FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Someone ran up a $631.80 utility bill at Harry Sidhu’s “Elegant Yorba Estate” for the billing period ending in March 2010.
That’s strange since he was supposedly living in a rental house on beautiful Lucky Way down near Garden Grove during that time.
Hmm. House guests?
A friend sent along this pile of tripe yesterday dished out by the Lorri Galloway campaign.
Does Precious Princess really think we are going to buy her line of baloney that she’s the “#1 front runner in the race” in the 4th District to replace Norby as our County Supervisor?
This is clearly intended for those whose reading preferences include stories about alien abductions, Bigfoot sightings, and humans giving birth to barnyard animals – not likely to be high propensity voters.
The funniest thing is her foolish “jobs” pitch – an issue that Supervisors have zero control over; and of course her solution is the same as Hide and Seek Sidhu’s – taxpayer funded construction projects!
But you can’t really blame a girl for trying.
I applaud the Orange City Council for taking the initiative here, to discuss State Assemblywoman Diane Harkey’s AB2121. Basically, Harkey’s idea is to pull the plug on the bond financing for the High Speed Rail (HSR) massive boondoggle. Our sources tell us Councilman Jon Dumitru has taken the lead on reviewing this issue.
Hell, the HSR isn’t even proposed to go through Orange, and their council is more concerned about the boondoggle than Fullerton’s is.The route, as proposed could cut a several mile long swath of destruction through Fullerton. And our council doesn’t seem able to even talk about it. Maybe because staff didn’t agendize it first.
When are the people of Fullerton going to start electing people that stick up for Fullerton? A concerted opposition by our council could help kill this fiasco now.
Parents, the PTA that you all belong to is behind trying to raise your property taxes by reducing the threshold for passage of parcel taxes.
The California State PTA has endorsed the “Local Control of Local Classrooms Funding Act” which reduces the voter approval requirement to raise taxes from 2/3rds down to 55%. This will make it much easier for local school districts to place new property taxes on local homeowners to benefit the teachers’ unions.
QUIT THE PTA. It is a bad lobbying organization disguised as an innocent thrower of classroom ice cream parties. It hurts children, families, the state and the country.
Moms and dads can help in the classroom, support schools and be great parents without supporting this organization which is stabbing you in the back as a pawn of teachers unions.
Responding to mounting criticism about taking a bunch of property along the proposed right-of-way for its multibillion dollar boondoggle, the California High Speed Rail Authority took a step back the other day and voted 6-1 to entertain a shared track option previously discarded when they thought nobody was paying attention. Read all about it in the LA Times.
Even lobbyist and fixer Curt Pringle, the termed-out Mayor of Anaheim, joined the majority. Is he perhaps starting to fear a Buena Park, Fullerton, and Anaheim backlash that might spoil all of his crafty electoral machinations for 2010?
Well, it’s a step in the right direction, but it still begs the question of bureaucratic and rolling stock cost vis-a-vis minimal travel time gains to downtown LA.
The lone “no” vote came from Quintin L. Kopp, the former Bay Area politician who also advocated for the controversial BART extension to the San Francisco Airport. Apparently Kopp thinks it’s too late to be smart – always a bad sign.
Well, they’re at it again. Another on-line “article” in the Register by a Fullerton guy named Dennis Bode who is listed as a “columnist,” but who is, in reality, a local realtor making a sales pitch. They tried that before. Apparently I didn’t sufficiently chastise them.
The piece starts out by belaboring the obvious: termite inspections are helpful and then morphs into an advertisement for Mr. Bode.
The appearance of an ad masquerading as a news story must violate every precept of professional journalism, but hey, times are tough! And I’m just a dog. What do i know?
Listen to good ol’ Doc Jones explain why he bugged out of the OC Vector Control Board. It’s pretty ironic that during Jones’ explanation he does the same thing that he accuses Vector Board members of doing – going on, and on, and on. In fact Jones goes all the way to Africa and beyond in his four minute plus spiel. And of course he’s a die-hard supporter of the bureaucracy and its arrogant ex-chief to the bitter end.
Anyway, I always thought the purpose of leaders was to lead – not quit when they get annoyed or impatient or “baffled by brilliance.” It’s leadership failure. No Dick, our concerns are not “improved.”
Watch the clip, Friends, and you’ll get the picture.
After showing you how management lives in the lap of luxury last week, I received an email from a Friend who brought to my attention a Cal State University system business practice that forces out qualified, lower paid part-time lecturers and untenured faculty, and brings back higher paid, semi retired faculty. The faculty and management at our own Cal State Fullerton know this practice as FERPing. Just the sound of the acronym sounds like something they should apologize for and we haven’t even said what exactly FERPing is.
The Faculty Early Retirement Program, as the name implies, allows faculty to retire early and then come right back to work. On the surface it creates a lower fiscal burden on local university funding which looks like a cost savings for guys like Milton A. Gordon, who gets $302,042 per year while living rent-free at the El Dorado Ranch. The reality is that it costs taxpayers and students more than if the schools utilized the lower paid, part-time faculty who are otherwise forced out under FERP.
