Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 18, 2010May 18, 2010Boohooism

The Priorities of Organized Labor

Like their brethren among the ranks of the public employee unions, it appears the non-government unions want to grab as much government gravy as they can, too.

Here’s a mailer sent out by labor unions for Lorri Galloway. Same brainless jobs, jobs, jobs theme as Hide and Seek Sidhu, but with a decided emphasis on make-work jobs for union members earning very high prevailing wages.

See, we’re in a budget crisis. So what’s the solution? Jobs! Say what? It takes a few mental bends to figure it out, but presumably people with jobs will pay taxes and increase tax revenue. But wait! Where on Earth are those jobs going to come from? Galloway knows: they come from projects funded by current taxpayers. In other words, ya gotta spend more money to make money. The typical big government refrain. Will it ever break even? Of course not, but who’s keeping track?

Naturally, those “living wage” earners will also need a place to live and Lorri probably has a plan for that too – more subsidized low income housing, of course!

Of course the unions have no more conception of what a County Supervisor does than do Harry Sidhu or Lorri Galloway.

lori2 — You know, I really just don't get it.

Supervisors ARE NOT in the jobs creation business. They are supposed to be there to manage the County government.

And why can’t people like Galloway look at government from the taxpayers point of view? That is: to provide necessary County services efficiently at the best value? Instead its all about satisfying the government workers and their demands. And that’s exactly why the State and the local governments of California are so completely screwed up.

It’s pretty simple. Galloway wants to go to work for the unions, and they are already working for her.

May 18, 2010May 18, 2010Fullerton City Council

On The Agenda – May 18, 2010

by Christian6 Comments

I went to look at the agenda for the May 18^th meeting and had trouble with the City’s website. I was able to download the agenda but none of the supporting documents. So I will attempt to give you a brief and general idea of what is going on. This time I really could use your input in completing the picture. Here is the agenda.

Let’s start with the closed session where we find two major events to look at. First, it looks like maybe the firefighters have come to some agreement with the City regarding cuts to their salaries. We’ll have to see what happens. Also, there are a number of properties that Land Czar Rob Zur Schmiede would love to get his hands on. No doubt he looks to displace dozens of low-income families and replace them with low to moderate income families. Then he and his agency will skim a little off the top of the newly assessed property tax value. As a side note, Assemblyman Chris Norby issued his 6^th Norby Notes email wherein he gives a very good overview of redevelopment agencies and their numerous significant failures.

The properties listed on the agenda include:

324, 401, 419, 425, 449, 455, 475 W. Valencia Drive, 512 S. Ford and 147 W. Santa Fe Avenues in Fullerton.

At this rate, the Land Czar will control all of Fullerton by 2020! No one’s property is safe, not even your kids’ tree house!

Friends For Fullerton’s Future come in on the closed session at #4! If you haven’t heard, FFFF, et al are suing the City of Fullerton. Perhaps admin can give us some idea of what might be happening. Perhaps an easy way for this suit to go away might be to elect some new council members who will put the reigns on the Land Czar and get the Redevelopment Agency under control.

Coming in at #5 is Chris Meyer. The agenda just lists this as a personnel matter. Is he taking a pay cut or what?? Maybe he has decided to retire and join that $100K pension club. If he does, maybe we can talk him into taking a council member or two with him.

Next we move into the open session. We have a couple of proclamations, one service award, and one presentation by the American Veterans Memorial Association.

After the fluff, you have an opportunity to address the council and tell them what you think. It’s a good way to get your voice heard. Don’t mind the members with their fingers in their ears whistling Dixie out their backsides; that’s normal.

This meeting’s consent calendar is pretty big with 11 items. We have the obligatory minutes, end of period financial statement (March 31), capitol expenditure report (also as of March 31), and then a slue of construction projects.

Among them is the library remodel project with $4,142,377.25 this month and a total “Guaranteed Maximum Price” of $9,391,000.00. We’ll see… There are 6 other construction jobs worth nearly $2,000,000.

Last on the consent calendar is approval of Final Map for Tract No. 17315. The subdivision is in the Ford/West/Richman Avenues area. Since the City’s website isn’t allowing us to look up the backup documents, I have nothing further to report on this. My guess is this is one of the Land Czar’s projects.

Item 12 takes us out of the consent calendar and into a public hearing over Underground Utilities District No. 15. Part of this is supposed to bury overhead lines on State College Boulevard from Kimberly Avenue to Santa Fe Avenue.

The only “regular business” is item 13, Fullerton Community Center Project review. The agenda says this:

The Fullerton Community Center Project is one of two major projects currently being undertaken as part of the civic center area improvements. These projects include significant renovations and additions to the Fullerton Public Library and the construction of a multi-purpose Fullerton Community Center; parking and circulation improvements, and limited street improvements to Commonwealth Avenue.

