Friends For Fullerton's Future – Page 226 – FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County

March 2, 2011Fullerton City Council

Fullerton Water Rates – Disgust, Distrust, Anger, and Fear

Last night’s Fullerton City Council meeting brought out a number of people concerned that their water rates will be going up. I would like to thank each and everyone of them for taking an active interest in our City! A few of them stood and spoke before the council and many approached me after the meeting. They expressed a wide range of emotions and sentiments.

Disgust. Distrust. Anger. Fear.

There was the universal disgust that goes with the realization that Fullerton’s leadership has been absent for decades. There was the feeling of distrust that comes when someone feels they have been lied to about where the money goes. Many were angry that this report was not commissioned decades ago. Then there was fear. Many are fearful that the few businesses in Fullerton who are heavy water users will soon pack up and head out of state to more business-friendly areas. Others are fearful that they will have to leave, unable to afford the higher costs.

Those who sat through the 2-1/2 hour meeting observed many things.

Most notably, at least one councilman had serious trouble staying awake for the meeting. Death by PowerPoint I believe was the cause.

Mayor Jones repeatedly used Hitler as some sort of misplaced analogy to the gross mismanagement of our water system for nearly a century. There were several people who were clearly disgusted with his remarks.

Mayor Pro Tem Bankhead, who is a representative for the City on the Orange County Water District Board, bragged that the board hasn’t raised their tax on the City’s pumping efforts in a year even though a few key executives received raises. OCWD charges Fullerton taxpayers somewhere in the neighborhood of $236 per acre-foot of water that the City pumps.

The franchise tax was mentioned several times. I pointed out that the tax should be eliminated completely which would allow the City to NOT raise water rates AND address the urgency of the neglected system. I did misspeak on one key matter. Specifically, I said that it would be better for the general fund to take the 10% hit rather than the taxpayers. Actually, the water utility franchise tax ($2,474,860 FY2011) accounts for about 1% of the total budget ($180,802,880 FY2011), not 10%. Cutting the franchise tax would increase the water fund from $27,728,430 FY2011 to $30,203,290!

So, the bottom line is that we have the funds to fix the water system but the City Council will need to adjust the City’s priorities.

Those in land development, engineering, construction or anyone else who rides Fullerton’s roads knows that the City’s priorities are out of order. City Hall places too much emphasis on housing and transportation boondoggles while ignoring the skeleton and muscle of the City’s infrastructure. It causes me to question whether or not our City leaders (are there any at City Hall?) have planned for repairing and replacing our roads.

Those interested in protecting the City’s infrastructure from further neglect while protecting the pockets of taxpayers are urged to attend the Water Rate Study workshops in the coming weeks and months.

March 2, 2011March 2, 2011Arts & Architecture

How To Erect A Fake McSpanish Dinosaur

by admin15 Comments

Here at FFFF we like to share. So we share this – a time lapse clip we harvested off of youtube – of one of the embarrassing erections that has gone up lately at FJC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrqFaZCxkuY

Now why did they have to go and spoil perfectly good music by Aaron Copeland?

March 1, 2011Fullerton City Council

91% Water Rate Increase, WTF Is Next?

by admin28 Comments

Let’s hope the city council comes to its senses and votes NO on raising our water rates and associated taxes 91% over the next 10 years. Friends, I’d like to thank Greg Sebourn for bringing this issue to our attention. As many of you may remember, Greg ran for Fullerton city council last year and received 6,375 votes. Here is Greg’s take on the proposed rate increase:

Fullerton Water Rates to Double

This Tuesday night the Fullerton City Council will direct staff on the implementation of a water rate study. Based on the proposal from the City’s consultant, Municipal & Financial Services Group (MFSG), the new rates will be increased by 10% for 5 years then 3.5% for another 5 years amounting to a 191% increase by 2021.

The reason for the tax hike is clear. MSFG says, “It should be noted that the planned spending on mainline replacement over the projection period is significantly more than the City has undertaken in the past. At a cost of approximately $190 per linear foot of line the City plans to replace approximately 6 miles of mainline per year at a cost of over 6 million per year. At this pace it would take the City 400 years to replace the entire system (which consists of approximately 420 miles of pipe).”