Retirement never looked so lucrative. While everyone else must take furloughs or are getting laid off outright, the FERPers receive FREE parking, ALL of their retirement benefits, and 50% of their last salary. That’s part of the reason why your kid’s tuition continues to rise and classes are getting canceled. This Cal State double-dipping program is brought to you by the public employee unions as a result of the spineless leader who is content to live in his rent-free mansion with an inflated salary and the entitlement attitude of senior public employees. Some FERPers have been milking us for more than 5 years!
Here is an example of the compensation structure that FERPers use to determine just how good retirement might be:
Age: 63 1/2 years (CalPERS retirement age percentage factor: 2.5%)
Length of Service: 27 years
Highest Salary: $87,500(during any 12 month period of CalPERS covered employment)(minus $133.33 monthly deduction for Social Security = $1,599.96)
Calculation: 27 years x .025 (age factor percentage) = 67.5% of highest salary
Estimated CalPERS retirement salary: $85,900 x .675 (age factor percentage) = $57,982
Plus estimated FERP salary: (half of faculty base $70,800) $35,400
Total estimated retirement salary plus FERP salary: $93,382
It’s time to wean the leaches off our sweet cream before all we are left with is sour cream for our kids. Email Milton Gordon at mgordon@fullerton.edu or you can call him in his CSUF public employee office at (657) 278-3456. Tell Milton Gordon it’s time to act fiscally responsible with our tax dollars.
Below are some links I stumbled over which helped put FERPing in perspective for me:
http://www.fullerton.edu/Emeriti/preretirement.htm
http://collegelife.freedomblogging.com/2009/08/13/cal-state-fullerton-abruptly-begins-canceling-classes/7103/
http://www.calstate.edu/csuleader/2004/040511.htm
http://www.csufresno.edu/aps/forms_policies/retirement_ferp.shtml
http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/personnel/retirement/ferp/
Hooray! Something from the News Tribune we can all agree is meaningful!
It’s been almost a year since we published the original list of retired Fullerton public employees earning over $100,000 per year in pensions.
Since then we have learned that our state’s unfunded pension liability has grown to over $500 billion dollars. Our Friends over at California Pension Reform have updated their list of CalPERS pensions, bringing on fifteen new “hundred grand” members from Fullerton this year. That’s an increase of 40% in a single year.
So let’s see who is getting the most from largess from taxpayers. New members are in bold:
| Name | Annual Pension | Position |
| JAMES “JIM” REED | $166,781.88 | Fire |
| GEOFFREY SPALDING | $149,852.88 | Police |
| GREGORY MAYES | $148,889.40 | Police |
| MICHAEL MAYNARD | $140,317.20 | Police |
| DANIEL CHIDESTER | $139,416.72 | Fire |
| FRANK PAUL DUDLEY | $133,821.00 | Development Services Director |
| ALLEN BURKS | $133,782.36 | Police |
| DOUGLAS CAVE | $130,761.36 | Police |
| GLENN STEINBRINK | $127,533.00 | Administrative Director |
| ANTONIO HERNANDEZ | $127,402.20 | Police |
| H SUSAN HUNT | $126,970.80 | Director of Park and Recreation |
| STEVEN MATSON | $126,430.68 | Police |
| RONNY ROWELL | $125,168.40 | Police |
| TERRY STRINGHAM | $123,482.28 | Fire |
| GEORGE NEWMAN | $121,410.60 | |
| RICHARD RILEY | $121,113.36 | |
| MARK FLANNERY | $120,934.68 | Director of Personnel |
| DAVID STANKO | $120,279.84 | Police |
| ROBERT HODSON | $119,956.08 | Director of Engineering |
| ROBERT “BOB” RICHARDSON | $119,720.88 | Police |
| PATRICK MCKINLEY | $118,446.48 | Chief of Police |
| DANIEL BECERRA | $116,917.20 | Police |
| NEAL BALDWIN | $116,740.68 | Police |
| PHILIP GOEHRING | $115,076.04 | Police |
| BRAD HOCKERSMITH | $115,053.84 | Fire |
| JEFFREY ROOP | $113,618.88 | Police |
| KURT BERTUZZI | $109,255.08 | Fire |
| LINDA KING | $108,168.84 | Police |
| DONALD “DON” PEARCE | $107,972.76 | Police |
| CAROLYN JOHNSON | $107,179.80 | Library Director |
| TIMOTHY JANOVICK | $106,330.44 | |
| PAUL TURNEY | $105,747.12 | |
| RONALD “RON” GILLETT | $105,499.56 | Police |
| ARTHUR WIECHMANN | $104,153.76 | Police |
| JONATHON “JON” MCAULAY | $102,034.80 | Fire |
| RICHARD HUTCHINSON | $101,822.16 | |
| JOHN PIERSON | $101,524.92 | |
| HUGH BERRY | $100,488.84 | Assistant City Manager |
| WILLIAM KENDRICK | $100,194.48 | Police |
Remember… public employee pensions are negotiated between the unions and our city council. It’s time to figure out who has been representing the taxpayers and who has been sticking up for the unions.