Another would-be County Supervisor has declared his 2018 candidacy for the 4th District. His name is Joe Kerr. He is a Democrat. He is also the former boss of the union that represented the Orange County Fire Authority. As such it was his sole responsibility to shove his hand as hard and as deep into the pockets of the taxpayers as possible to provide his members with spectacular pay and pensions, and to perpetuate a scam in which his members enriched themselves on a gamed overtime system.
Voters will not hear about that from Mr. Kerr, of course, even as he brings in “public safety” union bucks to grease his campaign, We will hear that Joe is Fire Hero and Deserves.
Will the voters go for this? I don’t know. Right now Fullerton is facing a massive fiscal drain due to the exploding pension costs of the cops and the “fire fighters.” Having one of the chief perpetrators of this meltdown trying to run for public office seems ill-timed.
Tomorrow night, the City Council will consider a move toward repealing the citywide overnight parking ban between the hours of 2:00 and 5:00am. This is a long overdue and welcomed change that would significantly improve the lives of many Fullerton residents.
I’ve lived in Fullerton my entire life. Never once have I heard someone complain that a car was illegally parked on a city street in the early morning hours. The only complaints are from people who have been cited.
The overwhelming majority of us are asleep, at least partially, during those hours and aren’t aware, and couldn’t care less, if a car was left parked on the street. Our quality of life is not impaired one iota by another person making use of a public asset during the night hours.
In the Agenda Letter, Director of Community Development Karen Haluza provides an insightful history into the overnight parking ban, which dates all the way back to 1924 when Fullerton was converting from dirt to asphalt roads. Spencer Custodio at the Voice of OC also penned a nice article on this subject. Both are well worth the read.
The City’s Nonsensical 1970 Findings
Besides having no use apart from generating citation revenue, the irony of the many justifications the City made in 1970 for preserving the ban apply more appropriately to daylight hours. The findings were as follows:
(a) In that frequent sweeping of litter, refuse and trash from streets is required to prevent disease and unsightly appearances and such sweeping can be done most economically and efficiently while vehicles are not parked thereon, and
I’m not aware of any City street sweeping taking place between 2:00am and 5:00am. As far back as I can remember, street sweeping has been as predictable as trash collection on a specific day of the week during daylight hours.
(b) In that frequent police patrolling of streets is required to deter, prevent and detect criminal activity and there is greater need for such patrolling between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. than at other times and such patrolling can be done most economically and will best accomplish its purpose while the streets are free from parked vehicles, and
There is no “frequent police patrolling of streets” between 2:00am and 5:00am. Many Fullerton residents out and about during those hours have stories of FPD patrol units parked in inconspicuous locations around town with the officer sound asleep, provided nothing else is going on.
Next Tuesday’s Council meeting brings us another Budget Show, one more in a line of footling meetings strung out like faux pearls on a cheap necklace. This one is particularly entertaining since it acknowledges a big structural deficit that the suggested cost savings will do almost nothing to correct: “modest” revenue increases are broadly suggested, but apart from some fee increases and one-time sale of “surplus” property nothing meaningful is proposed. Obviously the recommendation for a utility tax or a sales tax increase will be sprung like a rabbit out of the magician’s hat at the last moment.
One entertaining bit of the agenda memo is the inclusion of a small table identifying some of City Manager Allan Roeder’s “loose sofa change,” giving the impression that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Roeder regrets his previous offhand dismissal of a $50,000 per year contract that accomplishes nothing as not worthy of councilmanic attention. Of course I am referring to the ridiculously conceived and suspiciously ill-managed “Behind the Badge” agreement that was improperly contracted by Wild Ride Joe Felz in the first place.
Well, good for Roeder, even though desperate times call for desperate measures And it takes a lot of desperation for a City bureaucrat to even tacitly acknowledge the expendability of a contract. The irony here is thick. It is the exploding pension cost of the Fullerton police Department that is breaking our bank. Even as we pay for the cops to peddle their dopey PR right back at us.
Another black eye for Danny Hughes’ “reformed” police department. It looks like Miguel “Sonny” Siliceo is being tuned up by the DA for submitting a false police report, a report that was subsequently used by the DA to prosecute some downtown bar-hopping schmo.
The douchebaggery spanned the generations…
You may remember Sonny from 2011. He’s the guy that framed Emmanuel Martinez for a crime he didn’t commit, a dereliction that was cavalierly blown off by then FPD spokesphincter Andrew Goodrich, but that now looks very much like a possible pattern of behavior for Mr. Siliceo. Sonny also briefly popped up in 2012 as a facebook friend of Jan Flory attacking people who might have suspicions about the integrity of the department that employed and deployed him.
Now for some more recent history – from 2015.
Unlike 2011, Siliceo’s assertions were apparently belied by data from cop video recorders and the case against Mr. Schmo was dropped – a situation so remarkable for our cops-über-alles DA that the lies of Siliceo must have been stupendously blatant. The complaint is a felony.
“F” is for Felony
Sonny seems to be on leave now so it will be interesting to see how this unfolds. And it makes us wonder how many of the other arrests that Siliceo participated in were on the level.