Recommendation by the Parks and Recreation and Redevelopment and Economic Development Departments:

Approve the Community Center concept plan, and authorize staff and the Project Manager at Risk (PMAR) to proceed with design development and preparation of a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) based on the conceptual design.

Coming up on May 25 we have the public hearing on Coyote Hills. Expect another crazy night heated opinions. Outside City Hall I heard one man mutter “Why won’t they listen to us? Why do they insist on doing this?” I assumed he was talking about the Coyote Hills development and how the City Council isn’t simply stopping this in its tracks. Who knows, maybe on the 25^th they will. Remember, we have two seats up for re-election and possibly even a third seat if Nelson sweeps the June 8^th Primary.

Also coming up on June 1st, you can expect to find these topics on the agenda.

• Public Hearing – Adopt Budget
• Call Election/Consolidate/Candidate Statements
• April Financials
• Presentation – SCE – State of the Utility
• Proclamation – Marlis Katherine Christianson Wigestrand
• Public Hearing – Towing Ordinance
• Insurance Program Report and Recommendations
• Closed Session – Existing Litigation – Lopez
• Public Hearing – Amend Title 15 – Personal Service Facility/Tattoo Parlors
• St. College Grade Separation Change Order
• Personnel Management Changes
• Draft Request for Interest for Downtown Core & Corridors Specific Plan

As always, please let me know if I missed something that you think is important, especially since I could not access the backup documents for the agenda items.

May 17, 2010May 18, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Watchdog Growls

by admin4 Comments

Teri Sforza at the Register’s “OC Watchdog” bureau has posted a truly alarming story about three graduate students who’ve done some great digging on the compensation allocated to OC City Managers. The figures are astronomical and the publication couldn’t come at a worse time for these Miraculous Mandarins who do so well at our expense. Here’s the compilation:

CityMangerPayola — Please try not to gag.

Be sure to check out the Fullerton row.

Thanks to Sforza for sharing. But the real thanks go to the kids who assembled the data – the real watchdogs.

May 17, 2010June 22, 2010Dead heads

The Joke of OC

by Joe Sipowicz7 Comments

bernardino — Listen up, Supes! We finally got our own news outlet!

We’ve recently seen the true purpose of “The Voice of OC,” and organization that promotes itself as a “non-profit investigative news agency.” We’ve noticed that the manager, Norberto Santana has never said a word about any of the manifest malfeasance taking place in Democrat Tom Daly’s Clerk-Recorders office, but has found time to publish what a amounts to a political hit piece on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson – public enemy #1 as far as County unions are concerned.

It continues. The Voice has recently detailed in five separate posts a DA investigation brought about by charges made against Assessor Webster Guillory by County personnel and publicly advertised by OCEA union chief Nick Berardino. So what, you ask. Here’s what: not once has Santana mentioned that the OCEA provided start-up captial for the Voice of OC. That’s an obvious conflict of interest, and one that any ethical operation would make known to its readers.

What’s also interesting is that the blog comments section has become a forum for a raft of public employees pretending to give a rat’s ass about government efficiency. You will even find LibOC blogger and dead beat, Chris Prevatt on the list. Typical.

Say, Norberto, why not publish something on Tom Daly’s cronyism, waste, or bad real estate deals? At least then the Clerk-Recorder personnel could have a chance to weigh in and let Berardino know how his members feel about OC’s biggest money squanderer.

Well, “The Voice” never claimed to be impartial or objective. Just non-profit.

And that’s why it’s quickly becoming the known as the Voice of OCEA.

May 17, 2010May 19, 2010Dead heads

More on Pacific Strategies and The Greenhut Lunch

by Joe Sipowicz4 Comments

fartboy — Lunch is my favorite meal of the day.

In the comments thread to our post this morning on Matthew Cunningham billing the taxpayers $200 an hour to have lunch with former Register editorialist Steve Greenhut in September, 2008, an observant Friend “nobody” drew our attention to a July 2008 blog article written by Greenhut. In the article Greenhut calls for getting rid of the Children and families Commission altogether.

Well that wouldn’t do! So what does the Commission do? It sends its Ambassador to Conservatives, Matthew J. Cunningham and its Executive Director, Michael Ruane to lunch with Greenhut. Did Greenhut learn the errors of his ways? I wonder. Steve?

What I don’t wonder about is how much this lunch cost the taxpayers.

Oh, and for extra fun, read the one and only comment on Greenhut’s post. It’s by a guy named “Michael” and he’s he’s defending the Commission from State budget raids, calling that a new tax. Here’s the money quote from “Michael’s” comment:

“Granted, there are always imperfection and waste when government doing anything, but at least with Prop 10 the money returned to the counties where anybody could see if there is a misappropriation and fix it.”

