Tanned rested and ready, after a 9 week hiatus, Don Bankhead, retired police captain, stumblebum, incompetent, tired, phraser of spoonerisms, and the only man in the 162 year-old history of California to be recalled from the same office twice, is back.
Yes, indeedy, recently ousted Fullerton councilman Don Bankhead filed papers yesterday to run for city council this fall – marking his tenth election to get or hold that esteemed position.
Even after the meteorite hit him in the noggin, Blank jumped right back into the game. After all his legacy was at stake. Damn mammals.
You really have to wonder what motivates Bankhead at this point, if anything beyond senile stubbornness. Who he thinks his supporters are is hard to fathom. Perhaps he was encouraged by a room full of cops and cop apologists wearing blue shirts. Blue is Don’s favorite color. Does he believe the FPOA and the fire union will back a clueless octogenarian exhibiting signs of evident cognitive dissonance? Well of course they will!
Still, it will be interesting to see which cruel, thoughtless persons signed his nominating papers.
In a way it’s sort of sad to see a man whom time has so evidently passed by deny the reality: two thirds of the voters in the recent Recall voted to get rid of him.
They lie about stuff big and small. They just can’t help it. Last year FFFF nailed former councilman Don Bankhead in a bald-faced lie here, when he denied saying Fullerton would be a ghost town without Redevelopment.
Here he is denying to Fullerton Stories that he had pulled papers to run for the city council (after having been recalled just six weeks ago). Possibly Bankhead is unaware that not only does the City Clerk keep track of who has pulled papers, but they list it on their web page.
Of course Bankhead has run so many times that he should know this, unless the teeth are just worn away and the old gears are spinning aimlessly.
Our new city council members recently received this unsolicited e-mail from former City Manager Chris Meyer:
Council Members, you might want to consider the attached article from Oakland on police commissions/ oversight, before you decide how you want to proceed. It is very instructive on the challenges you may face. Since the procedures for disciplinary action for police officers are embodied in their labor contract (which is subject the collective bargaining process under MMB, PERB; and other State laws, as well as long established city policy), and since the current contract with the optional extension, doesn’t expire until 2014, an oversight commission would be a ineffective, and generally useless until a new contract was mutually agreed upon, or imposed unilaterally on the POA.
Instead, you may want to focus on appointing a permanent Chief of Police for the time being, and see if the problems can be resolved that way. As to the Council appointing a Chief of Police, go ahead and give it a try. It will be interesting to see how the Chief interfaces with the Council, and implements both your individual, and collective agendas. You might want to ask Shawn, Sharon, or Pam what the closed session discussion was like when the most recent Chief was selected. You will note that in the City Manager Ordinance, that the CM is required to consult with the Council on the selection of the Chief. That means that at least three Council Members need to concur with the CM’s recommendation in order for it to happen, unless of course the CM is planning on looking for a new job. For all practical purposes at least four members of the Council need to concur, as no Chief candidate will take a job on a 3/2 vote.The Council also interviews the final three candidates for the job, and can direct the appointment. Generally the CM can work with any of the top three, so the selection is responsive to the Councils direction, and desires. Finally, ask yourself this question? Do you want to be responsible for the Chief’s actions. Remember that will require you to fall on your collective swords, as well as the Chief, if something like Kelly happens again. And, just a reminder, the Chief gets POBAR protection, and presumptive clause protection for medical conditions related to the incident, or the job, so you would be gone long before he, or she would, as you would bear the ultimate responsibility.
Chris Meyer City Manager, Retired
The part I love is the former City Manager trying to scare the new council members into the same craven cowardliness that tanked the last crew. Do you want to be responsible for the Chief’s actions?
Well, hell yes!!
Leaders lead. The poor, brainless bastards that just got recalled failed to lead. They let “the system” take charge; the result was a disaster. Comically, the otiose Meyer derives his entire screed on the premise that “things just happen.” But Meyer fails to grasp one basic truth: things just happen when nobody is in charge.
Typically, Meyer omits to remind the new council that hewas in charge as the Fullerton Police Department slid down the greasy slope of corruption. Typical? Yes, indeed. The old, corrupt regime never took responsibility for its actions. And a bloated pustule like Meyer could make $200,000 a year coaching his three sawdust-brained puppets to dodge the accountability they were elected to assume.
Echoing the sentiments of his boss and apparent mentor, Acting Police Chief Dan Hughes, Fullerton cop union leader Barry Coffman says those who characterize the FPD as having a corruption problem are misinformed. Here are his exact words from a Register article.
“I think they are misinformed,” Coffman said about anyone saying the department has had corruption. “They don’t know what corrupt is. … They take this Kelly Thomas incident and say there has been a cover-up. Just because they didn’t get information when they wanted it, they conclude there is corruption.”
Predictably, Coffman chooses to gloss over the long string of malfeasance perpetrated by members of the FPD, mostly card-carrying members of his own union. See, Barry is suddenly confronted with the very real possibility that Fullerton might consider outside offers to take over policing in Fullerton, offers that could save as much as $10,000,000, annually.
Well, Mr. Excessive Horning has a selective and self-serving memory. I don’t. Here’s what I remember from just the past year:
Albert Rincon – Accused of multiple sexual assaults. City styles two cases for $350,000.
Todd Major – Fraud. Ripped off Explorers.