Honored by MADD (Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) for their efforts in getting drunk drivers off the road are Fullerton PD Officers Cary Tong, left, Timothy Gibert, Jonathan Munoz, Corporal Ryan Warner and Officer Miguel Siliceo. Gag-reflexively expensive photo bought by taxpayers taken by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC *** Officer Siliceo’s name on the plaque is misspelled as Sihiceo. ***
Remember when we told you about the poor “Mayor’s assistant” who’s job mysteriously appeared and disappeared right alongside Jennifer Fitzgerald’s mayorship?
Well, the position seems to have re-appeared… this time as an Assistant to the Assistant (City Manager), Nichole Bernard.
Not pictured: Assistant
From the February 14th Economic Development Commission minutes:
Now what Ms. Bernard needs assistance with is anybody’s guess. We don’t even know what she does, especially now that her mentor Wild Ride Felz is gone. Will the assistant pick up Starbucks lattes? Pack Nicole’s unmentionables for the next useless Vegas or South Korea junket? Who knows?
More to the point, when and how was this mysterious job ever budgeted and approved by the City Council?
Note how the position may not be filled until summer. Why is that? In a well-run operation it might have something to do with a semi-responsible fiscal mentality – don’t hire someone to a completely unnecessary job until someone has figured out how to tame the out-of-control Felz/Fitzgerald Budget.
In Fullerton it’s maybe just that hard to find a qualified candidate for a glorified flunky position.
Fullerton PD Corp. Ryan Warner, left, and Officer Timothy Gibert are honored during a city council meeting for their work in getting drunk drivers off the road. Taxpayer funded photo from Behind the Badge
Uh, oh. More bad news for the Fullerton Police Department Culture of Excellence. It seems as if one of Fullerton’s Finest and top DUI arrester Timothy Gibert has been arrested himself in San Bernardino for all sorts of nasty behavior – grand theft and conspiracy. The scam was…oops. The “alleged” scam was to return merchandise bought at a discount for a full refund at a Home Depot out in Apple Valley.
You can read all about Gibert’s sterling DUI arrest record at Behind the Badge, if you can fight the gag reflex, but you most assuredly will not be reading about Gibert’s arrest at his house in Victorville. Instead you can read about it in theDaily Titan, of all places. Kudos to the kids for some real reporting – kids who in their young careers have already accomplished a lot more than pathetic cop toady Lou Ponsi ever did.
Looks like Gibert quit the FPD just before the shit hammer fell, most likely in order to preserve his pristine Record of Excellence – for future employment in some other lucky jurisdiction.
And Interim PoChief David Hinig? He isn’t talking, which is smart. Why take any heat for one of Danny Hughes prize recruits?
So the honor roll keeps rollin’ along: Cross, Major, Mejia, Baughman, Siliceo, Wren, Mater, Wolfe, Ramos, Cicinelli, Hampton, Nguyen, Rincon, Thayer, Tong, Gibert, etc.
Comically happy rendering by overpriced design “consultant”
The City’s budget is a total disaster and so are our streets. But Fullerton’s Parks and Rec visionaries would like us to know that construction is underway on a brand new set of 3 stairs. From Lion’s Field to Hillcrest Park. The cost is $1.6 million worth of small change that fell into the cushions of Joe Felz’s municipal couch, and that interim City manager Allan Roeder will no doubt tell us isn’t worth worrying about.
A typical bureaucracy driven idea that nobody wanted – a very familiar tale indeed for poor, neglected Hillcrest Park. The most idiotic part of the story is a quotation from Hugo Curiel, the drone in charge of the City’s parks:
“They can use (the stairs) leisurely, also for exercise, in a positive way. The stairs will open the floodgates from Lions Field into Hillcrest Park.”
Apart from the hilarious malaprop (floodgates don’t open to release anything uphill!) the idea that there is a line of people waiting to somehow access Hillcrest Park from the fake turf playing fields of Lions Field is ridiculous.
But if you read the article you will find something a bit more sinister: city staff blaming the state of Hillcrest Park’s botany on the drought. That is an outright lie. The park’s dying plant life and the resultant erosion on the north and west flanks of the hillsides have been going on since the 1980s – even as the City under the “guidance” of Susan Hunt and Joe Felz wasted all sorts of money on “studies” and an event center and other useless projects.
A pile of dirt symbolized the effort.
A moronic stair way from Lion’s Field that nobody is going to use is the last thing Hillcrest park needs. Are you reassured by the fact that our visionary “leaders” believe we have $1.6 million lying around to pay for this nonsense?
The other day one of our commenters Fullerton Historian remarked on the propensity of politicians to don ridiculous looking hard hats and take on the millinery aspect of construction workers to ceremonially mark the beginning of a big, high visibility public works project. Silly gold painted shovels, picks and hammers are handed out to people who have very likely never put in a day’s work doing manual labor.
I got to thinking about this. Why are these people apparently addicted to looking ridiculous, and why do they do it?
To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail…
Then it struck me. They are talked into it by the very bureaucrats who have promoted some project or other. It’s way the bureaucrats can really show who’s calling the shots – by having their bosses stand up and look comical in public. Its sort of a combination of a dog peeing on a tree and the indoctrination of humiliation visited upon the kidnap victim of a terrorist. The politicians undoubtedly believe they are receiving potential photo-op material for their next campaign, but, boy, are they wrong.