MFSG’s proposal spells out how exactly we got into this mess in the first place. Unfortunately, this proposal and the implementation should have been undertaken decades ago. Oddly, the proposal notes that the City could just ignore the problem (like they have been doing for so many years).

Read the rest of “Fullerton Water Rates To Double”

March 1, 2011Fullerton City Council

Quick, Hide Your Assets!

by The Fullerton Savage22 Comments

Tuesday night’s city council meeting includes an agenda item asking the council to approve transferring all assets owned by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency to the City of Fullerton. Agenda item number 12 asks the city to take ownership of a soup to nuts inventory of everything the Redevelopment Agency has been using our bond money to buy for the last few decades.

In an urgent sounding letter to the council Acting Redevelopment Director Romona Castaneda explains that the council may only have a few weeks to move these assets from one pocket to the other if the state adopts Gov. Brown’s budget plan to eliminate redevelopment agencies. If this happens, it seems, the agency will be forced to sell the properties “expeditiously” and turn over the proceeds to the county.

One has to wonder what would happen if Redevelopment was indeed forced to sell all eighty of its properties, including the Fox Theater, the empty lot where four craftsmen era houses were torn down just east of it, Union Pacific Park, the site of Costco, a 2001 Chevrolet Malibu (?), the Santa Fe Depot, and some fencing around the Police Department. It’s a fun list.

The city would still be required to move forward with projects already approved for these properties, including affordable housing projects. Anybody have a guess about how legal this maneuver is?

February 28, 2011February 28, 2011Orange County Government

911…Please Send Help Immediately!

by admin23 Comments

Here’s a bit of exciting news coming out of the County Health Care Agency that is the local entity that oversees Emergency Medical Service provision. A new trend may be emerging.

It’s about the idea contracting with private service providers for paramedic services. The model is pretty simple: the paramedic goes with the ambulance, not with one of a city’s fire engine companies, who necessarily escorts their paramedic to an accident scene then has to toodle on over to the hospital to pick up their boy who has meanwhile accompanied the private ambulance to the ER.

And never a fire in sight; a fire crew mostly just driving around in their big shiny engine, sight-seeing.

The present scenario is so dysfunctional it’s amazing that it has lasted as long as it has. And that’s a backwards tribute to the “firefighter” lobby who knew fires were decreasing a long time ago and got their foot in the paramedic door; and to the supine politicians who let them do it.

But, as they say, that was then. And this is now. Municipalities are being crushed under the burden of “public safety” salaries and pensions and the current way of doing things is apparently no longer deemed to be carved in stone.

Amen. Maybe we can all be Hero now!

February 27, 2011February 28, 2011About Us

Dan C and Art of Careful Reporting

by Grover Cleveland28 Comments

Quite recently Dan Chiemlewski of the deadly boring LiberalOC blog put up a post about censorship and civility or something. I noted this pearl from the self-righteous and sanctimonious Dan C., who styles himself a real reporter:

Comments on FFFF are a free for all and so is sock puppetry (thanks guys for that visit to my home by the Anaheim Police Department on the day of my son’s graduation for a comment by a “Dan Chimichanga-Cub Reporter” who threatened to cut Harry Sidhu’s brake lines. I’m sure you found it hysterical),

Well, here’s what the commenter actually said.

#9 by Dan Chimichanga, Cub Reporter on June 16, 2010

Sidhu better check his brake lines every time he gets into a car between now and November. That’s all I’m saying.

Now the context of the post (and others like it at about the same time) were all about how Dan Cs carpetbagging darling Lorri Galloway had vaulted back into third place in the 2010 4th District Supe’s race. Mr. Cub Reporter got the message and commented: if Hairbag Sidhu were to pull out of the race, then Anaheim Hills’ Precious Princess might assume the second position in the fall run off against Shawn Nelson. Hence the warning about brake linings was a snide shot at Galloway’s vaulting ambition perhaps playing out by disabling one of Hairball’s BMWs. That’s perfectly obvious to anyone who put the comment in context. It was joke.

Okay it wasn’t very funny, but it sure wasn’t a threat. And anybody who tried to make it into one was either disingenuous or a damn fool. And anybody who keeps persisting in this nonsense is deliberately lying. Not the sort of behavior you’d expect from a proud member of the OC journalism corps. Come to think of it I wonder what part Dan C. might have played in reporting that alleged “threat” to the Anaheim PD in the first place.

Sock puppet, out.

February 26, 2011February 26, 2011About Us

Addiction, Hovey and Consequences

by admin18 Comments

Could the real reason that Fullerton School District superintendent Herr Doktor Mitch Hovey told his IT guy to deny FSD network access to our blog was because some of the district employees were addicted to our humble little blog and spending way too much of our (tax payers) dime/time blogging and not working?

Well, that sure seems plausible. And it’s true that we have been a lot less than enthusiastic about some of the goings on at District HQ, from the bogus laptop scam to the Board’s congenital rubber stamping. Oh, and yeah, the Pam Keller Collaborative swindle. That probably stirred up some resentment among the rank and file.

Yet, instead of telling the employees to knock off the blogging and getting back to work, it appears that the good doctor simply denied them access to our blog. And only our blog. I’m sure those same employees are still surfing the internet; it’s sort of like an addiction, and as with most addicts when they give up one addiction they replace it with another.

So I have to wonder what we are being replaced with. Youtube, OC Weekly personal ads, Hulu?

And I also have to wonder who is next on the censorship hit parade.

February 24, 2011February 24, 2011About Us

Revenge of the Nerds, Part IV

by Mr. Peabody8 Comments

One of the benefits of writing for the Best Blog OC 2010 is that they let you write anything you want.

SlideRule — Yes, I know what a slide rule is for...

And so I present this: the final moments of my alma mater Cal Tech’s great victory over the sad geeks at Occidental College. It’s been 25 years since we won a league basketball game. In that time we have produced 9 Nobel laureates.

Oxy. Part-time school of Barry Obama and intellectual womb of Chris Norby.

Well, it’ll probably be another 25 years ’til my homies win another conference game, so please indulge my enjoyment.

February 24, 2011February 24, 2011Fullerton School Board

School Board HD

by Travis10 Comments

OK, so our first foray into school board broadcasting was a little underwhelming. Low quality video, barely audible audio. It was better than nothing, but not really good enough for us.

So FFFF raised the bar a little bit. Here is this week’s meeting presented in glorious high-definition 720p with Dolby digital surround sound. The whole enchilada. Enjoy.

Download the February 22, 2011 agenda

Unfortunately FSD employees sitting behind the Great Firewall still won’t be able to watch their own board meetings. Oh well.

We’ll keep all of the recordings here under the “Archives” menu above. Click the “Fullerton School District Recordings” link for the list.

February 23, 2011February 23, 2011Behind Closed Doors

DA Invites New Investigation of Ackerman Lobbying

by Mr. Peabody7 Comments

ackerman-swig-500x340 — You can talk to my lawyer.

In a follow-up post today The Voice of OC(EA) Norberto Santana describes the (lack of) investigation by our do-nothing DA Tony Rackauckas into the evident illegal lobbying of fellow repuglican Dick Ackerman. Of course the DA could find no wrondoing. Not looking for evidence is an excellent way of not finding any.

Now that Ackerman’s actual invoices have surfaced, revealing what we have know for over a year, and what was based on the Dickster’s own words, the DA seems to be a little nervous. Here’s what his spokesholess Susan Kang Schroeder had to say:

“The evidence we had supports the findings we made,” she said. “If anyone has further evidence that is contrary to the evidence we have, we’ll be glad to look at it. And it may bring us to a different result.”

Further evidence. Of course she means all that embarrassing stuff that would have actually been part of any sincere investigation in the first place, and that would have freed the DA from having to rely entirely on Ackerman’s say-so for the truth. But the important thing here is that the DA is apparently welcoming new evidence. And since that evidence has already been published on a blog and is in the public domain, may we assume a new and this time an honest investigation is in the offing?

Hold your breath if you feel like it!