Friends For Fullerton's Future
FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Wouldn’t it be nice if every City employee consistently set the bar for professionalism?
Michael Lemmon, of the Fullerton Fire Department, thought it was perfectly okay to purchase these inappropriate mugs using taxpayer money on his City-issued VISA card.
A couple months later, Michael Lemmon decided the Fire Department needed more coffee mugs, so he purchased these — again on the taxpayer’s dime:
Would you give neighbors access to your bank account?
No? That would probably come as a shock to some at City Hall where (at least) three City of Brea employees have been issued VISA procurement cards belonging to the City of Fullerton.
Fullerton and Brea have a shared Fire Department command staff. The Fire Chief, Deputy Chiefs, Division Chiefs, Battalion Chiefs, and an EMS manager perform services for both cities, even though they remain employees of the City where they came from. Those from Brea have been given the Fullerton VISA cards. Now, I can hear some people uttering phrases like “so what,” and “who cares,” and “what’s the problem?” I can help you with that.
Fullerton Fire Station 3 on Acacia Ave was the recipient of five La-Z-Boy recliners, on the City VISA card. The purchaser? Chris Guerrero, a Brea employee. The supervisor approving the purchase? Kathy Schaefer, another Brea employee. And where did the money come from? Fullerton.
The receipt raises another question because Engine 3, based at this fire station, only has a crew of three. So why purchase five recliners?
I’d bet money the extra recliners are for the CARE Ambulance employees based at Station 3. Nothing in the housing agreement between the City and CARE Ambulance talks about furnishings, so the recliners appear to be a gift.
A gift from Brea employees using Fullerton’s money.
The other evening the Fullerton City Council discussed the issue of letting bar owners cram more of their top-shelf patrons into downtown Fullerton night clubs, a move that the bar owners ludicrously claim will actually help with all that mayhem that occurs on a typical week-end evening. As a tangent, the idea of taxing the generators of all the trouble came up.
Here is our esteemed Mayor, Bruce Whitaker, calmly explaining why some sort of public revenue generating scheme would a bad idea.
This is so disingenuous in several aspects that it’s hard to know where to start. The idea that the private business interests are the best at providing some sort of “management” at the lowest cost is absurd given the fact that the taxpayers are already providing vastly subsidized security and maintenance in the downtown war zone. It is the o-so trustworthy bar owners (that Whitaker claims have the biggest stake in a smoothly operating downtown) who benefit from public services they aren’t paying for.
Whitaker knows very well that the open air saloon known as Downtown Fullerton costs the taxpayers more than $1,500,000 per year. It’s a classic money pit. The irony is rich. The idea that the city government might milk DTF is absolutely absurd. The fact is that Whitaker’s bar-owner campaign contributors are making money on the backs of the rest of us – and Whitaker – despite his rhetoric – knows this damn well.
The real point is that once again Whitaker and his spineless council colleagues are going to bat for their saloon owning pals, people who have stolen public sidewalks, habitually violated the City’s noise ordinances, whose patrons wreak havoc on our streets and on themselves every night. Whitaker and the City Council have not only turned looking the other way into a full-time job, they have gone out of their way to prop up and publicly subsidize the booze peddlers they enabled in the first place.
And as usual, the rest of us pick up the bar tab.
The City Council was warned earlier this year that (long overdue) changes at CalPERS to tackle pension debts would spell fiscal disaster for Fullerton. This problem is very much real and will be quite painful in the years to come.
What isn’t real was the feigned appearance of City Hall trying to cut expenses. Truth be told, nobody at the City seems to care.
Remember the Hillcrest Park ‘Pine Forest Stairs’ ceremony, which lasted maybe 30 minutes, and was attended by forty or fifty people?
The balloons you see above cost the taxpayers $776.51. Were they necessary? Of course not.
Meanwhile, at other locations across town, the never-ending waste from Parks and Recreation continues unabated. $350 for two hours of face painting and a clown to blow up balloons.
Another $450 down the drain for a game of Human Foosball.
These aren’t unusual expenditures — this stuff goes on all the time.
So this is the cue for [new City Manager] Ken Domer to step up and make this nonsense go away. It’s also a cue for the City Council to hold him accountable in that regard.
The cops actually paid money for a big, stupid McGruff the Crime Dog helmet, which they used to produce this terrible video. I have no idea where the trench coat came from, nor do I want to know.
The film has reached 36 views on YouTube since it was published in July.
I’d be happier of the Fullerton police got out of the moronic video business, quit the relentless PR campaign, and just stuck to honest public service.
Dan Hughes’ career as police chief came to a pretty embarrassing end in November 2016. OCDA investigator Abraham Santos opined that Hughes criminally obstructed justice when he ordered Joe Felz be driven home without an arrest after the now infamous DUI collision. As a result, Santos is now fighting for his career, the result of him blowing the whistle on the OCDA’s refusal to press charges.