Ho, ho! Imperfection and waste? Hoo boy, he nailed that one! But anybody could see if there is a “misappropriation?!” If by anybody, “Michael,” you really meant almost nobody, then we are agreed. How many people know the Commission has a $195,00 a year contract for PR with Pacific Strategies? How many people knew the Commission was paying Cunningham $200 an hour to read blogs, Facebook, recycle the same “op-ed” piece over and over again, and do all those lunches? For the love of God, Michael, please tell us you were only joking!

Hmm. Come to think of it now I wonder if Pacific Strategies didn’t write that comment for “Michael.”

May 17, 2010May 17, 2010Dead heads

When Harry Met Jennifer

by admin5 Comments

Those rascals in the white van have done it again. After a night of hard binge drinking that included shots of denatured alcohol and grapefruit juice, the FFFF Surveillance Unit sprang into action and arrived outside the State College/Katella Denny’s in time to capture part of the conversation between Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu and OC Register’s intrepid reporter, Jennifer Muir, that we reported on here.

The following transcript has been deciphered from the somewhat poor quality sound recording, and the written notes submitted by the crew, although the handwriting is a bit jittery. Invest any amount of credence in this that you think it deserves.

Jennifer Muir: …so in other words you did not live at the Calabria?

Harry Sidhu: Yes. I mean no. There was a refrigerator.

JM: Excuse me, what?

HS: A refrigerator was delivered and even plugged in. But I had to go skiing. In Colorado. Uh, no in my opinion it was Utah.

JM: And so you signed your name to that voter registration form thinking that you were going to live there, but you never did?

HS: Yes. Yes, indeed. I was always meaning to live there, of course. And may I say you are looking very attractive this morning?

JM: Um. Thank you. What about the DA investigation?

HS: Oh, let me tell you all about that. Politically motivated! I have been cleared of all wrong doing. I came out of that smelling like a daisy.

JM: Uh huh. So then what happened was your wife refused to live in a stucco box behind a bowling alley?

HS: Yes. Such a wonderful woman. You know, we are still sweethearts after all these many years. Sometimes we will hold hands for no reason at all as we walk along the path. Maybe you saw the picture? She even voted for me at the CRA nominating meeting.

JM: Why did you tell people that you had bought a house in the district?

HS: Well, you know, I don’t know anything about that. I will get back to you. By the way, I am very fond of your shoes.

JM: The fact is that up until December you lived in the 3rd District. The issue of carpetbagging has dogged your campaign. Any comment?

HS: In my opinion I have represented 40% of this district for so many years I have forgotten, so I am not only qualified but the people of the 4th District deserve to be having me represent them. In my opinion I truly believe they have been calling for me. I hear the the voice of those people. I am responding to their many calls.

JM: Right. Well. Let’s move on. Some of your critics point to your lack of knowledge about County issues. What would you say to them?

HS: I will be learning all about that later. For now I would say we need jobs. Jobs. Jobs.

JM: Yes, but how, exactly would you create any jobs as a Supervisor?

HS: I am a businessman, not a politician. I know all about creating jobs. I have a plan. We will have a big jobs fair! I will be turning “The OC” into one giant jobs fair.

JM: Excuse me?

HS: There are many fast food franchises that are hiring. In these hard times people eat more fast food than ever. It is a well known fact. I did very well during the last recession. We need to match them up with people looking for jobs. It’s very simple. A jobs fair.

JM: (Unintelligible gurgling sound) Uh, um, how does that tie in with the supervisor’s duties, exactly.

HS: Jobs, of course. We need jobs.

JM: You say you’re not a politician, but you seem to keep running for different political offices. Why is that?

HS: Uh, why is what?

JM: What?

HS: What?

JM: Why all the political campaigns?

HS: Well, this is because I am not a politician, of course. I am running these races because people need me because I am not a politician!

JM: What would you say to (sounds of crashing dishes) to the critics who complain that you always seem to be running for office?

HS: Well those are people who don’t know me because…

Unidentified female Voice: Can I warm up that cup for ya, hon?

HS: …if they knew me they would know how important it is to be electing me to something. Soon. It’s really all about a job. I mean jobs. Jobs for everybody.

JM: Hoo-kay, then. At the GOP Central Committee meeting you seemed to be a little fuzzy on the subject of defined benefits. Have you cleared up that point?

HS: Well, let me tell you, that was a trick question by my good friend Mr. Scott. I have been in deep consultations. And it is my opinion that in my opinion, I have not yet looked into the impact on that and will continue do so in the future.

JM: That’s a pretty important issue. Don’t you think the voters will want you to understand that?

HS: After the election I will try, but of course there will be many, many things to be getting on with. I will hire only the best people to explain these things to me. Mr. John Lewis has promised to help me with that.

JM: Your website takes credit for the High Speed Rail project but at the WAND forum you specifically claimed you have not made up your mind. Care to comment?

