Fullerton City Councilmember Jennifer Fitzgerald deserves all the criticism she gets for her primrose path approach to budgetary issues, the extravagant public employee pay raises she approved, and her false claim during her re-election campaign that Fullerton’s budget is balanced!,among other issues.
As balanced as our City Manager was when he reviewed it.
Still, it’s important to note that Fitzgerald does understand the concept of a balanced budget, when it is important to her.
As an example, here is a screen capture from her 2012 campaign statement. As you can see, she contributed $350 of her own money to that initial campaign:
And here is another screen capture of the same campaign statement showing how much of her campaign funds she directed towards her own company (C7 Communications) during that election:
$2,100.02 is a heck of a lot more than $350, meaning her campaign basically turned a profit for her personally of $1,750.02. Whatever else you may think of Fitzgerald, she takes care to make sure her personal finances are balanced. Fullerton’s? Not so much.
The hook here is that Ms. Richters, who disappeared from Spitzer’s staff last October, happens to be a former Playboy Playmate of the Month.
Um…okay.
Eternally young at heart…
What qualifications Ms. Richters had to be hired as a County Supervisor’s aide first place remains to be seen, as do the merits of her lawsuit.
Of course all of this is bound to reflect badly on the megalomaniacal, hair dyed Dorian Gray of OC politics. Spitzer already has problems stemming from his gun-totin’ handcuffing of a Christian evangelist in a Wahoo’s restaurant a few years ago.
One thing is certain, though. There are very few people who can claim as their employer both Todd Spitzer and Hugh Hefner.
UPDATE: FFFF has received a copy of Ms. Richters’ legal complaint.
Of all the money that former City Manager Wild Ride Joe Felz wasted during his shaky tenure, nothing was quite as egregious as the annual fifty grand Stumblejoe blew on Behind the Badge, a silly, pointless PR outlet that passed along empty feel-good tales involving Fullerton cops. No one knows if anyone even bothered reading this pabulum. The idea of us taxpayers actually forking over this dough in order to be administered unhealthy doses of saccharine PR back at us was bad enough. The fact that this policy decision was made, maintained and mismanaged by a bureaucratmade it worse.
Fortunately, last Tuesday, the City pulled the plug. City staff teed up the item as a cut – unless three councilmembers voted to save it. They didn’t. Here’s the video.
Of course cop supported candidates Bud Chaffee and Jesus Silva thought the whole idea was just peachy. Predictably, Jennifer Fitzgerald seemed to be going along. Bruce Whitaker and Greg Sebourn opposed wasting any more on this crap. Sebourn correctly pointed out that the cop union, having plenty of money to stick its snout in Fullerton politics, can easily afford to promote the good deeds of its membership.
Whatever changed Jennifer Fitzgerald’s mind to drop support for this ridiculous concept that has cost us $200,000 in the past four years remains a mystery, but she suddenly did a 180. Hopefully FFFF had something to do with the sudden shift to fiscal responsibility.
In the end the self-serving BS rhetoric of Chaffee and the feeble gibberish of Silva amounted to nothing and the council unanimously went along with the proposed package of cuts that included Behind the Badge.
Rest assured, Friends, FFFF will be following up with a Public Records Act request to get a copy of the termination notice.
File this one under predictable public employee union self-service. The Orange County Employee Association has endorsed the carpetbagging candidacy of Joe Kerr to represent our 4th Supervisorial District.
The OCEA is a big union that represents the vast majority of County employees. As such, it is always involving itself in County politics, placing it’s own interests in the path of accountable, affordable government. And what better mission for a labor union than to elect one of its own – a former union boss, in fact.
It’s not surprising that the union would place its own self-interest ahead of the public. They obviously see nothing wrong with a guy who lives in a rich, South County enclave trying to represent the working class neighborhoods of north Orange County; or if they do, it takes a distant back seat to electing somebody that will pay attention to their needs. And their needs are ever greater pay and benefits, regardless of the quality of service they provide.
This “early endorsement” serves only one purpose: to clear the field of potential Democrat opponents for the carpetbagging Kerr.
In 2010 the field for this seat was cluttered with several Democrat small fry and none of them made the November run off. And that’s something the unionistas prefer to avoid this time around.
At last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting (21 March 2017) I spoke on Agenda Item 3 regarding budget strategies. Amongst other comments I asked for clarification on what was meant by “Structural Deficit” considering that both Fitzgerald and former Councilwoman Jan Flory constantly claimed we have/had a balanced budget. I asked what changed overnight to take us from a balanced budget on 08 November 2016 into a “Structural deficit” today.
