Posted onFullerton City Council

A Lack of Trust, by Robyn Nordell

by 158 Comments on A Lack of Trust, by Robyn Nordell

As is evidenced from the comments tonight, the comments from the last few city council meetings, the FPD protests, and the current city council agenda which is full of lawsuits which will cost the city millions of dollars, it’s obvious that there is a great deal of anger and mistrust towards the Fullerton Police Dept and the City of Fullerton.

A large number of negative incidents involving Fullerton police officers continue to come to light, ranging from alleged sexual misconduct of officers towards women whom they have stopped, to officers allegedly committing theft, to charges of false arrest, and so on. Our family experienced a mistaken raid on our home by armed undercover vice cops who were looking for the home next door.

Clearly, it is in the best interest of everyone for the FPD and the city council to work hard to win back the trust of people. In doing so it seems obvious that it would be Wise to Avoid Doing Things That Unnecessarily Increase Distrust.

THE CURRENT UNACCEPTABLE SITUATION

There is a situation in the FPD that can be corrected. Making this correction should take away some of the distrust.

Your current FPD Spokesperson / Public Information Officer has had, and still has, a major role in the Fullerton Police Officers union. (FPOA)

Here are three examples of his significance to the union:

  • CURRENT—On behalf of the police union, Mr. Goodrich is on the small negotiating team for the current police union contract. As a member of that team he would be trying, of course, to get the highest salary and best benefits possible for the union members. To do so, you would assume that he would be trying to put the officers in the best light possible.
  • IN THE PAST— In 2003, Mr. Goodrich wrote a how-to article for union members entitled, “The Value of Political Involvement-Your Association’s Role in Local Politics.” This piece explained effective ways for the union to get their choice of candidates elected to the city council and WHY it is in the union’s best interest to do so. (Goodrich’s document is located within this article, “Peer into the Thought Process of the FPOA,” www.fullertonsfuture.org)

I think it is absurd for someone in a significant role in the police union to be the spokesperson for the Fullerton Police Department.  This situation obviously causes distrust by many in the community and it makes the leadership of the FPD, the city manager, and the city council look foolish.

In his “union role”—Mr. Goodrich’s union task would be to put police officers in as positive of a light as possible.

In his spokesperson role”—when he is speaking on behalf of the FPD—putting police officers in as positive of a light as possible should not be his concern. His concern should be honesty, accuracy, and transparency.

HERE’S MY SUGGESTION:

The current FPD Spokesperson/Public Information Officer (Mr. Goodrich) should be reassigned to a different position and he should be replaced by an officer who has not had a major role in the Fullerton Police Officers Union.

Read More
Posted onDead heads

Don Bankhead, Champion of Ethics and Civil Rights!

by 240 Comments on Don Bankhead, Champion of Ethics and Civil Rights!

 

Laughing all the way to the Blank. Head.

But not recently.

Politicians should always be careful about what they say. The public has a nasty habit of remembering their pronouncements.

Back in 1990 during his failed bid for County Sheriff (remember, right before his “total disability” pension claim), Don Bankhead needed a hook to get folks interested in his bad comb-over, lackluster self. So he discovered that he was really a reformer who was interested in establishing an “ethics unit” at the OCSD, you know to clean up the mess over there. Read all about it in an LA Times article, here. Enjoy the rich irony as Bankhead pontificates:

“We’ll put the shine back on the badge and we’ll all have a good clean Sheriff’s Department,” Bankhead said. “If no one’s rights are violated, we won’t get sued.”

Now fast forward to Tuesday night’s Fullerton City Council Closed Session Agenda that is littered with lawsuits against Fullerton and its lawless police department. If ever there was a department in need of an ethics unit it would be the FPD – over which Bankhead has refused to provide civilian oversight since 1988.

In the past few months the media has learned of FPD personnel charged, convicted, or alleged to have participated in grand theft, credit card fraud, kidnapping and sexual battery, assault, false arrest, and perjury, all culminating in the brutal bludgeoning death of a mentally-ill homeless man. And Mr. Ethics? Silent as a graveyard.

A word of advice, Mr. Bankhead. Time to get going establishing that ethics unit where it will do the most good. In your own department.

