Friends for Fullerton’s Future just received a disturbing story accompanied by a photograph that seems to encapsulate the Downtown Fullerton experience:
Hey, FFFF, I wanted to send along a story about what happened to me a few weeks ago. About 2 am a friend and I were walking along the north side of Commonwealth. Across the street we could see some kind of free-for-all going on. Then the crowd ran off leaving two people lying on the ground. By the time we crossed over to see what the damage was, the Fullerton police had arrived. The two people, a guy and a woman, were bloodied and obviously beaten. One of the cops saw me observing the scene and asked if I wanted to be arrested.
Rather than provide information about what we had seen, we decided to move on. But before we left I turned around and took this picture showing the woman pleading with four cops who appeared indifferent to whatever physical abuse she had suffered.
Sad.
Yes, Friend, it is sad. Our “leaders” have created, nurtured, and encouraged a culture of mayhem where sometimes it’s hard to tell the victim from the perpetrator and where the cops are seemingly anesthetized to the weekly blood bath.
A couple of weeks ago Jeremy Popoff’s Slidebar employees and clientele provided more examples of the sort of high class behavior favored by our city council and particularly our lobbyist/councilcreature Jennifer Fitzgerald who has been running cover for Popoff for years and years. You may recall that Slidebar has never gotten the required CUP even as city officials like Fitzgerald, Bruce Whitaker and Party Planner Ted White have schmoozed and petted its miscreant owner.
Everybody seems to be ignoring Slidebar’s violation of planning and nuisance laws until the laws can be watered down so much even a professional douchebag can slime by without comment.
At the outset you can see a bouncer on theft serially pound some hapless dude already on the ground and then go for a head stomp for good measure.
In the open-air saloon known as Downtown Fullerton it’s often virtually impossible to distinguish between the bad behavior of the bar-hopping patrons and the low-lifes hired to control them.
Friends, here’s a fun post from two-and-a-half years ago introduction you to the egregious Gregory Palmer, Esq., who is employed to hassle citizens, ignore legal PRA requests, and most importantly, to investigate and stop kinky sex in the municipality that employ Dick Jones as City Attorney. Enjoy.
A few days ago Joshua Ferguson told us the story of how one of the lawyers working for our City Attorneys, Gregory Palmer, gave him a big Fuck Off when he made a reasonable, and as it turns out LEGAL, request for the video recordings from FPD cops the night they possibly gave the City Manager a skate on a DUI, gave him a ride home and tucked him into bed. Mr. Palmer got tired of talking to one of the people who pay his retainer and basically said: if you don’t like it, sue.
Now I don’t care for this kind of assholery on the part of people who are supposed to be working for me, so I thought I’d check out Mr. Palmer and share some information, gleaned from the Jones and Mayer website. It’s always nice to know who and what you’re dealing with.
Apart from his alleged expertise dealing with “sexually-oriented business,” – whatever that means, this bit caught my eye:
Mr. Palmer has handled several high profile cases. In 1997, he prosecuted the First Southern Baptist Church and its pastor for illegally housing the homeless on its grounds.
So Mr. Palmer and Dick Jones actually brag about about shutting down a church engaged in an act of Christian charity.
Tonight the Fullerton city council will pretend to go over the results of the Community Stakeholder Survey that just recently wrapped up. Remember that survey? It’s where the city is going to, and I quote:
For the next strategic planning session, the City will conduct a community stakeholder survey prior to working with the City Council to develop Mission and Vision statements, and ultimately set goals to implement the Priority Policy Statements.
We don’t have nice roads but at least we’ll have mission and vision statements.
The whole reason for this dog and pony show is to pretend to do something productive while our roads literally crumble around us each day. We’re in a structural deficit and only balance our budgets by selling capital assets (city owned property) and by not filling vacant positions.
So when people complain that we’re understaffed the current and retired staff are entirely to blame for this problem because they’re eating all of our general fund.
As to the survey itself, how engaged were the people of Fullerton in regards to this important mission of vision questing?
Super engaged, so responsive. The whole city was interested in giving their two cents… Oh. No. Nevermind. Almost nobody even knew this things existed and fewer participated.
706 people responded and 9 sent in written statements via email. That’s it.
It was a truly terrible turnout.
But the city, using that whopping return of 706 survey responses and 9 written statements will march ahead ever ready as a city to talk about what our local government’s priorities should be going forward in an open and honest fashion.
Today Jennifer Fitzgerald announced her resignation from the Fullerton Council, effective immediately.
“I can no longer even pretend to fulfill all the oaths I swore when I became a councilperson,” said Fitzgerald. “All the developer shakedowns, all the lies, all the influence peddling – I just can’t keep track of it all anymore. Balanced budgets, commitment to roads, honest cops – people want so much and I am so tired. I’m going to spend time with my family,” she stuttered weepily. “The evil has been backing up so much I feel I may burst.”
Mayor Jesus Silva responded to the announcement by saying ” I guess I’ll miss her helping me out at meetings when I started babbling like a boracho pendejo, but it will sure will be nice to have only one woman telling me what to do.”
Recently appointed Councilwoman Jan Flory had kind words for her colleague. “I’m going to miss Jen’ on council. To my lights she was the heart of the city and represents the very best commitment to service. We accomplished all sorts of things together – good roads, a successful downtown bar scene, an accountable police department, an unmatched string of balanced budges, effective and successful public works projects – you name it. She’s the reason Fullerton is where it is today.
