The Observer Archives - Page 16 of 17 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 6, 2010The Observer

Observer Editor Sends Letter to Herself?

Helen Logan of Fullerton sent us the following note regarding a “community opinion” printed in the latest edition of the Fullerton Observer:

Is S.K. of Fullerton actually Sharon Kennedy, who lives with her mother in Fullerton, the author of this letter? If so, then why would she write a letter to herself?

The Fullerton Observer’s letters to the editor policy allows the editor to only identify the author with his or her initials and the city he or she lives in, if there is a good reason for requesting anonymity from the editor, Sharon Kennedy. Why the need for anonymity for the above innocuous letter? Who in Fullerton fears retribution from angered Haitian shop owners or militias?

I sought the answers to my questions in a separate Observer article titled “Haiti Supplies to Survivors & a Brief History”. Only one sentence, replete with syntax and spelling errors, mentioned distribution problems arose and survivors had to wait a few days to get these supplies.

The poor research and writing of the Fullerton Observer’s articles and its lack of journalistic ethics reveals this newspaper to be nothing more than a collection of opinions. This newspaper and its editor lack credibility.

The Fullerton Observer touts itself as Fullerton’s only independent newspaper. I thank those other newspapers that are dependent on investigative reporting from real journalists and their valid editors for giving me insight into the facts.

November 21, 2009December 28, 2009Fullerton City Council

Pam Keller’s Election as Mayor Clearly Equates to Discrimination

by Chris Thompson13 Comments

Like any good American, I am a staunch advocate for “TURNS”. And as Fullerton’s #1 Freedom Fighter, Sharon Kennedy points out; Pam Keller may not get hers as Mayor. Being moved nearly to tears by this development, I went straight to work statistically verifying this horrible state of affairs. Specifically, that women are not as likely to be given their TURN as Mayor as the men! What salacious form of woman-hating is this? So in support of Sharon and Pam, I ran the numbers…

Pam Keller Awarding Chris Norby for bringing the notion of TURNS to Fullerton Mayoral politics.

Dating back to Mayor Charles Chapman in 1902, 44% of Fullerton’s Male City Council Members have had their turn as Mayor. And, only 75% of our Female Council Members have had their turn. So, clearly, discrimination is rampa….what? Let me double check these figures:

35 male mayors/80 male council members = 44%.

6 female mayors/ 8 female council members = 75%

Ummm….well, let me check the numbers just since the first female council member Frances Wood (pause to bow head) was elected in 1970:

13 male mayors/17male council members = 77%

6 female mayors/ 8 female council members = 75%

I KNEW IT!!! Discrimination IS rampant in Fullerton!

But wait… dialing the Observer…

“Sharon, CT here. We have a problem. If the Fullerton School District’s Collaborative Director gets elected Mayor that will mean that 88% of Fullerton’s female council members will have been elected as Mayor and only 77% of men…

…what’s that?….NO, that’s only since 1970 when there HAVE been women on the council.

What? Bury it??? Yeah…yeah….that’s what we should do. People will just forget that we ever brought it up. God you’re brilliant Sharon!”

November 20, 2009Fullerton BooHoo

Perplexed “Pamette” Posse Pluviates Pilaver

by admin20 Comments

You want funny? We got funny. Just listen to this nincompoop try to promote Pam Keller’s mayoralty – while waving around a copy of the widely discredited Fullerton Observer! Enjoy!

November 5, 2009December 28, 2009Behind Closed Doors

More Phony Hand Wringing From the Skipper of the Yellowing Submarine

by The Fullerton Harpoon9 Comments

Ahoy there, reality - unable to surface...

A new month, the same old weeping by the Fullerton Observer about how the good ol’ boys are keeping poor Pam Keller from her entitlement to be mayor when the next term starts. It’s not fair! Not fair!

(Ed. – Never a word about Keller’s dismal votes on massive projects or her unique working relationship with FSD/Fullerton Collaborative, but that’s another story.)

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the person who is entitled to be mayor is the council person who can get two other people on the council to vote for him. Pretty simple. Nothing else really matters.

The author of this indignant drivel lays out a conspiracy tale of events behind the scenes to keep a Democrat out of the presiding chair; and as usual the plot centers around Shawn Nelson, without whom the Observer would have a lot less to natter on about. Ironically the tangled web includes Observer favorite Don Bankhead and by necessity another Observer endorsement recipient – Dick Jones! Observer chickens coming home to roost? God, let’s hope so!

Politics might be going on. The horror! Of course despite the Observer trying to emphasize the ceremonial (i.e. non-political) aspects of the mayorship, the fact is it is a very coveted title when re-election time rolls around – as it does for Pam Keller, next year. Aha! Politics!