Read More
Posted onFullerton City Council

On The Agenda: September 20, 2011

by 72 Comments on On The Agenda: September 20, 2011

As FFFF’s Grover Cleveland has pointed out, the City of Fullerton has no fewer than 7 pending or likely law suits pending – and that’s just what’s on the Agenda!

After the shock wears off, let’s look at the rest of tonight’s Agenda.

There are the usual meeting minutes and funding transfers. There’s an agreement between the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency and the City of Fullerton so that the City/RDA can pay the State so that the City can keep the RDA.

The price tag is staggering: $54,701,015!!! And this is in addition to paying off tens of millions in bond debt incurred thanks to Bankhead, Jones, and even McKinley. And this is “under the radar” in the Consent Calendar where we usually see minor routine action items. More often then not, however, this is where staff places big ticket items (like the City Manager’s FAT raise or this RDA agreement to pay blood money to the State.)

Oh but wait! It gets better. In the same agreement there is a schedule of payments to the tune of $58,383,657 to cover RDA administrative costs!

And almost as an after thought, the agreement schedules “housing administration annual costs” which will total $16,234,607!

(more…)

Read More
Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Jones, Bankhead & McKinley’s Chickens Come Home To Roost

by 117 Comments on Jones, Bankhead & McKinley’s Chickens Come Home To Roost

 

This is no yolk.

And by come home to roost I mean a veritable pile-up of embarrassing and expensive lawsuits we will all have to pay for.

Check out the slew of new legal threats against the city on this week’s agenda, ironically followed by salary and pension negotiations with the unions whose members caused these problems in the first place. I wonder if  Bankhead, Jones and McKinley will make that connection. Highly doubtful.

And don’t forget that City Manager Joe Felz is going to take another swing at getting that raise. God Almighty, who is minding the store?

Correction: Felz raise didn’t make it on to the agenda for some reason.

Read More
Posted onDead heads

Fullerton Is A Family Town!

by 211 Comments on Fullerton Is A Family Town!

Thus speaketh the frightened rabbits at the anti-recall website, a site so lame and amateurish that I will be regularly featuring its idiocy.

The operators of that site, Mssrs. Alexander, Ellis, Ackerman, and of course the Three Bind Dinosaurs are positively terrified of protesters wearing scary masks. Well, here’s another one, courtesy of our Friends at The OC Weekly.

Stop it kid, you're scaring poor old Bankhead, Jones and McKinley.

FYI, the Kelly Thomas Concert on Saturday was chock full of Fullerton families, including kids who were learning all sorts of positive lessons in humanity and citizenship.

The ironic thing is that the Three Blind Dinosaurs want you to forget the values they have established in Downtown Fullerton: drunken, brawling, lawless, fecal, condom-strewn, that’s DTF. Are these the “family values” being peddled by Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley? Guess so.

Well, old dudes, hope that fact doesn’t upset your lunch of Metamucil and oatmeal.

Read More
Posted onPatdown Pat McPension

Snouts of Fury: Aardvark Pays Fullerton a Visit!

by 267 Comments on Snouts of Fury: Aardvark Pays Fullerton a Visit!

At Saturday’s protest of the hapless Fullerton Police Department, some perceptive folks espied a character who immediately drew suspicion, sore thumb-like, as some sort of plant. Of course they challenged this individual, who, thoughtfully provided a business card.

An aardvark with a business card!

Craig Fury. “Law Enforcement Territory manager.” Aardvark Tactical.

FYI, an aardvark is a homely creature that roots through the dirt for bugs which seems aptly descriptive; the use of the name could also be a tactic just to get to the front of the phone book.

Our Friends discreetly followed Mr. Fury for several blocks down Commonwealth Avenue before he doubled back and wandered into – the FPD HQ! So what gives? Did the cops employ this clown to spy on peaceful protesters? If not why was he there?

Yes, we carry the full line of Pat McPension gear...

I note that on their website that Aardvark “featured partners” include Safariland, the company that McKinley worked with (on the taxpayers dime) developing his special vest that was later purchased by the Fullerton Police Department. Aardvark is an “authorized dealer” of Safariland equipment. Did McKinley and the anti-recall drones employ this guy to take pictures of scary members of Kelly’s Army? If not why was he there, and why the loop-de loop?