Structural Deficit Evidence
What I got regarding an answer was Councilwoman Fitzgerald dodging the question and blaming Sacramento and the CalPERS rate change. And I quote:
“And I will go ahead and answer the question that was brought up over balanced budgets and what happened overnight and I will tell you, I mean, for former Council member Flory and I, when we talked about balanced budgets. Our 5 year projections, every year showed a balanced budget and what happened overnight is CalPERS decreased the amount of returns that they assumed that we were going to receive. So, that is what happened to those 5 year projections to change them.”
The City actually hired a recruitment company to find a new Community Development Director – somebodywho lives four blocks from City Hall.
Which begs the question: were Joe Felz and his crack assistant Nicole Bernard so busy they couldn’t have conducted this recruitment themselves through the HR department?
Insiders have said this job was going to Haluza all along, which means that whatever money was spent on the recruiter was wasted in the appearance of an on-the-up-and-up recruitment process. Of course we’ve all seen how Felz wasted monies large and small, even as the S.S. Fullerton was taking on water badly.
The fact that Haluza has been an unmitigated disaster since joining the city staff is a somewhat different issue, but it makes the price tag a little harder to swallow. One wonders what the losing candidates looked like.
We have recently been introduced to Mr. Joe Kerr, former fireman union honcho who claims to be running for 4th District Supervisor. That’s a problem.
Joe and China Kerr have lived at 29 Palma Valley since 1999. The address is in Coto de Caza, a very wealthy enclave in South County – being a “public safety” union boss must pay real well. Unfortunately, Coto de Caza is in the 5th Supervisorial District. Mr. Kerr chooses not to run against the incumbent 5th District Supervisor, Lisa Bartlett. Instead he wants to run for the 4th District seat, obviously because there is no incumbent.
Over the past eight years many people living in comparatively rich places have tried to carpetbag their way into the hearts and minds of North Orange County. All failed dismally when a concerted effort was undertaken to share their shameless carpetbag hustle with the public, no matter how they tried to fluff up their resumés. Here is a list at the bottom of which Mr. Joe Kerr, of Coto deCaza, will soon find himself:
2009 Linda Ackerwoman – State Assembly (Irvine)
2010 Harry Sidhu, 4th District Supervisor (Anaheim Hills)
2010 Lorraine Galloway, 4th District Supervisor (Anaheim Hills)
2016 Sukhee Kang, State Senate (Irvine)
While it’s true that each of these losers carried quite a bit of baggage, the fatal flaw right out of the gate was their carpetbaggage. Because who, really, wants to vote for someone whose first communication with would be constituents is a fraud, a lie, a perjury, or a deliberate omission of fact?
Kerr’s press release announcing his candidacy omits any reference to where he has lived for the better part of 20 years, instead mentioning that he grew up in La Habra and Cypress(!) the slenderest filament of a link to the 4th District and a completely irrelevant one at that. I can’t find a record of Joseph V. Kerr anywhere near the 4th district.
I have no idea how much money Kerr’s “public safety” union pals will be willing to unleash on his behalf – probably a boatload. But member what all that union money got “Hide-and-Seek” Sidhu? Two humiliating losses in just one year.
So come on in, Joe.
The FFFF Welcoming Committee is firing up the barbecue.
Editor’s note: This was originally composed on March 3, moments before Joe Felz was charged with DUI hit-and-run. As such, the Renick agreement may have gone bottoms up. If not, well that just makes it more fun.
A toast to all my good ideas…
I have it on pretty good authority that our former City Manager (and now accused criminal Wild Ride Joe Felz) is picking up a consulting gig for Renick Cadillac down on Orangethorpe and Euclid.
Now what possible use would ol’ StumbleJoe be to a car dealership?
The story goes that Renick would like to acquire the site occupied by the Grand Inn which is situated right between the dealership and the asphalt lot on the corner of Euclid and Hill Avenue where Renick parks its spare Subarus. Looks like the idea may be to get the cops to start dishonestly documenting alleged bad activity at the motel. If you can harass the motel, the owner might have a lot more incentive to sell out.
Just so Renick can park its cars without having to drive out on Euclid. Really?
I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking this source may have it wrong. That maybe Renick is not planning on expanding at all, at least not for the long term; but that rather we are seeing a lot assemblage in order to build a future penitentiary-like apartment block.
