Kudos to Recall candidate Jane Rands for correctly identifying repuglican bagman and fixer Dick Ackerman as the motive force behind the St. Anton Partners project’s meteoric rise from number six to number one. The Three Bald Tires clearly intend to reward the leader of the anti-recall team with a juicy multi-million dollar subsidy for his client.
Is this a quid pro quo? Of course it is. The Three Dithering Dinosaurs have been handing out freebies to their supporters and campaign contributors for years.
You see, in Fullerton the Culture of Corruption extends beyond the walls of police headquarters.
That is a rather provocative question, and it came up in a comments thread in another post. The comments were by frequent guest “Vernon Dozier” and our own one-armed gunslinger, Joe Sipowicz. Here’s what they had to say:
There is zero, I repeat zero evidence that the entire Fullerton Police Department is corrupt. Some of the people on this blog have such hatred for police in general they will go after anybody in the department for no reason at all.
I think it’s completely reasonable to point out the faults of the police here, but it needs to be tempered with the GOOD that is done by the GOOD officers of the department. The morale is very bad at the Fullerton PD right now. An insider recently told me that numerous officers are considering employment with other cities. Who’s going to replace them? Who would want to work for Fullerton PD when certain residents – and commenters on this blog – automatically will hate them because of their career choice? The longer people continue with unsubstantiated trash talk, the worse this problem becomes.
Eventually it will get so bad, the only people willing to work for Fullerton PD are clones of Cicinelli and Ramos.
Vernon, your statement rests upon the definition of “corrupt.”
How can so many instances of law-breaking by members of the FPD have occurred without the knowledge and silent acquiescence of the whole crowd. I am not being flip here. We’ve identified around twenty cops with direct knowledge or participation in crimes/coverups. So what was Hughes doing? What was Hamilton doing? What were the rest of the 120 sworn cops doing?
That’s right, going along – for their FPOA brethren, their early retirement and their six-figure pensions.
Is that a form of corruption? You tell me.
Good point, counter point. Do good people look the other way when bad things are being done? Does that make them no longer good? Feel free to share your thoughts.
As to Vernon’s point about good cops not wanting to work in the current environment, that’s hard to argue with. However, I would think that good cops would want to work in an environment where honor really means something. Right now it’s all a sham and almost everyone knows it. And it’s not “trash talk” to call it like it is.
We need a new, zero-tolerance cop culture run by a chief who will not mistake protecting the institution with his real responsibility to the people of Fullerton. Hard to find? probably. Can our current council find the right man, or woman? Unlikely. But it’s a job that needs to be done and soon.
As the criminal, federal and civil lawsuit costs keep mounting, not even the most die-hard FPD defenders will be able to deny it.
Well, she’s at it again. The old warhorse appears yet again to darken our collective doorstep with her presence. Janesse “Jan” M. Flory was on the Fullerton City Council from 1995 to 2003, then reappeared in 2012 like the Ghost of Christmas Past. And yet, she still wasn’t done, getting herself appointed to the Fullerton City Council in 2019, and continuing her history of incompetence, negligence and indifference to her constituents.
She’s running for the 2nd District council seat currently occupied by popular Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Her rationale? That’s not hard to figure out. She is running to protect Fullerton’s highly compensated and highly unresponsible public employees.
Flory must 80 years old if she’s a day, and Fullerton has changed a lot since 1994 – thirty long years ago, but Flory doesn’t seem to have changed at all. The sneer. The disdain for anyone not toeing the bureaucratic line, not accepting any bullshit emanating from City Hall.
Here’s a robotext recently received by a voter in Fullerton’s 2nd District.
Experience? We all know experiences can range from good to horrendous.
It’s nice to see Janesse let us know her campaign promises, because they remind students of Fullerton history that she was front and center of the disasters that she helped create. We can skip over the illiteracy of the writing and focus on the issues.
Fix our roads and streets? Who the Hell was running the City for 14 years while the pavement went to shit? That’s right, you, Janesse. “Saving” the ridiculous money pit called Walk on Wilshire? Really?
You want to hire more cops and firefighters? Who gave those guys the budget busting pay and pension increases? That’s right, you Janesse.
You want civility? Who treated her constituents like trash when they had the effrontery to stand up for themselves? That’s right, you Janesse.
And now for some fun history, yanked from FFFF headlines, a Flory of bill of indictment.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
In 1994 Jan Flory, supported the unnecessary utility tax and actually proclaimed she wished it were doubled.
In 1995 Flory directed the City Attorney to disclose confidential legal advice in order to build a low-income housing project.
Looking down at someone is best…
In 1998, and in years after Jan Flory cheerfully supported the illegal Water Fund diversion, a tax, to support her pals in City Hall.