Aardvark explains himself

 

Aardvark pretends to leave
Aardvark sneaks back into the station

I think somebody in authority (now who would that be?) needs to inform the police that the FPD facility is owned by the taxpayers (us) and that they had better stay out of politics on public time (ours) and in a publicly owned facility (ours).

 

Read More
Posted onFullerton School Board

FSD Forks Over $35k to Fired Lunch Lady

by 22 Comments on FSD Forks Over $35k to Fired Lunch Lady

The Fullerton School District had the summer off while our attention was diverted to more important matters. Under that cover and with the convenient assistance of closed session, the Board handed a ridiculous $35,000 cash settlement (our money, not theirs) to a previously fired six-figure employee who didn’t like getting terminated.

Lisa Reynoso is an ex-Director of Nutrition Services who presumably neglected her job duties so badly that the district took on the daunting task of actually terminating her employment and replacing her with someone better.

The board had been wanting to fire Ms. Reynoso for years, but the first attempt at some sort of action in 2007 was overturned by the Personnel Commission, a crazy union invention in which a dubious mix of unelected and unaccountable bad-employee sympathizers actually have power above and beyond the school board itself.

An unsettling agreement

So the lunch lady’s tenure was extended by a few years, which was more than enough for her to earn herself another termination by doing something else bad. We don’t know what she did this time, but anyone who’s tried the meatloaf knows that the bar is pretty low in a grade school cafeteria.

Did the board take charge and let her go this time? No. Our spineless representatives took the easy way out and gave her a parting settlement instead. At the taxpayers’ expense, of course.

It’s lost on these unprincipled, short-sighted administrators that handing cash to an ex-employee who doesn’t deserve it only encourages future bad apples to pursue the same jackpot. Shampoo, rinse, repeat, waste money, hope nobody notices.

What a mess.

The scam was ultimately abetted by the spineless “ayes” of board members Bev Berryman, Janny Meyer and Hilda Sugarman in closed session, with Chris Thompson dissenting.

Read More
Posted onBehind Closed Doors

A New Sheriff in Town?

by 259 Comments on A New Sheriff in Town?
I cleaned up the OCSD and I can help you, too...

I keep hearing persistent rumors that the Fullerton City Manager Joe Felz has had discussions with high level County officials about the possibility of abolishing the Fullerton Police Department and replacing it with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Apparently the hook is not just the recent revelations of FPD misconduct, perjury, cover-up, crimes high and low, a spokesman caught blatantly lying, and the attendant PR curse that the department has visited upon itself. There is an issue of huge cost savings. And I mean huge.

While the prospect of getting honest, competent and respectful police services from the Sheriff’s Department is probably only marginally more likely than with the FPD (and there’s no way in the world it could be worse), extrapolating from current costs in contracted cities, using the OCSD could save the taxpayers of Fullerton as much as $13,000,000, per year from the FPDs bloated budget of $37,000,000.

That’s a whopping 37%, and $13,000,000 could go to a lot of things Fullertonians hold near and dear.

In this era of government fiscal constraint brought about in large measure by irresponsible decisions by dimwits like Don Bankhead, Dick Jones and PatMcKinley, to hand out exorbitant pay and benefits to “public safety” employees, everything should be on the table.

 

Read More
Posted onLaw N Disorder

What Are We Expecting?

by 472 Comments on What Are We Expecting?

Update 2: An FPD officer told a Friend last night that the police were in fact gearing up for potential protests in response to the DA’s announcement, which is expected in this coming week.

-Travis

Update: Travis, I can’t believe the FPD would be stoopid enough to start a riot at a benefit for the homeless (still, I’m wondering if their dumbness even has a bottom level). I truly believe the protesters in from of PD HQ are getting into their little heads. Everyone make as much noise as you want but PLEASE stay on the sidewalk!

– Mr. Peabody

Today a helpful Friend snapped these photos of Fullerton police officers dusting up on their riot control skills and baton swinging techniques inside the walls of the FPD compound.

The timing is curious. There is a rock concert for Kelly Thomas on Saturday. And the DA has hinted that he may make a big announcement about the cops who killed Kelly Thomas as early as Monday.

Nearby residents say that riot training is not a common occurrence in the FPD parking lot.

I wonder what’s going on?

Read More