An unmarked compact disc was anonymously placed in our drop box the other day by someone who we presume is close to the Chi campaign. It was loaded with photos taken from Chi’s event last week, confirming earlier suspicions that Chi would be using his tax-exempt non-profit to promote his political campaign, in defiance of IRS tax rules.
Perhaps a more interesting observation: It looks like hardly anybody showed up.
The boring photos reveal a very small audience comprised mostly of political candidates, including Janny Meyer, Bev Berryman, Don Bankhead, and a few of their family members.
The whole event appears to be a lot of wasted effort for an unsuccessful attempt at self-promotion.
Of course, we couldn’t help but notice that the event was catered. For the health and safety of Chi’s guests, let’s hope the food didn’t come from his own supermarket.
Last December we posted about a character named Ajit Mithaiwala who had built a heavily subsidized low income housing fustercluck project in Fullerton in the 1990s that epitomized the futility and incompetence of Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.
Remember? His name popped up on a host committee list for a fund raiser thrown by high speed rail impresario and con man Curt Pringle, in honor of his boy, Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu. Since the name appeared to be mispelled we had fun with the notion that it might be somebody else.
Oh, no, no, no! That is another guy, I tell you. There are hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
In the post we wondered aloud what had become of Mithaiwala, and what he had been up to the past ten years.
It turns out we weren’t alone. Federal government auditors, prosecutors, and the FBI have been wondering too, according to an L.A. Times article forwarded to us by an alert Friend.
All sorts of misbehavin’ have been attributed to this guy and his development company that found a niche building subsidized, low-income housing projects, including fraud, failure to report income, and building shoddy, unsafe buildings. His politcal contributions have been scrutinized, too.
Here are a few choice morsels in the article from the Federal investigator:
“virtually no financial records,” no general ledger, no balance sheet and no bank reconciliations. Working with forensic accountants, he said he had discovered “potential fraud and criminal activity.”
On Tuesday, he told the court he was still trying to gain control of company assets and had identified 400 bank accounts, as well as $600,000 in gold bullion and three cars, including a Bentley.
It transpires that besides Fullerton, Mithaiwala has left a trail of tears behind him in cities across Southern California, including our neighbor to the south, Anaheim, where the Mayor Pro Tem is none other than Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu.
I know nothing. Nothing!
Yikes. You don’t mess with the Treasury Department, boys. Even Al Capone could tell you that.
Old Hide and Seek Sidhu is getting pretty desperate. His squalid excuse for a campaign started putting up signs proclaiming that 4th District Supervisor Supervisor Shawn Nelson is a “job killer.” Of course they ripped off Bushala’s format, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say.
WTF?
Of course nobody is supposed to know that Sidhu can’t name a single job Nelson has ever killed; and that apart from a few chicken flippin’ jobs at his El Pollo Loco in Glen Avon, some campaign prostitutes, and the dude who cleans out his peacock cage, Sidhu has never created any.
No, Harry. Assclown is not a job.
Oops, sorry. Nelson did kill one potential job – Harry Sidhu’s attempt to be a County Supervisor!
A senior CalPERS attorney just told me that the annual pension liability reports for local agencies, which are normally distributed every October, have now been delayed until after the November elections. The delays are allegedly due to furloughs, but conveniently prevent local pension watchdogs from using the data to promote fiscally conservative candidates and pension reform leading up to the November 2nd.
I bury'd it.
This year’s reports would be the first to calculate pension liabilities after the disastrous market crash of 2008/2009 which caused CalPERS to loose a large portion of its holdings, which in turn has caused cities’ unfunded liability and annual contributions to skyrocket. But the damage to each city is unknown until the individual reports are released.
How bad will it be? Here’s one example: rough calculations show Fullerton’s “non-smoothed” unfunded liability for itspublic safety plan will soar past $100,000,000 this year, nearly three times the amount presented last year. Throughout the state, the debts shown in these report are likely to be shocking compared to previous filings.
The data would have undoubtedly been used to draw more attention to the dire pension situation in cities throughout California. The reports would have come just in time for local elections, which makes CalPERS’ stated cause for the delay extremely suspect.
Ouch
The annual “Actuarial Valuation” reports are prepared by CalPERS actuaries for each participating agency to justify annual increases in required contributions. Here is a example of Fullerton’s public safety report for 2008, which is the most recent year available.
