FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Yesterday we had some fun with a self-righteous, pearl-clutching visitor calling him/herself “Bertha Washington” who seemed peeved that her/his Heroes on the Fullerton city payroll were being impugned. It doesn’t seemed to have entered this empty cranium that perhaps, just maybe, these miscreants deserved a wee ladling o’ the disapprobation.
Today we entertain guesses from the Friends as to the identity of Dear Bertha.
Have at it!
Which is a lot better than none. We would be remiss not to offer a tip ‘o the cap to County Supervisor Shawn Nelson for taking on the obscene pay raises handed out by the County CEO Tom Mauk to a couple of his cronies.
The egregious raises were given out three or four years ago within months of these employees being promoted to new jobs by Mauk. The multiple raises went well into double digit territory, as uncovered during a Performance Audit of the County’s own Human Resources Department.
As an ad hoc subcommittee studying the findings of the audit, Nelson and Supervisor Pat Bates recommended reversing the raises, and were supported by John Moorlach at the December 6th Board meeting. Supervisors Bill Campbell and Janet Nguyen fought hard to keep the astronomical raises in place.
Well, kudos to Nelson, Bates, and Moorlach for calling the CEO on his hypocrisy and for taking a big step in the direction of accountability at the County Hall of Administration.
UPDATE: Here’s a vintage FFFF post from several years ago. I promised to re-run it once in a while. It’s been about 28 months so here ya go!
Dear Friends:
The other day we got an e-mail from a thoughtful friend who said that he agreed with much of what we post about here, but is pained to hear folks attacked for “style and presentation” rather than policy, and that in the end we “have to work together to build a better community and the personal attacks only make that process more difficult in the end.”
I have to chuckle just a bit when somebody says “your attacks are personal.” That’s another way of saying we name names, express our outrage colorfully, and want accountability, something that has been sorely lacking in Fullerton for as long as I can remember. And I, for one, take that personally. Nobody likes to be called stupid, but when you act like you’re infallible and yet keep doing stupid or thoughtless things you not only invite ridicule, you deserve it. We use satire, sarcasm, and attempts at humor because these are good tools to get our points across – something you can’t do being brushed off at a council meeting twice a month. We want to get people’s attention – everyone’s.
And so I set out to tell the Fullerton story from my perspective, and the perspective of others who felt the same way I did, and those who had been effectively excluded from the decision making process. We decided that we would tell the truth, as we saw it by describing facts and presenting the names of people who took bad decisions or who acted in their own interests instead of the interest of the public. That sounds like taking on a pretty big responsibility, and I didn’t do it lightly, nor do I believe that I am better than any one else. But I have this forum and I intend to keep up the pressure on our electeds and their staff to take responsibility for their actions. We have invited comment or correction from anybody – something you’ve never yet seen happen at City Hall.
In closing, it is our intention to help build a better community for Fullerton’s future. But we’re going to do it our way. Sometimes you’ve got to knock over a few Sacred Cows to clear the road.
Now that the Governor’s decision to put the kibosh on Redevelopment in California has been upheld by the State Supreme Court, our lawsuit to stop the illegal expansion of Fullerton’s Redevelopment project area is becoming something of a moot point.
Too bad, because we really wanted the City to try to defend its ridiculous findings of blight in front of a judge.
Well, we’re not going to forget that the bogus attempt was made, and made hard by Fullerton’s Redevelopment junkies – Bankhead, Jones and McKinley. These guys are absolutely hooked on government creating dimwitted master plans, buying into stupid boondoggles and handing out taxpayer subsidies and freebies to their pals and campaign contributors.
In the coming months we will be sure to remind Fullerton citizens of the City’s history of expensive Redevelopment failures and the part played in these disasters by our “esteemed” City Council.
Over at his website called Fullerton Stories some poor fellow named Davis Barber has felt the need to unburden his soul of lots of weighty thoughts, n’ stuff. Most of the rather embarrassing dissertation is another lame defense of the Fullerton status quo, and the attack on “protesters,” including FFFF, that we have become all too familiar with from City Hall cronies pretending to be journalists.
But there is one part of this coughed-up pabulum that just has to be read, and re-read, to be believed.
• Blame the messenger/Fullerton Police Sergeant Andrew Goodrich lied about, well, everything: FullertonStories.com does not agree. While there may be reason to doubt statements from Sgt. Goodrich, calling him a liar is un-called for and wrong. It’s his job to tell “the people” what he knows.