Kelly Mejia – Grand theft.
Miguel Siliceo – misidentification of suspect. Wrong guy spends 5 moths in jail.
Vince Mater – Charged by DA with destruction of evidence in jail suicide case.
Manuel Ramos – Accused of assaulting disabled man in June, 2011.
Kenton Hampton – Accused of battery and false arrest against Veth Mam and Edward Quinonez. Cooked up story to attempt to convict Mam. Jury acquits Mam.
Frank Nguyen – bogus testimony in Mam case.
Robert “Go home or go to jail” Kirk – Threatens law abiding citizens with jail for watching the FPD at work. Later spotted in the “excessive horning” debacle.
Perry Thayer – accused of roughing up downtown visitor
Cary Tong – ditto
April Baughman – stole from the FPD property room for two years before getting caught. Hmm. No accomplices? No inventory?
Andrew Goodrich – peddled falsehoods about the Kelly Thomas killing that were never retracted.
Barry Coffman(!) – proud participant in Dan Hughes’ excessive horning scam.
Tom “Tango” Basham – allegedly the watch commander the night of the Thomas murder, and player #1 in the subsequent cover up.
Christopher Wren – off the hook in the Rincon assaults, but plead no contest to “false imprisonment” against some kid in the IE – bargaining down battery charges. Anger management took care of his legal problems. Ours are still pending.
Dan Hughes – boss of all the above
Etc., etc.
Of course the “incident” with Kelly Thomas stands in a class by itself for malicious, incompetence, and murderous thuggery. We will always remember the names Ramos, Wolfe, Cicinelli, Blatney, Craig. Oh and let’s not forget our old friend Hampton.
The day before the election seems like a real good time to replay this sparkling jewel of a video; the one in which Patdown Pat McKinley admits his own failure to lead. It’s got to be real hard for any anti-recall stooges to suck up this one!! When you vote remember this McKinley proclamation: “Council people don’t lead.”
Also, enjoy watching Patdown Pat’s sociopathic neck ligaments strain as he utters the damning indictment “failure to lead.”
– Joe Sipowicz
Here’s an illuminating admission by soon-to-be-recalled Councilmember “Patdown” Pat McKinley. The accusation that he has failed to lead fails to resonate with McPension since he denies that he is on the City Council to be a leader. The snippet below was culled from a long interview with the good folks at FullertonStories, here.
Well, Friends, there you have it. And you have a great example of why it’s almost always a bad idea to elect former staff members into political office.
And out of his own mouth McKinley admits and proclaims his own dismal failure to lead.
Get a load of the sort of useless crap The Three Bald Tires are wasting their contributor’s money on, accompanied by another thoughtful “press release” by the slouching sloth, Larry Bennett. Hard hitting? How about comically pathetic?
ANTI-RECALL COMMITTEE RELEASES HARD HITTING
AD CALLING OUT SPECIAL INTEREST KING TONY BUSHALA
Fullerton, CA – Today the committee fighting the Tony Bushala funded Fullerton recall released an ad that documents Bushala’s $260,000 effort to buy the Fullerton city council. “Bushala’s special interest money has polluted Fullerton. His rent-a-mob has been disrupting city council meetings for months. Many of the people he paid to collect recall signatures are now regular gadflies at city council meetings. This ad exposes Bushala’s sinister power play – using Kelly Thomas’ death – to advance his political agenda,” declared committee chairman Larry Bennett.
Yes, folks, the blithering idiots who paid for this pathetic video are the same clowns who have been squandering your tax dollars for the past two decades. It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?
I just re-discovered this fabulous gem from February and thought it would be a timely reminder of the caliber of the Three Bald Tires and their Reign of Error.
– Joe Sipowicz
Ah! The gift that keeps giving: the cornpone brayings of crazy old Doc Jones, guaranteed to embarrass everybody in the room. Here’s a fun clip from last night:
This is the loud-mouthed buffoon the anti-recall crowd is defending as an experienced, honorable statesman.
Looks like Dick stepped on his own Jones. Again.
Well, we’ve been listening to this rude, bullying, bloviator for fifteen years and watched as he pushed around people who were afraid to push back. The times they are a-changin.’
When the esteemed council woke up from their nap, the tongue bath resumed.
Holy Smokes those anti-recall guys are dumb. How dumb? On their lame website some idiot just posted the hilariously funny and self-deprecating video made by Tony Bushala to mock his own critics. Apparently who ever uploaded the video never watched it; or they believe their audience is even dumber than they are. Well maybe they are!
Seriously, can anybody now believe that these people are qualified to run anything more complicated than an ant farm, let alone a city of 150,000 people?
Anyway here’s the video again. And thanks to chucklehead Larry Bennett and his dim bulb crew for giving it free air time.
According to a source our old buddy F. “Dick” Jones told friends he couldn’t make the League of Women Voters candidate forum because he was going to be away on vacation. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that he didn’t show up last night, and today a sharp-eyed member of Kelly’s Army snapped this flattering image of ol’ Doc HeeHaw in the City Hall parking lot.
Tarnation, Doc HeeHaw’s all het up on the topic a’ water rates and consarn it if’n he ain’t a-gonna share his mental commotion. Until suddenly he remembers he been told ta shut up!
So why didn’t somebody tell him that 15 years ago, and why won’t he just do it oncet and fer all?