We’ve all heard the story….Shawn Nelson endorsed two candidates for Fullerton City Council, Bruce Whitaker and Roland Chi, before both decided to run for the same seat vacated by him when he was elected to the Board of Supervisors earlier this year. Fair enough, Mr. Nelson. There were three seats open on the Fullerton City Council, two four year seats and one two year seat, and you had no way of knowing when you gave your endorsements that Whitaker and Chi would run against one another for the single two year seat. But that was then, and now you have to make a choice about who you are supporting. Will it be Bruce Whitaker or Roland Chi?
Serves on the Fullerton Planning Commission (appointed by Shawn Nelson)
Has lived in Fullerton for 22 years
Founded Fullerton Association for Concerned Taxpayers (FACT) and repealed an unjust utility tax
Statewide Coordinator for Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform (MORR), an organization dedicated to reforming out of control Redevelopment in California
Shawn Nelson, you can’t vote for both candidates. Do the right thing for your hometown and put your support behind Bruce Whitaker for City Council today.
In politics somebody is always presenting explanations for things that may or may not be going on beneath the surface. And so we present to the Friends something to think about:
I was just informed that in a Red County post my old punching bag Matthew J. Cunningham wrote a post about some jackoffs down in Mission Viejo. Why he cares about that is his own business, but in this post he threw out this precious and completely gratuitous nugget:
I realize that sounds juvenile and stupid, but that’s how these types think (kind of like how a Fullerton council candidate disliked by a gadfly faction there had a hole punched in his truck’s gas tank).
Okay, we gotta cut this piece of shit some slack. After all, we were the ones that pulled back the rancid curtain and exposed to OC Republicans the fact that their wordsmith was wordsmithing hard for $200 an hour on behalf of meathead Rob Reiner’s tax-and-redistribute, whole-village rearing Children and Families Commission.
And of course we nailed him for supporting the stillborn supervisorial campaign of Democrat and serial miscreant, Tom Daly.
Still, insinuating that FFFF had something to do with Kevlar Cueball’s gas tank puncture is pure chickenshit. And of course it is couched in all the craven wordsmithing words that will keep you out of court and maybe even avoid serious physical rebuke.
Anyone who’s ever suffered from severe food poisoning understands how painful and dangerous it can be. It’s typically twelve to eighteen hours of intense vomiting with excruciating pain that can only be relieved by a morphine drip at the E.R. The symptoms are so intense that food borne illness causes an estimated 5,000 deaths per year in the United States.
Last year Fullerton City Council candidate Roland Chi was charged with multiple misdemeanor health code violations when eleven people got sick (source) after allegedly eating food prepared at the Arirang Supermarket in Garden Grove. The DA wrote that Roland holds the position of Director for the troubled Korean market.
Me? I don’t eat there anymore.
When county health inspectors showed up at the market to investigate the reported illnesses, they described conditions there as “filthy” and “contaminated”. The violations they listed include no hot water for hand washing in the restrooms, unacceptable sanitation practices, raw beef and seafood sitting at room temperature, filthy utensils being washed too close to meat, raw beef being washed with a garden hose, and raw beef water splashing all over the kitchen. And that’s only part of the first report, which also included these graphic photos:
Soup of the day?
The incident led to a meeting with the District Attorney and a few more health inspectors. The meeting minutes show that while interviewing with the DA, Roland Chi admitted to understanding all of the violations and promised that they would be corrected. Chi was warned with an exact date and time for another inspection one week later.
Make sure you try the shrimp
When the health inspectors arrived for the follow-up, they found major uncorrected violations and a few brand new ones. And so after promising the DA that he would clean up his act, the market failed inspection for a second time.
The hose water marinade adds something special.
That second report described an employee cutting squid while raw seafood juices were splashing on the nearby sesame oil and spices, along with a bunch of meat and seafood sitting out at room temperature.
Refrigeration is overrated.
But it gets worse. Two weeks later the inspectors came back and found even more violations, listed in a third report.
Just in case you think we are exaggerating, here are some of the health inspector’s own words:
Observed an employee scooping salt with a metal bowl (without handles) from the large pull-up container. The salt and the bowl were observed contaminated with a crusted build-up of meat blood. The sugar in the pull-up container was also observed contaminated with blood.