In 2000 she supported the disastrous retroactive “public safety” pension giveaway, a breathtaking gift of public funds.
Don’t go there…
In 2000 she approved the $3,000,000 Poison Park, a Redevelopment acquisition of contaminated, gang-infested property on Truslow Avenue, an action she never acknowledged or demanded accountability for. The goddamn thing is still sitting there with a fence around it, 25 years later.
In 2012 she banded together with the cops to get herself elected, and then protected the Fullerton Police Department from reform. The Culture of Corruption continued unabated.
Well, it might have happened like this…
In 2016 she favored Police Chief Danny “C’mere, Big Boy” Hughes with a big, wet, goodbye kiss, three days after he tried to organize the cover-up of the drunken Wild Ride of City Manager, Joe Felz.
The hours are great. So is the pay!
To get appointed to the City Council in 2019, she bribed the unemployed Ahmad Zahra with a lucrative seat on the Orange County Water District.
On her way out the door (again) in 2016, she supported the dishonest “bar owners map” for Fullerton’s first redistricting effort, allegedly created by the miscreant scofflaw, Jeremy Popoff that gerrymandered Jesus Quirk-Silva into a free run for City Council.
The closer you look, the worse it gets.
During the years of the Flory, Fitzgerald, Quirk-Silva, Zahra budget deficits, Flory lied to the public, insisting that the budget was balanced, when in fact, the City was raiding reserve funds to pay for increased employee contracts. Or maybe she simply doesn’t understand what deficit spending means.
Don’t Reward the City’s Stupidity
In 2019 Flory embarked with Zahra, Quirk-Silva, and Fitzgerald on an idiotic, spiteful legal vendetta against this blog, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, that cost Fullerton upwards of a million dollars in settlement and legal fees.
In 2020, on her way out the door for the third time, she voted in favor of Measure S, the ill-fated sales tax increase for which she was put on the Council to support.
If there were time and temperament, I could examine even more closely Flory’s “experience,” but, really why bother? Why recall all the Redevelopment boondoggles she supported in the 1990s, or the Downtown booze culture that she helped create in the early 2000s?
Mu’u mu’us and wood beads: I have always hated you, and I always will…
Flory’s bile and animus, directed at anybody who challenges City Hall – citizens and taxpayers, has been going on since 1994 and is well documented.
She once proclaimed that the City department heads were “the heart of the City,” And that tells you all you need to know about Janesse “Jan” M. Flory.
A week or so ago FFFF reported that Jan Flory, the elderly, humorless scold who has been on the Fullerton City Council three times had taken out nominating papers to run this fall in the 2nd District.
FFFF rejoiced.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
We didn’t necessarily think she’d go through with it, what with her pushing 80 years old, her historic constituency dying off, and running against the popular and well-financed Mayor, Nick Dunlap. Still the prospect of having Flory around gave hope for all sorts of blogging fun – once again reciting her horrendous pro-tax, pro-corruption record.
Provide Your Own Caption
And now we learn that Mrs. Flory has indeed returned her nominating papers and is in the process of creating a new campaign committee.
Better check the sell by date…
Well, done, Jan, say I. Your record of “public service” is in a class by itself.
You were the one who approved the budget busting 3@50 retroactive pension bonanza to cops and paramedics.
You were the one who enthusiastically supported the illegal water tax.
You were the one who supported Measure S, the foolish sales tax effort.
You were the one who supported the ill-conceived Utility Tax, and wished it had been double,
You were the one who approved years of red ink budgets and lied about them to the public.
You were the one who cut a slimy deal with Ahmad Zahra to deny the citizens of Fullerton a chance to vote on a replacement for Jesus Quirk Silva.
You were the one who refused to create a citizens commission to reform the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department.
You were the one who defended the Three Bald Tires in the wake of the Kelly Thomas murder by the cops. You called them honorable men.
You were the one to sneer and deprecate your own constituents if they dared criticize or complain about the actions of your beloved “staff.”
You were the one to support every Redevelopment boondoggle and every massive, over-built apartment block.
An amused Friend shared this Yelp review of lawyer Jan Flory, posted just about the time Flory was on the backstretch of her second lap around the Fullerton City Council track.
Don’t worry, Michelle. She never cared about us, her constituents, either. It’s always been about protecting the bureaucrats in City Hall – the ones she calls the “heart of the City; and protecting the Culture of Corruption in the Fullerton Police Department.
And I agree, Michelle. It’s too bad there isn’t a zero star option.
What appeared to be a pretty tame fall City Council election may have just become a lot more fun.
The closer you look, the worse it gets.
