Strange But True Archives - Page 6 of 10 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 26, 2017January 26, 2017Big Brother

While We Were Away: AJ’s Story

For a few weeks now, we have been looking back on the fraud, waste and abuse that occurred in Fullerton during our hiatus. And we’ve had a few good laughs, unfortunately at our own expense. But Friends, today things are about to take a more sinister turn. Why? Because the story involves not only misuse of public funds, but also police surveillance of lawful activity, police assault on citizens, and the punitive misuse the criminal justice system by the cops and the district attorney.

This story from 2014 is best told in the colorful language of Mr. Stephen Baxter, and so FFFF gives you his words:

These photos, all captured on Jan 18th 2014, by OC Weekly photographer, Josue Rivas, document the temporary escape of Aj Redkey, aka Anaheim James, one of the most peaceful protesters I know, a member of in-league press, and perhaps my best friend on the planet.

We had organized a protest in reaction to the acquittal of a OC jury of the three Fullerton Police officers charged in the murder of a local homeless man, named Kelly Thomas. AJ had been filming the protest all day, because cops behave better when they know they are being filmed, so when the decision was made to break up our protest and arrest people, those filming were the first targeted by the police. These cops actually tried to run AJ down in their car, AJ leaped the hood Starsky and Hutch style, and Josue captured the rest seconds later.

After monitoring our FB page (this according to the police report) 3 months later AJ was arrested at an Autism event in Pasadena. Six Fullerton cops drove to Pasadena to arrest my peaceful friend. Why? because by him outrunning them he had embarrassed fat, slow, over paid cops with giant egos.

After spending almost $10,000 defending these charges at a jury trial, All charges against AJ were dropped.

The sad fact is that “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE” Don’t fool yourself.

Also, AJ IS A FUCKING HERO. HE COULD HAVE PLEAD FOR A $500 FINE, INSTEAD HE FOUGHT IT AND FACED 6 MONTHS IN JAIL. HOW MANY OF US WOULD HAVE THE STONES TO DO THAT?

Now ask yourself how many resources and how much of your tax dollars were wasted by Fullerton PD and the DA’s office.

Does any of this shit matter to you? If not, your are the fucking problem.

January 17, 2017January 17, 2017Behind Closed Doors

Fortunately, An Adult in the Room

by Mr. Peabody60 Comments

This is a story about selfishness, small-time greed and entitlement.

No, it’s not about my 3-year old nephew.

It’s about members of the Fullerton Fire Department and their Chief, Wolfgang “Wolf” Knabe and the culture of permissiveness overseen by our former City Manager Joe “Fast and Loose” Felz.

Back in September a couple of off-duty fire department employees managed to get themselves lost in Yosemite by foolishly trying to take a shortcut across some sort of moving water. The hue and cry went out – all the way to Fullerton. So members of the FFD drove City vehicles up north to show solidarity with their lost comrades who were discovered a day or two later.

What happened next may or may not surprise you depending on your familiarity with the sense of entitlement held by Fullerton’s “public safety” employees.

Chief Knabe, who makes well over $200,000 a year and is Fullerton’s highest paid employee, attempted to stick the taxpayers of Fullerton with the cost of gas, steak dinners and hotel accommodations for this purely elective field trip.

Here are the relevant documents.

Firefighters Javier Avelar, sixth from left, and Dave Brown, seventh from left, seen here joined on Sept. 13 by colleagues who trekked to Yosemite to help find them after they were reported missing by family.

Hero presser: Fullerton/Brea Fire Departments fire chief Wolfgang Kanabe explains during a press conference in Fullerton on Wednesday, how two Fullerton firefighters went missing in Yosemite during a six-day backpacking trip. They were supposed to return on Sunday. Searchers found them Tuesday. September 14, 2016. (Photo by Ken Steinhardt, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Knabe tried to justify the whole episode as some sort of job-related effort and a PR triumph for himself and his department, but fortunately our Finance Department Director, Julia James, was having none of it, and quite appropriately deemed such a reimbursement as a gift of public funds.

In the end Wolfie had to use a “donation” account (which is still public money), and which begs the question of whether or not donors are giving money to the department to pay for steak dinners for our Heroes.

January 12, 2017January 12, 2017Local Media

OCFA Fire Station Burns Down in Rain

by Joshua42 Comments

A fire station. Burned down. In the rain.

This is one of those of stories that is so amazing as to not be believed. Orange County Fire Authority’s Station 61, in Buena Park by Knott’s Berry Farm, burned down this morning.

In these rains.

A fire station. Burned down. In the rain. Let that sink in for a few moments.

When I looked at PulsePoint it looked really, really bad because 49 separate units had been dispatched.

Somebody must have lost an iPad considering everybody got out okay and yet two Chaplain Units were dispatched.

While certainly a troubling thing to happen this is a great example of priorities. How many of these units, many of which were likely redundant and unnecessary, were dispatched for the sake of being dispatched.

Had this not been a Fire Station it is doubtful that this many units would have been on scene.

At least they weren’t dozing for dollars I suppose.