Surely this guy must be joking. Can’t this genius see the problem with his own assessment? Why in the world is there ” reason to doubt statements from Sgt. Goodrich”? Because he made up stories that were not true and passed them to “the people” via complacent boobs like Davis Barber. That’s called lying. And people who lie are liars. Quod erat demonstrandum.
On the subject of liars in 2011, and changing gears somewhat, one thing I would like to know is how Mr. Barber came into contact with the so-called homeless jewelry peddler named Richard Fritschie; the guy who popped up almost on cue, claiming to be an eye-witness to the Thomas murder and who tried to exonerate the cops of any wrong-doing. That whole thing stank like a rotting corpse.
Of course the DA’s description of events from the audio and video record proved that Fritschie was a liar, but the question remains – why?
Lots of people have wondered who set up that con man with his mark.
Remember the assertion by dithering dinosaur Don Bankhead that without Redevelopment, Fullerton would be a ghost town?
Or, to put it another way:
Is Fullerton doomed to become a ghost town? Bankhead thinks so or he wouldn’t have said it, right?
Or could Fullerton become an incubator of interesting and profitable businesses run by people whose ideas are not grounded in government subsidies and write-downs, gifts, and grants? Old big-government liberals like Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley have more faith in central government economic intervention and subsidy than they do in any free market ideals. And that’s how we ended up with a saloon in every other building in downtown Fullerton.
What do you think?
Well, Friends, 2011 was a record year for our humble little blog. We’ve had 2,013,945 visitors, and counting. I wonder what next year will bring for a blog that all began here, the day I questioned the ridiculous and deteriorating Redevelopment Styrofoam light fixtures at the downtown plaza.
See what I mean?
That was just three short years ago, and since then we’ve taken on every Sacred Cow of Fullerton’s reactionary old guard – from ridiculous Redevelopment boondogglery to a police department stewed in rampant corruption. And we’re not done yet, not by a long shot.
Stick around as we continue to poniard the pompous and demand accountability from the unaccountable. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll experience a whole range of emotions. We promise.
Yesterday the California State Supreme Court pulled the plug on the scam known as Redevelopment. The agencies that were created under the Health and Welfare Code to eliminate urban blight had taken on lives of their own, of course, and became sinkholes of waste, abusers of eminent domain, handers out of corporate welfare, and implementers of aesthetic fascism.
Good riddance. Despite stout defense by big government addicts like Don Bankhead, Pat McKinley and Dick Jones, the sad truth is that for every paltry “success” of Redevelopment, there have been a hundred failures – failures for which there was no accountability, and no responsibility. The Redevelopment klown kar had no rearview mirrors.
The Court unanimously found that the Legislature does indeed have the power to disband that which it created – common sense to you and me, but a horror-in-the-making to all the lawyers, bond salesmen, grifters, con men, housecoats, no-talent architects, and design Nazis who make their livings off of the property tax increment theft.
What will happen to all the recently approved projects in Fullerton is uncertain, although there is little doubt that McKinley, Bankhead and Jones will try to keep building over-dense low-income housing for the benefit of their handlers, especially anti-recall team leader, Dick Ackerman.
Nevertheless, the result of the decision is crystal clear: victory for the people of California; defeat for the Unknown Government and its Invisible Empire.
Guess so, but it seems to be oddly short, and it doesn’t appear to be for loud, sloppy drunks.
Yesterday, Brandon Ferguson of The OC Weekly posted a story about how he has been banned from the Slidebar bar, presumably for sharing the allegation that it was a Slidebar employee who made that fateful call that somebody appeared to be breaking into cars in the parking lot. That call, whoever made it, led to the cop torture and beating death of Kelly Thomas, a homeless man, last July 5th .
Of course no evidence has ever been presented that anybody was breaking into cars, and no evidence linking Thomas to any illegal act.
Incidentally, the other day Brandon Ferguson noted that The Weekly was getting the cold shoulder from FPD spokesphincter Andrew Goodrich, apparently because of Marisa Gerber’s Fringie® winning expose on the rampant Culture of Corruption in Goodrich’s department: you know, all that garbage he neglects to inform his employers (us) about. That got Marisa hollered at by the arrogant swine.
I’m really starting to like this Ferguson guy.
What’s that you say, Harpoon?
Here’s a story from CNN about how Egyptian military authorities subjected arrested women protesters to strip searches and “virginity tests.”
Here’s the money quotation from one of the charming gentlemen generals who run that unfortunate land:
“The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general told CNN at the time. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs).”
Now does that sound familiar? Oh, yeah, right. The She Bear at the Soroptimists. Maybe we should invite Amnesty International to Fullerton to check up on Chief McKinley and his She Bear.