess to somebody else. They may also try to repackage the deal in a “softer” format to makes sure they can get the green light.

So the time is ripe to call City Council members who voted for this huge subsidized eyesore. Keller, Quirk-Silva, and Shawn Nelson have an opportunity to correct their previous mistake and do the right thing by the people of Fullerton. Bankhead and Jones are, of course, far beyond hope, but you can try them, too, if you care to.

October 2, 2009January 5, 2010Fullerton BooHoo

Oops! Is it Really All That Difficult?

by The Fullerton Harpoon16 Comments

Hey who is in charge over there at City Hall? Doesn’t anybody have a clue?

At their September 15, 2009 meeting, the Fullerton City Council deliberated over whether or not the Fullerton School District could get a two-year pass making annual payments on a $1,320,000 loan the District had received from the Redevelopment Agency for the renovation of Maple School nine years ago.

Without debating the merits of the proposal, we note that the suspension of payments was approved 5-0 by the City Council.

But wait! Both Sharon Quirk-Silva and Pam Keller are employees of the School District, and have no business voting on issues, especially financial issues, in which their employer is involved. If ever there were a case for recusal, this was it. At the meeting Mitch Hovey the Superintendent of the Fullerton School District was in the audience. Imagine that! You’re voting to defer over $50K in loan payments to the operation you work for and your boss is sitting in the front row! Hmmm. No bueno!

We can’t imagine why it didn’t occur to either Keller or Quirk-Silva that there was an evident conflict of interest involved. Perhaps it never occurred to them because they see the District as some sort of charity, and doing favors for charities can’t possibly undermine the fiduciary responsibility that they have to the City of Fullerton. It’s all about the children, after all. But we merely speculate. Who really knows why they voted?

And even more baffling is why Richard Jones, the City Attorney failed to bring up this problem. Attorney Jones is paid, and paid a lot, to keep these meetings on the up and up, and keep his charges out of trouble, in loco parentis, as it were. Hmmm.

And finally we reserve a separate post for the performance by Mayor Don Bankhead, who really outdid himself on this item

October 1, 200972nd Election

Sharon Quirk-Silva Pulls Out of State Assembly Race

by admin2 Comments

For those of you that haven’t heard, due to health issues of a family member, Sharon Quirk-Silva will not pursue the seat to replace Mike “Spanky” Duvall for the 72nd State Assembly.

Sharon left me a message that “family comes first”!

Okay Sharon. Too bad. We looked forward to a spirited campaign. The seat will be open again next year!

September 24, 2009September 24, 200972nd Election

Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva Throws Hat in the Ring for the 72nd

by admin12 Comments

Fullerton Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva sent me a text message that read; “To my favorite blogger (I like the sound of that) I am officially running for the 72nd Assembly seat”.

This is good news for Fullerton Democrats that care about having a principled Democrat in the race. There appears to be another Democrat in the race from Placentia, but Sharon Quirk-Silva has a high profile here in Fullerton, and Fullerton is a much bigger chunk of the 72nd.

Quirk-Silva is now firmly opposed to redevelopment boondoggles. She recently opposed the bogus redevelopment expansion and had the courage to change her vote on the $6 million McDonald’s redevelopment giveaway/boondoggle.

So far, of all the candidate’s websites, I think she has the best. Here’s the link.

September 24, 2009December 30, 2009Dick Jones

Who Do You Believe, Nelson or Jones?

by admin6 Comments

Here’s a video clip with two starkly contrasting views of the hush money scheme Fullerton’s Redevelopment lawyer Jeff Oderman cooked up to payoff the County in order to prevent a lawsuit against the city’s crooked Redevelopment expansion proposal.

Shawn Nelson rightly identifies the $4,000,000 upfront General Fund payout and later phony lease-back arrangements for what they are: a gimmick and a scam. Dick Jones just can’t let it go at that and interjects his windy summation, again, since he had already had his chance to bloviate over the City’s shenanigans earlier.

Well, Friends, you decide; “brilliance” or “scam.”