Recently elected councilperson Ahmad Zahra was quick to praise Fitzgerald. “I thought at first she might be, you know, difficult to work with after she called out my long-winded moral posturing on the council appointment deal. But, later, when the chips were down, and she was willing to screw Whitaker just for the fun of it, I was so happy to make the deal to be on the water board. It was a very successful transaction.”
The council will now have to decide whether to replace Fitzgerald by appointment or by special election. According to the City Attorney a special election in November could cost eighty trillion dollars, which might come close to unbalancing the City’s budget according to City Manager Ken Domer.
And who should know that better than the Florentine Family whose nightclubs at the corner Harbor and Commonwealth, as FFFF recently noted, were out of compliance with their Conditional Use Permit that requires the installation of fire sprinklers.
This is surely ironic to people who consider such things, since the paterfamilas of the clan, Tony, used to own a restaurant and lounge called the Melody Inn that was gutted by a suspicious fire in 1989 and required the demolition of the oldest remaining commercial building in Fullerton. This in turn, set off a years-long bureaucratic chain of humiliation and Redevelopment folly that concluded with the construction of a hamburger restaurant and other architectural monstrosities.
Now, you might think that someone who suffered such a terrible tragedy as losing a business just a few hundred feet from his current one would be a lot more concerned about a repeat performance in 2019. And you might think the Fullerton municipal government would be a lot more concerned about fire safety and well-being of the Florentines’ patrons.
Fullerton humans – his niece accused someone in this photo of mailing a lewd scroto-selfie to her.
Try to find the winner.
The following came through from the City Clerk’s office regarding the agenda for tonight’s special meeting:
“Following applicant presentations, City Council will hear public comments regarding filling the City Council vacancy. After public comments, City Council will deliberate and vote to appoint an applicant to fill the vacancy through December 2020.”
It looks like the cat is out of the bag and this farce can be put to bed. The council is going to appoint somebody and all discussions related to a special election and the integrity of voting rights, transparency and openness is and was just gloss. You can’t claim to be open and transparent when you’ve already decided, without public notification and input, on the council’s decision before the “special meeting” meant to decide the very issue of direction.
Don’t think the council has decided already? Then ask yourself why 2 of 4 council members couldn’t even be bothered to show up to the Neighbors United for Fullerton (NUFF) forum last night? Not one of them was present for the entire event, a whole whopping 2 hours of their precious time was too much to give up for this oh so important open process.
Silva gave an opening statement and Whitaker stayed the longest which is amusing considering he voted for a special election and was the only voice really against this sham. The “public forum” that council directed staff to ask about and that council voted to approve and that NUFF was kind enough to host – was too much of a hassle for our council to attend. Go figure.
NUFF by the way deserves a hearty thank you from the citizens of Fullerton for rearranging their agenda to accommodate this charade. It’s not NUFF’s fault that Fullerton’s council acts like Fullerton’s council. NUFF did a great job all around and I personally thank them.
On a personal note, it was nice to see Josh Newman acting like the man I voted for in 2016 and not the man we recalled from office in 2018. I know he loathes me, which is fine, but you wouldn’t have known it last night which is what mattered.
Back to the travesty of the appointment process – with all of the behind the scenes meetings, deal making and huckstering going on right now it’s anybody’s guess how long it’ll take tonight for the anointed one to finally be appointed.
Should the obvious not happen, the council has a pretty good crop of people if they’re looking to find the least suitable, most mathematically challenged applicant to rubber stamp higher taxes and less accountability for staff. I counted at least 3 people in last night’s beauty pageant who wouldn’t hold anybody accountable or demand fiscal restraint – which really is a hallmark of Fullerton’s electeds.
I’m probably the only person who put in an application who can unite the council – but that’s because they’re united in not wanting me anywhere near that dais. Heck, I’m pretty confident that I wouldn’t want me anywhere near that dais.
As far as beauty pageants go I was the best dressed but we never made it to the swimsuit competition or special talents so that was sad. Maybe tonight will be different. Maybe not.
After some debate, a short delay and a little snapping by Jennifer Fitzgerald, a council majority opted to hold a beauty pageant to decide which crony will get to join them on the dais.
The city is accepting applications for contestants who are interested in the job of city council without the need to actually convince the citizenry to vote for them.
We won’t know who all is running until the application process ends but we’ve already heard some names and most of them are terrible if you care about the city budget or basic math skills.
In the ongoing process the council will pretend to view and vet the candidates in an “open and transparent” process which means closed door meetings and private wheeling and dealing with a dash of favors and/or threats for good measure.
There will be a “candidate forum” sponsored by the Neighbors United for Fullerton but really it doesn’t matter who you like or what they say to the public because the council is making this decision regardless of your thoughts or opinions. You have no real voice in this process despite empty promises to the contrary.
Let us not kid ourselves, despite applications being due by Wed, 23 January and the NUFF forum being on the 28th, this will be a done deal long before you get a chance to even know who’s all in the running and who can twirl a baton the best.
The meetings are already happening and the deals are already being struck – hence Fitzgerald, Flory and the Flor-Bots all shilling for Flory back in December before this process even started.
You can apply if you’re a masochist or you can just show up to the forum and council meeting to watch the slew of candidates take 8 boilerplate questions about the roads and zero about pension reform and overspending. Overall don’t expect the public face of this charade to matter much in the actual decision making process.
However if you want to pretend like you have a chance to be on city council and believe you have what it takes to beat back the leviathan and fix our structural deficit then all you have to do is fill out a few pieces of paper to apply. Apply Today. The more the merrier.