So, the politicians are drawn into a web of complicity, the bureaucrats knowing that if (or, more likely, when) the project goes into the crapper, they have that image of the elected happily affiliating himself with the disastrous boondoggle and wearing a ridiculous hat, to boot.
Peligro, indeed…
Another essential Hillcrest Park project begins. How did it end?
The head and the hat were a perfect fit…
Bud surveys the construction site…Sebourn awaits his hard hat coronation.
But seriously. The real issue is accountability the whole way through.
Every politician wants to take credit for the start of the big project that they can put on their campaign flyers. But where are these hard-hatted folks when the project runs over cost and late; when change orders swallow up the project budget; when the finished project turns out to be badly designed, shoddily built, under used, or unnecessary? They are sitting on the dais, hoping like Hell that nobody thinks about the project or remembers the now embarrassing picture with the the hard hats and shovels.
And now let’s let Fullerton Historian take us home:
Too bad there’s no photo follow-ups of projects that went sideways, were involved embarrassing construction lawsuits, or that nobody uses, or that just became a maintenance sink hole.
Well, it looks like more loose change has fallen into Fullerton’s municipal sofa. A lot more. And it’s all so funny. The one thing the Fullerton train station didn’t need was another pair of elevator structures; and the last place they needed it was right next to the existing ones.
But that’s where they’re going. That’s right. A new elevators right next to the old ones that the City has failed so spectacularly at maintaining. “Wait, Joe,” I can hear you saying. “Tell us, for the love of SparkyFitz’s God, this is some sort of cruel joke.”
Let the groundbreaking begin. No point in waiting to waste other people’s money, right?
The joke’s on all of us. Even people who have never been to the Fullerton choo-choo station.The whole thing is costing taxpayers $4,000,000 which is almost three times the amount the exiting one cost 22 years ago. The arguments in favor of building this are laughable as you might imagine, and immediately prove that other taxpayers are picking up most of the tab – as it turns out, money funneled through the bottomless suck hole known as OCTA.
Yes I’m on the OCTA Board, and no, I couldn’t care less about wasting four ‘mil.
For instance we “had” to build a new set of elevators rather than repair the existing ones. Why? Taking the existing elevators out of service for a long period of time would result in ADA lawsuit. There is not a single filament of proof for these assertions but hey, that money ‘s got to be spent by somebody, right? For $4,000,000 you could set up a daily ADA access shuttle for 20 freaking years. Of course there is also an existing gate opened by a remote control that could access the other side of the tracks at ZERO cost.
But wait!!! (as they said on those old TV steak knife commercials). The new toy is not free to the people of Fullerton after all. A new agenda item asks for an extra $600,000 due to cost overruns. Just a few lost nickels in Allan Roeder’s couch, right? And listen to the string of incompetencies by our Engineering Department that caused the extra cost:
“An additional $ 600,000 is required for the BNSF flagging requirements, unforeseen utility conflicts, escalated cost in securing the elevator subcontractor and additional assistant in construction administration. Due to OCTA funding constraints, only direct construction-related costs will be reimbursable.”
Of course it would be nice if some one on our illustrious city council bothered to ask why a contract was awarded two years prematurely, and why our staff needs “additional assistant” (sic) to administer this simple project, or maybe why the job wasn’t rebid. But they won’t.
And so we witness the comical spectacle of two sets of elevator structures side by side, each slowly deteriorating, until 20 years from now some over-paid idiot proposes a third, because as any artist knows, three objects in a picture are much more aesthetically pleasing than two.
Lobbyist-councilmember Jennifer Fitzgerald took a powder from the budget meeting on Tuesday. Perhaps the potential embarrassment was too much to contemplate.
But she did send in this letter in lieu of her presence. Since she wants it to become “part of the record” we know that it is really meant to be a political PR document. For a little help FFFF has highlighted some fun parts.
Okay.We now know that Fitzgerald is blaming “Sacramento” for Fullerton’s gloomy, no, desperate fiscal projections. We can’t expect her to make reference to her own irresponsible deals with the unions or remind us of her campaign lie that Fullerton’s budget was balanced. We can’t expect her to admit that everyone has known CalPERS projections have been BS for years. No disappointment there.
Scrolling down her wish-list we see the properties she wants to sell off to her developer pals, a one-time fix that won’t fix anything. More insidious is the “public/private partnership” expansion, or P3 in the parlance of the lobbyist’s guild, in which the public generally pays for the same thing twice. Electronic billboards? Like the fuzzy, illegible ones along the 57 put up by Placentia when things got dire next door? Wow, that really is desperate! The ad revenue from signs would be peanuts (but oh no, let’s not discuss Behind the Badge. That loose change is lost in the couch forever).
You have to give Fitzgerald credit, being what she is. After putting Fullerton in a dire financial hole she is still looking for ways to direct profit to people who have or who might contribute to her political future; or to other politicians in cities where Pringle and Associates have clients.
Do you feel better knowing that “this community always rises to the occasion?”