Word on the street is that Jan Flory pulled nomination papers yesterday to run against Mayor Nick Dunlap in the 2nd District election in November.
Too much scotch, not enough water…
Who is Jan Flory? If you don’t know, take a spin through our files, here. You’ll find all sorts of entertaining stories about Ms. Flory and even about her creepy/pervy son Mike, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney and even tried to be a judge once.
How far did the apple fall from the tree?
Maybe not breast fed long enough…
Jan Flory was elected to the City Council in 1994 and voted off in 2002. In those eight years she happily allowed an illegal water tax, voted for the disastrous retroactive public safety pension spike and supported the culture of unaccountability that has helped us get where we are today.
In 2012 she hauled herself out of the stable to try another lap around the track.
See if you can find the old nag.
Her mission was to restore municipal authority to the Old Guard she represented, and to protect the Culture of Corruption at the Fullerton Police Department from any sort of reform. She informed us that the City Department heads were the “heart of the City.”
She put in her four years, patting her Chief of Police Danny Hughes on the fanny as they both walked out the door in 2016, a few days after the drunken City Manager, Joe Felz drove over a tree and tried to drive away. The ensuing cover up turned out to be expensive. Oops.
Poor Sappy. So young, so vibrant…
But Jan wasn’t done with us. Not by a long shot.
When an opening on the City Council occurred in 2019 guess who was there to snap up the job? After her appointment she rewarded the unemployed Ahmad Zahra for his vote with a paying gig at the Orange County Water District.
In this last stint Flory was happy to continue her love affair with unbalanced budgets and was one of the members of the Council, along with Jesus Quirk Silva, Ahmad Zahra, and Jennifer Fitzgerald who waged a legal vendetta against this blog and specifically against Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. Of course that harpy-like mission cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, but didn’t cost the perpetrators anything.
Ferguson and Curlee. The easy winners…
Well, I sure hope Ms. Flory really does want to run. The entertainment value alone is worth it. Who her constituency might be is unclear. There aren’t that many elderly liberals left in Fullerton. She might get the support of the yellowing, and thinning Fullerton Observer crowd, but a humorless, stick-up-the-backside septuagenarian is not likely to appeal to anyone under seventy.
It seems so. Fullerton’s boys in blue sent out a text the other day that looked like this:
The outright lies pile up so fast you’d need wings to stay above the bullshit. Nobody is defunding the police and nobody has suggested doing so – even with the FPDs atrocious record of incompetence, misfeasance, abuse, criminality and oh yeah, sucking up half our budget. In Fullerton the Culture of Corruption gets what it wants. Always had.
The “enough is enough” line is funny, as is the “HELP SAFE FULLERTON NOW.” Maybe the cops can get their money back from whatever idiot wrote that bit of GED illiteracy. Comedy aside, the piece is just a compilation of outright lies.
Fullerton is not overwhelmed by violent crime, especially when you subtract the crime perpetrated by union members themselves.
Whitaker and Dunlap have never attempted to defund the police and has never suggested such a thing. That’s far left stuff that you’d expect to hear from SIlva or more likely Zahra – wanting to appease crazy supporters.
No one is suggesting “additional cuts” to public safety, which is impossible anyhow, because there haven’t been any cuts in the first place.
So what is the purpose of this nonsense? The cop union leadership has never been very bright, relying on bullying rather than strategy, although to them bullying is a strategy. What is the point attacking Whitaker and Dunlap, who aren’t up for re-election for 3 years?
They could be floating these trial balloons to see if they could instigate a recall. But Dunlap could easily beat that and Whitaker could beat it too without some sort of provocation. Or is this some sort of shot across the bow for Fred Jung, the man in the middle of recent budget wrangles? But, Jung isn’t up for re-election next year either, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Maybe the cop union just wants to throw its weight around to remind people that they are still around and collecting members’ dues.
Rumor is circulating that our Mayor-for-Hire, lobbyist Jennifer Fitzgerald isn’t going to be running for election to represent District 1 in Fullerton this fall. Good news, indeed, if true, for those who care about honest, competent government.
But is it true? No pronouncements have been forthcoming from the woman herself which suggests that the rumor isn’t true, or that the influence peddler is going to try to slide in a candidate of her own choosing – one who may just be amenable to continuing the Culture of Corruption in the FPD and the Culture of Incompetence in City Hall.
What her departure might mean for her future value for the swamp known as Pringle and Associates remains to be seen.
Well, I guess we’ll know in about six weeks. And if Her Highness is just playing games and is going to run after all, we’ll be reminding voters of her:
Promise to take no pay or benefits, and then doing just that.
Lying about a “balanced budget” for years while depleting reserve funds to pay for ever-greater pension obligations.