HS: Ah, Jennifer I have so much respect for your journalism ability, let me tell you.

JM. Thank you. How about answering the question.

HS: Well this is a very delicate matter because you cannot be for something without understanding all of the complications and implication. Implications are very tricky. And you cannot be against something until you have thoroughly examined all the details. As I say, the devils is in the details. Well, it’s all a great muddle in my mind, really…

JM: So is that a yes or a no?

HS: Please repeat the question.

JM: Let’s move on.

HS: Okay, jobs.

JM: Pardon me?

HS: Jobs. Jobs Jobs. Oh, I see that white van again. It is becoming quite a bother and now I must be pushing off…

(at this point intelligible audio was lost)

May 17, 2010May 19, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies – My Lunch With Greenhut

by Grover Cleveland20 Comments

This tidbit harvested from the Pacific Strategies billings to Rob Reiner’s OC Children and Families Commission was way too good to pass up.

Here we see Mr. Conservative Pundit Matthew Cunningham hard at work setting up and then eating lunch with former OC Register editorial writer Steve Greenhut back in 2008. Looks like Executive Director Micahel Ruane went along. Maybe Cunningham acted as interpreter between the libertarian Greenhut and the social services bureaucrat Ruane. I guess that’s what they call a business lunch.

I wonder if the suffocating welfare statists persuaded Greenhut of the need for their commission.

May 16, 2010Dick Jones

Bullhorn Berardino Backfire

by The Desert Rat5 Comments

Bernardino-2-300x234 — Nick is that a union made garment? Too bad it doesn't hide your Rolex.

There is an old axiom that says all politics are local. Nick “Bullhorn” Berardino, chief union goon of the Orange County Employees Association seems to have forgotten that adage. Maybe he never heard it.

A week or so ago week his union sent out a mailer accusing Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson of voting to spend money on a “red-tagged” building. Too bad the building was Fullerton’s historic Fox Theater, a structure whose restoration thousands of Fullertonians support and to which hundreds, including Nelson, have made personal donations. The mailer provoked this letter that appeared in the mid-May Fullerton Observer:

Oops. Looks like Berardino has really soiled himself this time.

Retraction? Apology? Not very likely, guys. See, Nick Berardino and his crew operate in a whole different environment that you might imagine. In Comrade Nick’s world you grab and grab and keep grabbing all you can get while giving as little as possible in return.

And that’s why Orange County’s finances are so messed up, why County departments are run so poorly, and why the OCEA is absolutely terrified of a Shawn Nelson victory.

May 15, 2010May 15, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Gordo Gets Greedy

by admin18 Comments

Andy Warhol once famously said that everybody gets 15 minutes of fame. Apparently Thomas Gordon got his when he popped up on the Red County blog a couple of months ago with a semi-literate attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson. Gordon is a low-grade goon from Santa Ana who is evidently acting as some sort of flunky in the Hide and Seek Sidhu jailbreak. Whether he is being paid in cash or El Pollo Loco chicken has never been made abundantly clear.

Naturally, we had some fun with Gordo here, here, here and of course, here.

Later we ran into Gordon at the NUFF blogger’s forum when he tried to intimidate one of our bloggers and ended up with a face full of Chris Thompson.

Apparently these brushes with notoriety have not provided sufficient celebrity for Gordon. The other day he started making obnoxious and gratuitously obscene comments here under the name “Major Nelson.” Busted. Well, hell we tolerate all sorts of stuff here, even the rantings of a useless nutjob and Sidhu stooge.

Apparently a sense of desperation is setting in on the three-wheeled Hairball Handcart, and with a fourth place finish looming on June 8th the small fry are getting agitated.

Sidhumobile — What kind of mileage will it get?

But seriously Thomas, if you want attention you’re going to have to start using your own name again, even if it results in another shower of ridicule. And another tip: if Sidhu is going to pay you to rip on Nelson you’d better be smart enough not to get busted. Of course intelligence is not an attribute widely ascribed to the Sidhu team members.

May 15, 2010May 15, 2010Orange County Government

Q&A with Hugh Nguyen

by Greg Sebourn15 Comments

A few days ago I decided to email Hieu “Hugh” Nguyen some questions about his plans for the Orange County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.

1. What is the first order of business, should you win the election?

Response:
I will complete a management audit within the first 90 days to review the organizations structure, authorized positions, workload statistics, systems performance, customer service, communications with Title/Mortgage Industry, fee schedule and operations of Clerk, Recorder and Vital Records functions. This will be the basis of preparing a long-term plan supported by short-term deliverables. I want to improve services to customers, improve department morale and productivity and reduce operating costs. This effort will be coordinated with the Board of Supervisors and CEO and Human Resources Department.

2. What are the top three issues facing the Clerk-Recorder’s Office in the coming years?

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