Just a few weeks ago there was a story in the OC Register about this station. Buena Park was planning to sink $13 Million in to fixing this 50-year-old station. Now it’s gone and they’ll have no choice but to replace it.

Prepare to see Fullerton’s Ladder Truck in and around Buena Park more often until OCFA replaces Ladder Truck 61. That $1Million+ OCFA truck, along with tons of other equipment became scrap in the fire.

January 9, 2017January 9, 2017Boohooism

The Yellowing Submarine Sinks Deeper

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy18 Comments

You have to wonder about the integrity of an avowedly left-wing media effort that is so desperate to prop up and defend local government that it will…well, read on.

The Fullerton Observer and its obtuse editor, Sharon Kennedy, have now resorted to republishing pieces written by the pro-cop union shill “Behind the Badge.” The taxpayers pick up the tab for that lame propaganda.

It’s true.

In it’s latest journalistic effort, we see on page 12 a “story” scribbled by the utterly servile Lou Ponsi. There is no explanation as to where this tidbit comes from. Is Ponsi now an “Observer?” But a simple hunch led me to Ponsi’s new source of income. Sure enough. Kennedy has just passed along a reprint from “Back the Badge.”

The sole purpose of Behind the Badge is to make Fullerton’s cop apparatus look good, no matter what, by running feel-good stories. And Sharon Kennedy’s mission is making Fullerton’s government look good, no matter what. I guess it makes sense in a perverted kind of way.

At least we don’t have to pay for the Fullerton Observer.

January 9, 2017January 9, 2017I Aint a Swallerin That

The Red Oak

by Fred L. Olmsted18 Comments

As a professional botanist I was quite interested and amused by the name of the developers of the proposed multi-family monster on Commonwealth Avenue. Red Oaks Investment. Why? Because the red oak is native to the Midwest and eastern United States.

Red Oak.

Okay. Got it. An out-of -town developer with the name of a non-indigenous tree foists a massive project on the populace in an environment where it doesn’t belong.

You know, in Fullerton these days that sort of makes sense.

January 3, 2017January 3, 2017Big Brother

F.F.D. Doesn’t Want Your Finger on the Pulse

by Joshua16 Comments

Or Perhaps They’re Just Missing the Point of PulsePoint

Allow me to introduce you to PulsePoint.

When life is on the line every second matters. PulsePoint is designed to allow people with C.P.R. training to respond to emergencies. It’s brilliant.

According to their own website:

Through the use of modern, location-aware mobile devices PulsePoint is building applications that work with local public safety agencies to improve communications with citizens and empower them to help reduce the millions of annual deaths from Sudden Cardiac Arrest.

Know C.P.R.? Check a box and it’ll show you calls needing C.P.R. and notify you if you’re near.

Got it? The entire point is to allow people to respond to medical emergencies in a timely manner. The App is literally about saving lives. And I mean literally in the actual sense here.

Why am I writing this?

Because here’s a screenshot of Fullerton Fire Department activity from tonight:

And here’s a screenshot from the Orange County Fire Authority:

Did you catch what’s missing from the F.F.D. data?

Medical Calls. Literally the whole point of the App.

We share data with an App designed to help with medical calls and yet we, as a city, omit medical calls.

This is bureaucratic bureaucracy at it’s best. We’ll participate so long as we don’t have to actually, you know, participate. It’s not like this is about trying to save lives or anything.

November 11, 2016November 13, 2016Bruce Whitaker

Taco Tuesday. No, Wait, That’s Not Right…

by Mr. Peabody8 Comments

Here’s a tidbit from Tuesday’s upcoming Fullerton City Council Closed Session Agenda. The Closed Session is where the council secretes itself away from public scrutiny to discuss lawsuits and personnel and real estate deals.

felzonagenda

#2 deals with the replacement of of our recently departed PoChief, Danny Hughes, who was last seen applying his fingerprints all over a case involving helping out a pal in serious trouble.

#4 deals with the “performance evaluation” of the very person Hughes helped out – his boss, City Manager, Joe Felz, who was seen early Wednesday morning swerving down Glenwood Ave on his rims, after ploughing over a tree in the parkway, unable to negotiate the intersection at Highland Avenue in a, um, er, ahem, competent manner.

I’ve got it on pretty good authority that item 4 was agendized by the City Attorney; but at whose behest? Will the topic of Mr. Felz’s Wild Ride come up? How about the apparent cover up that is now being investigated not only by us, but by numerous mainstream media outlets?

Could there be action taken? If there were we would never know, because this is “personnel matter” not a criminal one – as the very same City Attorney has informed the media.

November 9, 2016November 9, 2016About Us

Under New Manangement

by Joe Sipowicz17 Comments

Friends for Fullerton’s Future is now owned and operated by a brand new collection of miscreants, malefactors and truth-tellers. Sure, some of our old Friends will still be here. Some new ones, too.

In 2013, the previous proprietor of this esteemed institution decided to shut it down – after thousands and thousands of posts and hundreds of thousands of comments. In 2010 and 2011 FFFF was named the Best Blog in Orange County by the OC Weekly. Well, guess what? We’re back.