Covering up the drunk driving of her best buddy, City Manager Joe Felz, a spectacle that has embarrassed the City, ever since.
Ignoring the roads of Fullerton until they have become the worst in Orange County , as determined by the OCTA.
Presiding over the shoddy or incompetent construction of vanity projects that put money in the pockets of her campaign contributor.
Working as a lobbyist while representing the City of Fullerton.
Axis of Casual Corruption.
So bring it on Jen.’ We’ve been paying attention and we’re gonna make sure your neighbors know all about your record. Stooge endorsement from recalled former council buffoons, corrupt liberals and government camp followers and a new tsunami of prevarication ain’t gonna cut it in 2020.
Many of you have asked how to help our named bloggers sued by the City of Fullerton for doing nothing more than telling the truth. In addition to being absurd, the City of Fullerton also decided to be cruel and named one of our blogger’s employers in their ridiculous lawsuit without cause or merit, which resulted in said blogger’s unemployment. It’s likely the city’s onslaught will continue for months if not years.
The First Amendment exists to prevent this exact occurrence: Government using its considerable resources to destroy the life of individuals who criticize those in power. Here we are in 2019 watching it happen. Joshua Ferguson and his wife have three children. As a result of the city refusing to accept responsibility for its actions and instead accusing Ferguson of being a criminal; rent payments, Christmas, and the basic necessities of life are all under serious duress.
Fellow Fullerton Friend and Fullerton Parks and Recreation Commissioner Erik Wehn established a fundraising page for Joshua Ferguson this morning. We encourage all of you who value speaking truth to power and our fundamental American liberties to donate to the Ferguson cause. I don’t have to tell those of you who know this particular family that the Fergusons value their own hard work and being put in a position to accept charity is extremely difficult, but desperate times call for corresponding measures.
Joshua Ferguson has taken on corruption in the city of Fullerton and needs your help!
Last week Joshua Ferguson announced he had filed suit to get access to documents Fullerton is legally required to produce (thanks to CA Senate Bill 1421) concerning police lying, cheating, stealing, molesting, and beating of people. Guess what he received a week later as a direct consequence of standing up to the entrenched and belligerent interests at city hall? A retaliatory, anti-First Amendment lawsuit including Joshua and his employer, who had no involvement in what the suit alleges.
Not wanting to cause harm to his employer of ten years, Joshua resigned.
Now Joshua has a very expensive fight ahead of him and a family to feed.
Out of concern for his family, Joshua hesitated to take this fight on, but he wants his three kids to learn to stand up for what’s right, no matter the risk.
Now it’s our turn to do our part, uphold that principle, and remind others that if you fight the good fight you won’t be alone.
Please consider donating what you can to help Joshua fight the culture of corruption in Fullerton.
Erik Wehn
We often take for granted the cost of defending our right to free speech. It’s hard to miss the young men and women fighting for our country, but it’s easy to miss the patriot at the podium during a town council meeting who gets abused by the state for exercising a fundamental right.
Not all of us are brave enough to stake a personal cost in the fight for freedom. Joshua’s wife and three kids will personally bear this burden for us, the very least we can do is lighten the load.
Donate, help Ferguson fight back, and share widely.
One of these people is a tax and spender. So is the other…
First we get to hear the obligatory boohoo tale from our imbecile mayor, Jesus Silva about how a cop with a growing family just can’t afford to live with the paltry crumbs doled out by the taxpayers of Fullerton.
Play it again, Ken…
Then we get to hear from our $230,000 a year City Manager, Ken Domer, as he focuses his keen, analytical mind on the issue:
“We’re about 18th in pay, but we’re also the sixth largest city in Orange County. So our pay is clearly not where it should be,” Domer said.
Notice how this dull blade conflates city population with deserved cop pay? This is just insulting. Is he that stupid or just have that low opinion of our intelligence? And notice the language: “clearly not where it should be” as if perhaps his moronic formula is actually validated somewhere by a scale he just made up. No, Domer, what’s not where it should be is the monster salary we pay you not to be stupid – or at least not to say stupid things that end up in the media.
If anybody cares, the vote was 4-1 with Bruce Whitaker voting no. The rest, of course, went along for the ride, even though the City’s finances are so precarious Silva is promising a new tax on the ballot next year. And no doubt the cop union that is more interested in keeping dues paying members than in the well-being of our city will be backing it big time.
Thar’ she blows…
And as our decrepit roads and infrastructure deteriorate ever farther, they will be used by the cops and the bureaucrats to leverage more revenue from us. Revenue that will go right back into employee compensation for the people who brought us the bad roads in the first place, and who have cultivated and protected the FPD Culture of Corruption.