So is a scheme being worked out to elect somebody else mayor for 2010? Possibly. Quite likely, although since none of the supposed principles would be likely to talk to Sharon Kennedy about it, it seems much more likely to be a pure guess on her part. Our congressman Ed Royce loves to meddle in these affairs; to him it seems easier than simply turning on the light and opening the closet door to discover that there really is no monster in there. Just some mops and brooms.

And speaking of politics, maybe The Observer should quit endorsing Ed Royce puppets like the chowderhead Jones and focus on somebody who could actually be counted on to support Keller for mayor. Oh no! More politics.

October 12, 2009December 28, 2009About Us

Sharon Kennedy Attempts to Dump on FFFF; Instead Soils Self Badly

by The Fullerton Harpoon7 Comments

Yellowing Sub torpedoes self. Again. Still no bottom in sight.

In the latest dreary edition of her yellowing Fullerton Observer, editor and almost entirely irrelevant City Hall shill, Sharon Kennedy, tries to smear FFFF and our law suit against the City’s fraudulent redevelopment expansion.

Once again we are “discredited;” why? Oh that’s right: we are sick of idiots like Dick Jones getting re-elected with the complicity of Sharon Kennedy, and we attempted to do something about it by using the donkey’s own braying.

You are very repulsive. And discredited, too.

Of course Kennedy drags in the hated Chris Norby, who is not even a party to the law suit. She tries to dismiss our attorney Robert Ferguson (“serial anti-redevelopment lawyer”- you know like serial murderer, serial rapist, etc.) and even drags in Howard Ahmanson, whom none of us have ever even talked to, and even Ahmanson’s dead father! She left out Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, Father Coughlin, Howard Jarvis, and the Ku Klux Klan, but just give her time. There was only one factual statement in the whole embarrassing plop: FFFF is suing the City.

At the end of her screed Kennedy extrudes this priceless string of turds:

Unfortunately, though the city is expected to win the suit, the action will set back plans for needed improvements and cost the city money to litigate.

Really Sharon? How about a little reporting instead of your usual brainless editorializing? Who says the city is expected to win? Are you aware of Ferguson’s record? Who says “plans” will be set back? What plans? Where are they? Of what do they consist? Who says it will cost the city money to litigate? They’re “expected to win,” right?

Sharon, is it too much to hope that you will ever extract your cranium from its lodging place?

The hole may be shallower than anyone suspected — The hole may be a lot shallower than anyone ever suspected

September 30, 2009December 28, 2009About Us

The Observer Swings…and Misses!

by The Fullerton Harpoon5 Comments

Our old pal Sharon Kennedy just couldn’t help taking a shot at the Friends in her latest edition of the Observer. In a story [it’s on page 8] about the City’s settlement with the County over the bogus Redevelopment expansion she takes her swing: “Chris Norby and his supporters in the FACT and FFF (sic) groups (both groups widely discredited by shameful campaign ads and tactics in past elections)…”

Shameful? Well, hell, we don’t feel the least bit of shame – let alone any sort of discredit, except perhaps from people whose opinion means almost nothing to us. Excuse us, Ms. Kennedy, for pointing out what a loud-mouthed, ignorant blowhard Dick Jones really is – and using his own words to do it!

Much more shameful was the Observer’s slavish endorsement of Jones, an undeniable corn pone numbskull, simply because he is a reliable City staff stooge. That endorsement may have cost Karen Haluza the election. Nice work for a “progressive” operation.

If you go down far enough you might reach China...

And speaking of shameful, will the Observer continue to support council members who have voted to approve massive corporate subsidized housing projects with deficient CEQA findings? Just asking.

Being called shameful by Sharon Kennedy and her yellowing Observer is like being called ugly by a toad.

Yes I am extremely unattractive, but you are even more so...

September 16, 2009January 9, 2010Fullerton BooHoo

Fullerton Observer Sinks To New Low

by The Fullerton Harpoon11 Comments

The Yellowing Sub Dives even Deeper — The Yellowing Sub dives even deeper

UPDATE: According to an e-mail we received yesterday, our acquaintance “Tenant” reminded us that he did indeed have a follow up conversation with Ms. Kennedy about his situation. We apologize for that error. However the basic thrust of this post remains. You can’t be a reporter and an advocate for this or that specific cause or organization at the same time.

And just to remind our Friends: we are a blog – not a journalistic endeavor and we have never tried to get anybody to believe otherwise.

To those Fullerton Observer observers who still believe that Sharon Kennedy has an atom of journalist integrity, or any objective standards either, we present the most recent Observer edition as our evidence to the contrary.

Last week we posted a story about how Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Services intended to expand their compound in the 500 block of West Amerige Avenue, and in the process how the current landlord had told his tenants to vacate the premises so he could close the deal.

What we didn’t share was the fact that one of the tenants had actually contacted Sharon Kennedy. According to this individual she evinced considerable interested in his plight; but the tenant never heard back from her.

