Small Stuff Adds Up Archives - Page 11 of 11 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 17, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

We Get Mail; An Unhappy Camper

The following communication landed in the FFFF hopper yesterday complaining about the recall, etc. It is just so deliciously disjointed, illogical, misinformed, and well, crackpotty that it deserves to be shared with the friends.

I resent having literature sent to my home on the recall. I think this is nothing but a witch hunt. The Support the Fullerton Recall/Water Tax paper sent to my home doesn’t mention the other board members. This tax was voted in 15 years ago and how many council members and city managers knew about this? Why are you only mentioning the three? What about the others? I think if you have enough money to be sending slanted info the citizens of Fullerton, you could certainly use it to a better advantage. I feel terrible about the Kelly case, but I don’t think only 3 board members need to be blamed. From the beginning you have pointed fingers to the three. What did they not vote on that you find they need to be recalled for? Don’t we all have our own opinions and have the right to express them. We might not all agree, but that doesn’t constitute a recall. I think you should call off the hounds and get on with the business at hand. What has the council voted against that has Tony Bushala upset about? Does it have something to do with redevelopment money? Let’s hear about that.

It’s very interesting that this unfortunate soul has been told by somebody that the illegal water tax was actually “voted in” 15 years ago.

March 28, 2012March 28, 2012Brick Veneer, Fake Old, And Other Horrors

Not For Sale? Yeah, Right!

by The Fullerton Shadow37 Comments

dudley's - no recall — The abode of F. Paul Dudley, possibly designed by Mike Brady

The anti-recall forces keep chanting the mantra that Fullerton is not for sale, despite all the obvious evidence to the contrary, and that under the Jones, Bankhead and McKinley regime, Fullerton has been very much for sale.

Here’s a picture of an anti-recall sign in the front yard of former Development Services Director, F. Paul Dudley, the man who, for over twenty years, participated in a series of calamitous boondoggles, oversaw the over-development of downtown Fullerton, the cookie-cutter development of Coyote Hills East, and the fake New Urbanism of Amerige Heights. F. Paul Dudley is the man who gave the Florentine family a permanent building on a public sidewalk. Apart from being a dyed-in-the-wool arrogant bureaucrat, Dudley is also a happy member of Fullerton’s $100,000 Pension Club, pulling down a whopping $139,420 for doing nothing.

BradyBunch — The original, and the best.

But get this: Dudley now peddles his relationship with the Three Hollow Logs acting as a lobbyist for developers! So you see, for Dudley Fullerton is very much for sale. He and a small handful of people like him need a compliant majority on the council so that they can get massive entitlements and stick the rest of us with the impacts.

March 21, 2012March 21, 2012Chronic Failure

Welcome To The Third World?

by English Major149 Comments

Imagine your delight when a faithful Fullerton public works crew shows up to repair those potholes that you and your neighbors have been asking the city to fix. Well, you really are delighted, especially since all records of your original calls were lost by the city.

Then imagine your disappointment when the city employee drives away and you inspect the repair job:

Asphalt Patch — Fullerton Asphalt Brigade Fail

We will no doubt be told that there just isn’t enough asphalt or man hours to do the job properly, an excuse as old as public servantry. But whose fault is it that City infrastructure has been neglected go for so long?

Isn’t that the City Council’s responsibility?

March 20, 2012March 21, 2012About Us

Big Downtown Developer (Me) Finishes Historic Project

by admin94 Comments

After many years, and many splinters, my brother George and I recently finished our latest project.

For those that bought into the anti-recall propaganda that I’m some sort big-time developer, well here you go: I moved a 375 sq.ft. house about 200 feet and restored it!

To read more about my big downtown development project please read the article by The OC Weekly’s Brandon Ferguson, here.

March 12, 2012March 12, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

McPension Struts His Stuff

by Joe Sipowicz24 Comments

In an ideal city our elected officials would know what the hell they were voting on. Alas, in Fullerton, such is not the case. Here is the egregious Pat McKinley last Tuesday demonstrating that he hasn’t got a clue what he is talking about. First he emphatically says there is no Ackerman project. Then, when corrected, he emphatically says he supports the Ackerman project.

McPension is totally clueless, except for one thing: He knows that his pal Dick Ackerman needs an approval of a lousy project with a massive subsidy to keep his oily hide employed. And that’s enough for McKinley.

March 1, 2012March 1, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Oh, No. Not Again! Another Black Eye For The FPD.

by Mr. Peabody258 Comments

The Fullerton FPD Culture of Corruption just got a new inductee into its Hall of Shame today, as reported by the OC Register’s Sean Emery, here.

It seems that FPD employee April Baughman, 52, is cooling her heels in the County jail, alleged to have swiped cash from the FPD property room for – get this – two freakin’ years!

The money quote comes from our friend “Acting” Chief Dan Hughes who is quoted as saying:

“When there are violations of public trust or actions which result in the reduction of confidence in the police department, disciplinary action will be taken swiftly and decisively.”

Uh, yeah, Dan, sure. Whatever you say. At least we didn’t have to read such inane bullshit as spoken by the otiose Sgt. Goodrich, although he probably wrote it.

Too bad swift and decisive disciplinary action wasn’t taken against the thugs who killed Kelley Thomas until ten weeks after he was murdered.

This latest humiliation begs two questions. One, how could there have been no accounting of property room inventory over this period without the collusion of at least one other miscreant; and two, how much will the Culture of Corruption created by Pat McKinley and tolerated by sleepwalking councilmembers Don Bankhead and Dick Jones end up costing us?

And naturally we are left to ponder the previous assertion of Acting Chief Hughes: anyone who believes there is a Culture of corruption in the FPD is either lying or misinformed.

Newsflash, Chief: we are not lying and we are not misinformed.

January 3, 2012January 3, 2012Orange County Government

One Good Vote in 2011

by Mr. Peabody25 Comments

Which is a lot better than none. We would be remiss not to offer a tip ‘o the cap to County Supervisor Shawn Nelson for taking on the obscene pay raises handed out by the County CEO Tom Mauk to a couple of his cronies.

The egregious raises were given out three or four years ago within months of these employees being promoted to new jobs by Mauk. The multiple raises went well into double digit territory, as uncovered during a Performance Audit of the County’s own Human Resources Department.

As an ad hoc subcommittee studying the findings of the audit, Nelson and Supervisor Pat Bates recommended reversing the raises, and were supported by John Moorlach at the December 6th Board meeting. Supervisors Bill Campbell and Janet Nguyen fought hard to keep the astronomical raises in place.

Well, kudos to Nelson, Bates, and Moorlach for calling the CEO on his hypocrisy and for taking a big step in the direction of accountability at the County Hall of Administration.

December 25, 2011Small Stuff Adds Up

Making’ Ya Work Hard to Get Yer Two Bucks Back!

by Joe Sipowicz136 Comments

My grandfather Casimir once told me you can always gauge the overall performance of an organization by its attention to seemingly small details. Here’s a video that shows that something’s not quite right at the Fullerton Public Library.

The idea that these folks are disabling their own DVDs is just sort of funny. But really? It takes the City four weeks to cut a $2 check? Of course processing and mailing that check is going to cost a lot more than two bucks.