On a hot July night in 2011 a sick, homeless man was bludgeoned and suffocated to death in one of our gutters by members of our own police department. He choked to death in his own blood as the cops that killed him were nursed for their scrapes with soothing words, Bactine and band aids. A supposedly distraught mother and father were bought off with $6,000,000 of our money, in order to keep the truth from us.

And what the Hell has happened in Fullerton the meantime?

In 2012, a new 3-2 city council majority emerged, belligerently determined to eradicate the memory of Fullerton’s second recall; blindly determined to ignore the Culture of Corruption that pervaded the Fullerton Police Department. You remember that culture? Remember the names: Rincon, Mater, Major, Hampton, Nguyen, Mejia? Search our archives, Friends, to remind yourselves.

Jan Flory, Doug Chaffee and Jennifer Fitzgerald replaced the Three Bald Tires – Bankhead, McKinley and Jones – as proprietors and caretakers of the corrupt Old Regime and as custodians of the silence.

It is four years later. Now our streets are choked with traffic that will only get worse with the advent of new massive projects created to enrich a few developers, their “consultants” and their lobbyists.

Lobbyists? Our own mayor is a professional lobbyist. She says she wants us to “participate in building a better future for our city.” How? Apparently, by promoting more gargantuan housing development by her own future campaign contributors, while turning a blind eye to the incredible waste of resources spent policing the downtown booze-fueled free-for-all created by her predecessors and her own current campaign contributors.

Hundreds of millions of gallons of water have been poured into leaky Laguna Lake by the City government as Fullerton citizens have been forced by their own government to let their landscaping die. In the past four years, $45 million dollars have and will be been transferred from reserve accounts to keep the City solvent, as our own mayor takes credit for a “balanced budget.”

Are things changed? You tell me, humble readers.

Oh yeah, we’re back. And we’re kind of pissed off.

January 20, 2013Big Brother

Homeless Shelter A Big Step Closer

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy185 Comments

Linder

It appears that the good folks down at the County of Orange, allied with the local professional do-gooders are intent on placing a regional homeless shelter at 301 S. State College, in Fullerton.

The only problem is that nobody decided to let the neighbors know; or, even our own City Council, it seems.

The County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to proceed with the purchase of the old Linder’s Furniture store for $3,150,000. Yes, you read that right. Fullerton Mayor Bruce Whitaker showed up to the meeting asking for more time so that his City Council could at least be afforded the opportunity to at least get briefed on the matter (gee that would have been nice). Some neighbors showed up, too, but to no avail. They may as well have stayed home.

The project, apparently the brainchild of our own Supervisor Shawn Nelson, is located across the street from a single family neighborhood and an elementary school, too. It’s hard to tell what is motivating Nelson, but judging by comments to the Voice of OC and the Register he seems intent on proving to the housing bureaucrats and Fullerton’s liberals what effective leadership looks like. Unfortunately he forgot that leaders need to build consensus around their ideas, not dictate them from on high.

Anyway, the pictures of the building on the County’s website show a decrepit 45 year-old building that I think is going to have to be completely rebuilt before humans can spend the night in it. Nobody has even begun to calculate those costs, although the County has 150 days to do “due diligence” whatever that may mean. You may count on many times the purchase price before they are done; running the operation will be a non-profit paid for by you and me.

The other four Supervisors are probably snickering at Nelson behind his back. They’ll get credit for their humanitarian propensities. East Fullerton gets the booby prize.

January 13, 2013Downtown Fullerton

We Get Mail: Not In Their Backyard

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy172 Comments

Dear Friends, we received the following e-mail from an unhappy resident of the neighborhood around Chapman Park, across the street from the location the County is proposing to buy for $3.15 million to transform into a permanent homeless shelter.

It always interests me to see that those politicians and bureaucrats who support obnoxious land uses of one kind or another always seem suitably removed, geographically, from any undesirable effects of their decisions.

Take the case of the permanent homeless shelter proposed by the County (and possibly our own City Council – nobody really knows what has been agreed to behind closed doors – with zero input from us) on State College. It would be located across the street from the Chapman Park neighborhood where we live. To the north are two story apartments and an elementary school; right next door and to the rear are other commercial properties. But it is a long, long way from any residence of the decision makers. Surprised? Not me.

We will be told that such facilities need to be built where public transportation exists. Okay. But in the next breath we learn that getting the homeless out of downtown Fullerton is required. How come? That is the very heart of the transportation network in north Orange County. La Palma Park in Anaheim is ground zero for the homeless population of north orange County and is located astride not one but THREE bus lines.

Since the County’s only requirements are that their shelter be on a bus route and away from downtown Fullerton, here’s a thought. Let’s build the shelter next to Hillcrest Park, or near the Brea Dam – near two bus lines – on City owned property that won’t cost anybody a dime. Of course it would be pretty near where Jan Flory and Doug Chaffee live. Or maybe it could be built on some open space in Coyote Hills – near the Euclid bus line and not far from Jennifer Fitzgerald and Shawn Nelson’s homes.