Like any politician who lacks integrity, Hughes always tried to portray himself as an upstanding citizen. How ironic because this past July, the Fullerton Police Department learned that a toll was never paid on SR-73 all the way back in December 2015.
You guessed correctly — the vehicle involved was the unmarked City-owned sedan assigned to Dan Hughes.
I haven’t included all of the e-mails back and forth, but suffice it to say, several City employees wasted numerous hours trying to pin down whose car it was, and to ultimately reduce the toll penalties due.
Hughes has a couple of options here:
This will be really interesting because I fully expect him to choose the second option. I hope he proves me wrong.
Let’s say you are in the market for a realtor – one who may be willing to bring a certain, um, shall we say, pugnacious flavor to your real estate negotiations. FFFF may be able to help!
Here’s the real estate promo for one Bryan Bybee, a Fullerton cop who’s looking to make a little extra cash moonlighting in the real estate business:
So who is Mr. Bybee, you may ask? We originally introduced the Friends to this gentleman, after he rammed his police vehicle into a guy on a bike. Bybee’s name also figured prominently in a very expensive lawsuit brought by the Ortiz brothers, Luiz and Antonio, against the City. They alleged (and alleged successfully, it seems) that Bybee and a few of his FPD cohorts beat them up for no apparent reason, threw them in the Fullerton lock-up, and charged them with fictitious crimes – charges that were eventually rejected by a jury and dropped by the DA. That fun-filled episode cost us Fullerton taxpayers a tidy $280,000.
Anyhow, like I said, Bryan’s just looking to make some extra dough on the side, so let’s give a brotha’ a break, right? If you’re looking for “boutique” real estate services and someone to bring a special brand of negotiating talent to the table, Bryan may be just be the fella to meet your needs.
Word has got out that disgraced former city manager Joe Felz is working with Crittenton Services on a new “mixed-use” development on Harbor Boulevard. It’s hard to imagine Crittenden – that takes care of wayward and abused girls – being in the land development business so that doesn’t quite make sense – unless maybe it’s to build themselves a new corporate complex.
Is Felz working for a fee so he can profit from all those inside contacts he continues to cultivate after his (and our) municipal humiliation? Maybe he is donating his valuable time for the sake of the charity. Either way, it hard to see why Crittenden would think the services of Felz, who quit after getting popped driving off the road and trying to make a quick getaway, would be anything other than an embarrassment to them.
A little research shows that Crittenden has assembled quite a bit of real estate over the years. And curiously (or not) it is directly adjacent to the “Fox Block” monstrosity that never seems to go away.
If the city made a deal to get rid of the “useless” triangle parking lot, the rest of Crittendon’s property along with the covering of a flood control channel and the elimination of an alleyway would make a great apartment block.
And finally, I note that the Fullerton Redevelopment Successor Agency is holding on to $6 million for the Fox Block – vestigial redevelopment Monopoly money that will end up in some developer’s pocket.
File this one under “Jeezus We’re getting Desperate.” Trotting out a stock photo of an old lady and comparing ripping off “Grandma” with the recall of Josh “Gas Tax” Newman? Man that’s lame.
Opponents of the recall, i.e. the building trades who work on public boondoggle projects like high speed rail, seem to think this sort of nonsense sells. Well, the consultants will burn though a lot of that union cash, but there’s really no way to defend the indefensible: Newman voted for a highly regressive gas tax that will hammer the poor and people on a fixed income while his pals in the trades make bank building stuff like Jerry Brown’s $60 billion bullet train – whether it’s needed or not.
The Democrats in the Legislature have climbed all the way up onto their high horses claiming that recall petition signers were lied to and that recalling Newman won’t get rid of the gas tax, an objection that is really just based on a desperate semantic ploy. The fact is that getting rid of Newman is simply the first step in yanking the chain of the politicians in Sacramento who would rather tax us then curtail their own addiction to wasting the gas tax money we have already been sending them every time we fill up. The end game is a repeal of the tax, and of course, prevention of any more gas or car taxes.
The Democrats have pulled out all of the ethical stops in attempting to derail the recall. They tried to pass midnight legislation changing the recall rules after the recall signatures had been submitted. Then they put pressure on the California Fair Political Practices Commission to re-interpret their standing rules so that Dem politicians can help bail out Newman financially, proving that when it comes to maintaining their super-majority, no trick or hustle is too low to put into action.
The other day I discovered this notice from the City. It’s a class for citizens to help their fiscal literacy. And unlike the proverbial lunch, it’s free!
So let’s get this straight. The City of Fullerton, which has been incapable of balancing its budget for at least four years, and that has dipped into reserved funds to the tune of $45,000,000, and that is a couple years from insolvency, is promoting financial empowerment and estate literacy to the citizenry! How funny and unintentionally ironic.
I wonder if this free class will be promoting the benefits of a new sales or utility tax to pay all the salaries and benefits of those experts in City Hall who have dug us into this hole.