Observed a meat handling employee with a meat label in his mouth, then picking it up with his gloves and putting it on the meat packaging then resumes to meat serving/packaging process.
Observed an electrical fly catcher stored above uncovered rice bags in the produce department. Discontinue storing food beneath the fly catcher.
Observed an open sewer line between two walk-in coolers in the warehouse.
Table. Floor. Would you like some more?
If you’ve been counting, that’s three consecutive sets of violations, 11 sick customers and one smarmy owner. The DA decided to charge Roland and his business partner with five health code violations.
A seepage of unknown origin. Care to look closer?
Six months later the DA dropped the charges against Roland, presumably in exchange for his business partner’s guilty plea. Still, the damage to the victims had already been done. The DA’s charges against Roland Chi for persistent neglect for the health and safety of his customers would be quite disturbing even if he wasn’t running for city council. But since he is, we have to ask: Should someone this irresponsible be elected to run our city?
DOUBLE UPDATE: While searching the dark corners of our FFFF blog-vault, deep in the basement of the Fox Fullerton, I just came across this gem: a video moment so pure and wonderful that it must be shared again. And again. Until we can safely say that Hairball Sidhu’s political “career” is over, once and for all.
UPDATE: I came across this earlier post today as I was thinking about “The Joke’s on You” post. This really is too good not to show yet again. Will we see a repeat performance by the Sidhu clan in the waning days of this year’s campaign? Don’t bet against it. Sidhu has an almost limitless capacity for clownish behavior.
Although we don’t get many glimpses of Hide and Seek Sidhu these days, video clips of his performances do exist. And some, like the one I share here, reveal a man who has seemingly missed his calling in life. Instead of a fast food operator and a political aspirant, Sidhu really belongs on a vaudeville stage someplace.
Let me tell you, I renounce negative campaigning. Until I run again. And again. And again.
Here’s a priceless youtube clip starring Sidhu at that golden moment two years ago when Sidhu lost his nerve and started shredding his mailers in his campaign against Mimi Walters for State Senate. It’s brilliant comic performance art, and as usual he drags in his family to perform as extras in his hilarious political theater. Watch them dutifully shred his hit pieces against Walters as he introduces his rag tag collection of political allies – just about the only people who showed up (oh yes, I see you Bill Taormina!).
By the way, this clownishly hypocritical gesture didn’t help Sidhu at all. He was thoroughly pummeled and lost every precinct in Anaheim.
I received a call this morning from our 4th District County Supervisor Shawn Nelson asking if I would be willing to help coach a youth football clinic at Craig Park. Supervisor Nelson, aware of the fact that I played high school and Division I college football and that I had coached high school and Pop Warner football, needed someone to fill an unexpected vacancy on his coaching staff. My Sunday alternatives were to either spend the day helping 6 to 17 year olds learn a bit more about football or make more No McKinley signs. No brainer. I dusted off the old whistle and off to the park I went.
The event, billed “OC Parks and Sports Day,” was packed with eager kids with more energy than the energizer bunny. My day was not only fun and rewarding but a lot more interesting than I expected. During a break in the action I met the legendary Anthony Davis, but also the not so legendary OCEA union boss, Nick Berardino. Both were entertaining characters: AD reminisced of the days when he played smash mouth football at USC, and Berardino reminded me about the days he spent a million dollars bad mouthing Nelson in the last election, how that million bucks only moved #2 (Harry Sidhu) up 6 percentage points, and how he still got his as kicked by 12%.
Bernardino went on to explain to me that they (the employee union) were afraid of Nelson, but have learn that Nelson is not the monster they though he would be. Nick further explained that the problem in the county is corruption in upper management and the county employees (the worker bees) are the only ones that actually pay into their retirement and the people that are on Easy Street are the upper level managers including county CEO Tom Mauk who’s package equals around $350,000 per year (while collecting over $100,00 from his retirement pension from the city of La Habra). Nick and I both agreed that it’s always the little guy that gets dumped on and the corruption in the county needs to stop. Amen to that!
Kicking back @ Craig park
Supervisor Nelson tells me that he will start checking into the pay and benefits of mid to upper management, and also find out if they actually do anything except shuffle paper back and forth to each other.