In the Observer’s mid-September issue she gave an answer. Buried in the middle of an article about unrelated FIES issues the author tucked in a few lines about the FIES acquisition of property on Amerige. The article notes matter-of-factly that relocation help would be available for those tenants who need it. Check out left column halfway down page nine.

Of course there was no mention of the fact that previously none of the tenants had been notified that “assistance was available,” no mention of what the criteria for qualification are, and no mention of who at FIES told her that they were going to help anybody.

It sure looks to us like Sharon Kennedy was trying to help her pals at FIES cover up an embarrassing episode long after the fact. Wow! What a crusading reporter!

Well, at any rate, we are glad that someone may be getting something, sometime, somehow. We’ll check in to see what FIES is doing to make things right for the folks they are dislocating.

In the meantime a whole lotta irony is still goin’ on: several genuine, non-subsidized affordable housing units are taken out of the available housing stock and the property, soon to be owned by a non-profit, will be taken off the property tax rolls. Hooray!

hey everybody, we gotta stick together... — Hey everybody, we gotta stick together...

August 7, 2009August 8, 2009About Us

More Fun and Games At The Fullerton Observer

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

The hey, and the hey, and the hey, hey, hey! — Professor Frink speaks: with the insinuating and the smearing, and the hey, hey, hey!

Our dear pals at the Fullerton Observer are at it again. In their latest (August) edition someone named Kevin Frink used the “Council Shorts” feature to take a shot at one of Fullerton’s Friends – Jack Dean check out page 4. The topic was the hearing on the Redevelopment expansion scam, and here’s what Mr. Frink had to say:

Several residents spoke in opposition

of the proposed action before the council/

redevelopment agency including Mr.

Kiker, Mr. DeWitt and Mr. Dean, the

later representing the Fullerton

Association of Concerned Taxpayers

(FACT), (a group responsible for

extremely dirty and misleading campaign

tactics in past city council and school board campaigns).

We suspect that Frink had coaching from his editor to insinuate a completely gratuitous and unsubstantiated claim about FACT’s political activities. The fact that this parenthetical attack had absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand and is based on on the Observer’s notion that to oppose any statist, pro-government union candidate is tantamount to a crime, just backs up our previous criticisms of the Observer as a hack-run shill for City Hall. Those who have defended the Observer as some sort of journalistic paragon take heed. This is the type of stoogery you are defending.

Meanwhile the Yellowing Sub sinks deeper.

P.S. Could Mr. “Kiker” have been our very own Travis Kiger? If so we have a celebrity in our midst. Travis was that you?

July 22, 2009December 28, 2009The Observer

Amphibian Assault

by The Fullerton Harpoon4 Comments

Every now and then we get a particularly perspicacious comment from one of our Loyal Friends that we think is worth posting separately. The following was written by Hollis Dugan in response to our post about the Fullerton Observer and its hermetically sealed philosophical environment. We have cleaned up his spelling for him. Explains Mr. Dugan:

I always sing in the shower... — I always sing in the bath tub...

What to me at least becomes the most bizarre angle of the Observer finally is that Kennedy is a left wing loon that probably never envisioned herself as the apologist for the establishment. The far left commie types like her came out of the 60’s and early 70’s AGAINST the establishment. Freedom from government tyranny and limits on liberty.

Now it seems, like boiling a frog, Kennedy and her ilk have let the heat rise so slowly it never occurred to them that they are the last protectors of the government machine controlling everyone’s liberty. Wake up Kennedy! Your values have been boiled right out of you without detection by anyone at your little rag.

Have the drugs done that much damage? You should be screaming from the rooftops how outrageous the thought of the City running its own blog to control the information flow (attempt to, anyway). Instead you are a meek little cheerleader for the inept and pathetic control mongers that can’t stand when others have an independent thought.

It’s not too late to become a fighter for liberty.

July 21, 2009July 21, 2009The Observer

It Goes Down Okay, But Has Trouble Getting Up

by The Fullerton Shadow8 Comments

The other day on our post detailing Pam Keller’s love-in blog, one of our readers made reference to “a stack of yellowing Observers,” and another clever Friend inquired whether he was referring to the paper or its writers.

Today we had a visit from another Friend on our latest post about the Fullerton Observer and its hackish ways, using the great handle “They All Live in A Yellow Submarine.” This set us a thinkin’ about what a great metaphor the submarine can be, especially one that can’t blow its ballast tanks to surface and see what’s happening in the outside world. Its denizens are hermetically sealed in. Think Das Boot.

Observers at work — Who needs fresh air and sunshine? Not us!

Given The Fullerton Observer’s rather nasty penchant for submerging itself in a sea of City Hall Kool Aid we think the image is apt. Plus we’re getting a little bored with: