One of the benefits of writing for the Best Blog OC 2010 is that they let you write anything you want.
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.
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.
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?
The smile turned to painful grimmace as the appendage was pulled ever farther into the wringer.
Over at the Voice of OC(EA) Norberto Santana reports that his uncovering of Dick Ackerman’s billing logs from his days as a lobbyist for the rogue Fair Board has spurred a formal investigation by the State Fair Political Practices Commission.
See, former legislators are prohibited from lobbying their former colleagues for one year after their departure. Ackerman left the State Senate at the end of 2008 and started making those embarrassing calls in the summer of 2009 – in order to facilitate the sale of the Orange County Fair to a secret cabal made up of its own Boardmembers. We first wrote about that a-way back here in the fall of 2009 passing along the excellent work of the OC Progressive and Vern Nelson at the Orange Juice blog.
See that guy over there? He didn't do anything wrong. He told me to say that.
Of course the most embarrassing part of this slimy episode was the way one year later our do-nothing DA Tony Rackauckas tried to whitewash the whole stinking affair in order to protect his ‘puglet pals. See, T-Rack has plenty of time to harass Toyota and Muslim students at UCI, but apprently he has a lot less taste for going after political miscreants of either party.
But the truth will out, as they say. And the Ackerman deal just keeps resurfacing. Of course the FPPPC has no real authority except to levy fines and it looks to me like a real prosecutor is really what’s called for here.
The other day I took a field trip over to FSD HQ and took a ride on their network. Apparently the FSD network train makes many stops; but there are some places you just can’t get off. Did I just say “get off?”
Well, he’s at it again. County Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly appears to be doing the crony thing again.
In the past we took him to task for employing the relatives of campaign contributors. The funniest thing is that Daly likes to hire political types to act as intergovernmental liaisons and such like nonsense. What this has to do with the functioning of a County Clerk’s office is anybody’s guess.
Just recently Daly has hired Jordan Brandman, a supposedly up-and-coming Democrat who got himself elected to the Anaheim Union High School Board a few years back. Was there an open recruitment by the Clerk’s Department?
What special skills does Mr. Brandman bring to the Clerk’s office? Hard to say. According to his official bio his work history over the past decade has been pretty, um, varied: some political appointment jobs in Sacramento, followed by a brief stint with the useless OC Business Council in “workforce development” (including his own, presumably), and most lately employment in the Brandman family “environmental consulting” business. What any of this background has to do with the smooth operation of the County’s top paper shuffler is unknown.
What is known is that last fall the County CEO instituted a strict “hard hiring freeze” policy across all County departments. Either Daly didn’t get the message or perhaps he’s just flipping the bird to the CEO and the Board of Supervisors. Daly is elected, of course, and may figure he’ll do whatever he damn well pleases. Because he over-charges his customers for his services, Daly returns a surplus to the County’s General Fund. And maybe this makes him feel he’s above the belt-tightening endured by everybody else.
Another sad truth is that very few politicos have any marketable skill sets applicable to getting and holding real word vocational employment; others seem to have lost their taste for actually working at all. Many need a source of income as they plot full-time supervisorial and legislative careers. And the taxpayers pick up the tab. Is that what’s going on here?
The other day I used a super secret password to utilize the Fullerton School District’s wireless network, for no particular reason. While connected, I tried to access some of my favorite and least favorite local blogs and news sites. Here’s what I discovered from behind the FSD firewall:
LiberalOC blog – allowed
Red County blog – allowed
Voice of OC blog – allowed
Orange Juice Blog – allowed
OC Register blogs – allowed
Fullerton Observer – allowed
Friends for Fullerton’s Future – BLOCKED
It appears that Friends for Fullerton’s Future has been singularly snuffed from teacher and staff access at the Fullerton School District. Now why wouldn’t the administration want anyone to read our blog?
Maybe they didn’t appreciate our cold look at the ramifications of heavy child-Internet immersion back in 2009. Or maybe they were offended by our unraveling of the Fullerton Collaborative conflict-o-sphere. What if they were upset about blogger Chris Thompson’s spectacular ascension to the Fullerton School Board?
"War is a game that is played with a smile."
Whatever the reason, things are starting to look pretty political over at the Superintendent’s office. OK we get it, Doctor Hovey.
Today the ever-increasingly pathetic OC Register ran an editorial trumpeting the creation of something called the Association of California Cities, a homespun effort to replace the California League of Cities. The Register wants us to believe that anything that replaces the League is a good thing. To which I respond: not so fast.
Here’s a quote from the article, the first couple of paragraphs dutifully and immediately passed along verbatim by Red County repuglican flunky Matthew J. Cunningham:
Orange County cities often have stood for sensible, taxpayer-friendly municipal reform in a state where fiscal sanity is the exception rather than the rule. So, while we applaud the 21 O.C. cities that left the League of California Cities (and its Orange County division) and started their own Association of California Cities Orange County, we also want to ask, “What took you so long?”
We’ve long had a beef with the Sacramento-based League, which is essentially a taxpayer-funded (dues come from city coffers) lobbying organization that tilts toward big government. Currently, the League is battling Gov. Jerry Brown’s sensible plan to close down the state’s 425 redevelopment agencies – those fiscally profligate entities that abuse eminent domain and dole out corporate welfare to companies that build development projects hatched in City Hall.
I can’t remember any OC cities that “stood for sensible, taxpayer friendly municipal reform…” so that’s a load of manure right there. But notice the anti-Redevelopment hook there at the end of the second paragraph. Cunningham obviously did. But he didn’t bother passing along the very next tidbit from the editorial:
Certainly, one finds support for redevelopment among Orange County officials, including some whose cities have fled the League…
Well Jesus H.Crisco, that’s the understatement of the freaking year! Is there a single municipality in OC that isn’t addicted to Redevelopment like a low grade junkie is to black tar heroin?
Maybe I can do facebook for the Association @ $200 buck an hour!
The Rag pathetically goes on to cite as some sort of local OC accomplishment the totally discredited Anaheim “Freedom Friendly” policy of “upzoning” property, a conspiracy that put dozens of businesses out of business, hundreds of workers out of work, that was engineered to produce vast profits for Kurt Pringle’s clients, and that has left the Anaheim city scape cratered, dark and dismal. The editorialists who are employed by The Register may think we can’t tell the difference, but boy are they wrong.
I am somebody! At last.
Of course you can check out the leadership of the new Association. It doesn’t inspire any sort of confidence. In the roster we find a sad collection of small town political hacks, bag men (and women), and poseurs whose only true resentment of the League is likely based on the fact that it precludes them from cashing in on anything. Oh, yeah we know the sort: the brain dead, yet greedy city council members who make up the boards of things like the OCTA, the Vector Control District, and the Sanitation District: just the perfect sort of drones who can be manipulated to direct “policy” in the direction of the Pringles, Dick Ackermans and John Lewises of the oh, so conservative Orange County.
Cunningham claims the inaugural dinner was the scene of near euphoria. Eu-effing-phoria. For him and people like him who cash in on government largess there was probably every reason to feel giddy.
The real question is why should we poor plantation hands substitute one collection of overseers for another?
Should the city actively seek to suppress any evidence of harassment by city staff from the court record when prosecuting code violations? That’s exactly what’s happening in the strange case of an allegedly overgrown fig tree in south Fullerton.
A few weeks ago this woman, henceforth known as “The Fig Tree Lady,” came before council to tell her side of the story in a code enforcement case against her fig tree, which was allegedly hanging over a public sidewalk last year. The Fig Lady accused city staff of singling her out for criminal prosecution as retribution for her embarrassing victory over the city attorney (Jones & Mayer) several years prior.
That same day, the city attorney had filed a motion in court to suppress any evidence of harassment by City employees.
The fig lady’s guilt or innocence will be decided in court, and is not really the point here. But why is the city using it’s legal muscle to suppress any evidence that it’s code enforcement officers might be harassing citizens?
What if this woman did have evidence that the city attorney and staff were giving her case “special treatment”? Shouldn’t she be able to make her case to the judge? Is someone using the city’s expensive legal resources to bully and silence this outspoken critic in some sort of personal vendetta as the Fig Lady claims?
Exhibit A: The overgrown fig tree
If the motion is granted, the woman would not even be allowed to submit this current photo of her tree (courtesy of Greg Sebourn) as evidence that the situation has been corrected.
Obviously the tree is not a threat anymore. Why is the city attorney still spending our money to silence and prosecute this woman? And are they really worried that she could prove her claims of harassment?
A while back we shared a classic lackey moment when Matthew J. Cunningham gave former Anaheim Mayor-for-Hire and all-round sleaze Kurt Pringle a vigorous lingual lather up.
Hey, those cigars don't pay for themselves...
Not to be out done by an amateur, The Register’s in-house boot-lick-name-dropper Frank Mickadeit decided to do him one better, and offered up a sloppy tongue-job to the man the State’s Attorney general found be conflicted in his serial roles as lobbyist, mayor, and Boondoggle HSR Chairman.
Now, we all know that Pringle is and always has been in it for Pringle. But good old Frank seems perfectly willing to pass along the nonsense that Pringle is out of elective politics to focus on his business. No. Pringle is out of elective politics because there is no longer any elective office that wouldn’t be a detriment to his business.
Of course we hear from former Anaheim garbage hauler Bill Taormina, supporter of the lamest of the lame Lorri Galloway, who believes that Pringle should be California’s governor or maybe a senator. Taormina has millions of reasons to praise Pringle, but there is no more moral underpinning for his support of Pringle than there was for his giving Galloway three fake addresses in his various rental units so she could run a fraudulent campaign for County supervisor.
Which leads to the conclusion that the sooner the pathetic Register goes under for the third and final time, the better.