September 18, 2009December 30, 2009Dick Jones

Our Thanks to Nelson & Quirk-Silva

by The Fullerton Harpoon10 Comments

Quirk2 shawn-nelson

The other day we posted about the shameful payoff deal Fullerton’s Redevelopment lawyer Jeff Oderman cooked up with the County in order to get the latter to call off the legal dogs in regard to the City’s proposed Redevelopment expansion plan here . You may recall that the triumvirate of Usual Suspects – Bankhead, Jones, and Keller went for bribe/hush money scheme even though it required an up front payout of $4,000,000 from the City’s General Fund and involved bogus lease back deals in the out years.

Well, we want to thank council members Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk-Silva for sticking to their guns in the face of all sorts of institutional and statist pressure to go along with the scam that required the Council to make findings of blight where none exists. This fragile lie was the foundation of the whole rotten expansion superstructure.

It’s good to know we have two representatives who appreciate a concept much-abused by governments in their mania to raise revenue to pay themselves more and more: the truth.

September 17, 2009December 28, 2009Dick Jones

Who Should Be Fullerton’s Next Mayor? Pam Keller?

by The Fullerton Shadow16 Comments

it's really just a little wood hammer...

The recent edition of the Fullerton Observer did some boohooing and hand wringing about whether or not Pam Keller will get to be Fullerton’s next mayor here . The little article points out some of the nefarious goings on in Fullerton Past and the current council’s refusal to adopt some sort of mechanism to ensure that everybody gets a chance to be mayor.

We believe the person who should be Mayor of Fullerton is the person who can get two other colleagues to vote for him/her. That’s pretty simple. If they can count to three it’s their turn.

Fullerton’s lefties know that come reorganization time (1st meeting in December) local Repuglican bigwigs like Ed Royce make it a point to lean on fellow Repugs (In Name Only) like Bankhead and Jones to keep the gavel away from the Dems. But that’s the way it goes. It’s called politics. Fullerton’s “progressives” like to play politics too, but they just won’t admit it. We wonder if they would be so energetic in the defense of Shawn Nelson’s turn to be mayor.

Is Pam Keller qualified to be mayor? Well, let’s face it – if Jones and Bankhead can do it, so could an orangutan.

But we’re still waiting to get some straight answers from Pam and her Collaborative about who foots their bills, and why the money is drip-dried through the FSD; and we were chagrined, although not surprised, to hear her inane defense of the indefensible blight scam behind the recent Redevelopment expansion vote. So maybe she isn’t the best person to be the face of Fullerton.

September 16, 2009December 30, 2009Behind Closed Doors

City and County Collaborate on $25 Million Bribery Plan

by admin8 Comments

Last night the Fullerton City Council voted to give the County of Orange $4,000,000 of your money. Right now. Right out of your pocket.

well, there she goes — Well, there she goes. Say good bye.

So what’s the reason for this unusual generosity? It was because the County was threatening to sue the City over the diversion of property tax increment from the County through the bogus establishment of an expanded Redevelopment project area where no blight exists as required under State law.

The City lawyers, Rutan & Tucker,sure must have felt they had a lousy case – because they cooked up a deal behind the scenes to buy off the County with a ton of up-front cash plus some hinky lease back deals on down the road. Ultimately the total payout will be $25,000,000. We shared news of the the payoff meetings here . The County knows the Redevelopment expansion is fraudulent, because it has already made that argument publicly; but apparently there are at least three votes on the Board of Supervisors to take the deal and help out a fellow government agency. The County will formally go for the gold next week.

The City Council vote was utterly predictable with Pam Keller, Don Bankhead, and Dick Jones cheer leading the payoff. Dick Jones in particular excelled himself in ignorant idiocy. We’ll soon be showing the Friends clips of Fullerton’s City Council in action.

To their credit, both Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk-Silva voted against an action that both robs the taxpayers of Fullerton and violates a basic ethical standard. The other three broke the law, and they know it. But they’re not out of the woods, yet. A court will decide the matter.