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.
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:
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.
On Tuesday the Fullerton City Council split from its own policy and procedures when it appointed Paul Webb to the OC Vector Board – to replace the ever- increasingly brittle Dick Jones.
The City Council’s policy has been to publicly advertise when a position is open for a committee or a commission. In this case, it should have either gone to Pam Keller who wanted to serve on the Vector Board or it should have been selected through an open and competitive interview process. Bankhead, Jones, and Nelson gave the job to Webb after an obvious behind-the-scenes arrangement. Once the obvious fix was in then Keller and Quirk went along for the ride. No bueno!
Anyway just for fun, listen to Paul Webb’s loopy statement about why he doesn’t have a conflict, and decide for yourselves if this is someone you think should represent Fullerton on a County board.
“It’s good to be king!” Indeed, if you are Cal State Fullerton’s president, Milton Gordon, you are living the good life at the old Chapman family property known as the El Dorado Ranch at 225 West Union Avenue. Gordon’s residence is a sprawling 4+ acre palatial estate sitting high in the Fullerton hills overlooking the commoners eking out a living below and no longer appears to be a working ranch despite its name.
The 8+ room mansion may be slightly dated from the 1950s but the age is compensated for by the 8 bathrooms! The nearly 6,000-sqft palace was a gift to Cal State Fullerton back in 1989 from C.J. Chapman, Jr., Mary Anne Baine, Elizabeth E. Bowman. They also gave the Cal State Fullerton Foundation $159,000 for maintenance. Currently, this enormous public property is valued at $3,351,724 for tax assessment purposes (although the property is exempt from actually incurring property taxes). I would guess the value to be more like $4,000,000 in a “normal” economy. The secluded compound is an excellent destination for Fullerton residents and tourists alike to visit although there is no formal docent to guide you.
The real kicker is that the Chapmans stipulated in an agreement with the State that we, the taxpayers, have to house the university president there and maintain the houses and property. Notice that I said “houses”? That’s because there is also a guest house on the property to house the president’s assistant. Nice perk for being an assistant to a university president.
It would have been nice if the Chapmans would have sold the property out-right and used the proceeds for a scholarship endowment. The money would go to those who need it the most. Milton A. Gordon is among the highest paid public employees earning $302,042 according to the Sacramento Bee! I guess it’s hard to afford a Fullerton home on $302,042 per year.
The Chapman family has given and given and given to Orange County residents in one way or another, for many years. We have all benefited from them in several ways. Every time I have someone from out of town visit me at my college, I have to specify “Chapman Avenue in ORANGE, NOT FULLERTON.” Then when I have out-of-towners visit mom, I have to specify, “Chapman Avenue in FULLERTON, NOT ORANGE.” They still get it wrong… In 1954 the Chapman’s were nice enough to build that nice university bearing their name where your son or daughter can attend for $18,750 per semester.
Here is an interesting fact: Milton A. Gordon was named CSU Fullerton president in August, 1990. So it seems that the Chapman’s and Gordon timed it just right to get the El Dorado Ranch in the hands of Gordon. Gordon being a mathematician could do the math and see the sweet deal, leading me to wonder what more there might be to this back story. For Gordon, it’s still good to be king!
The other day I described how Republican Mayor Curt Pringle made some big bucks as a lobbyist for the so-called Children and Families Commission, a by-product of the 1998 liberal feel-good Proposition 10 that placed a new tax on tobacco and redistributed the dough to the Government Kiddie Bureaucracy. I promised to shake the branches of this tree to see what other strange fruits might tumble out. Well, Lo and Behold.
Matthew "it takes a village to raise a child" Cunningham
It turns out that Matthew J. Cunningham who masquerades as a local “conservative” blogger may be the biggest big government gravy slurpers at the Children and Families Commission trough.
As he pontificates about the joys of small government on his blog, Cunningham is making a killing as a PR flack for the ultra-liberal Commission and it’s professional do-gooders. And why not? His buddies Bill Campbell and Hugh Hewitt are/were on the Commission when he started his lucrative shill-meistering and wordsmithery for a government bureaucracy, and it’s hard to conceive that his uberboss, John Lewis wasn’t somehow responsible for directing this huge windfall to its rather unlikely recipient.
Here are the fun facts of the Cunningham contracts with the Commission:
Contract 230 July 6, 2005 $ 25,000
Contract 227 May 2 2007 $100,000
Contract 227A May 7, 2008 $195,000
Contract 264 June 3, 2009 $185,000
Hey you poor hungry kids out there: that’s almost half a million bucks in just three years to a guy who couldn’t even proof read his own website! And let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of dollars dished out to Pringle and the White House Writers Group.
And if you look at the Exibit B scope of work attachments you’ll come away hard pressed to see how the scope of work amounts to more than a handful of hours a week, flack-wise. No wonder Intrepid Boy Journalist has so much spare time for his blogging and political punditry.
The biggest challenge for Cunningham appears to be to get conservatives to buy the spin on all this hogwash. And naturally a lot of his “scope” is the usual nebulous “assist the staff” bullshit. Of course we can only wonder at the selection and bidding process at work here.
It’s perfectly clear to me that this opaque and over-funded commission needs complete outside scrutiny with fiscal and performance audits. Maybe Cunningham’s pals at the Grand Jury might want to delve into the doings of this public agency.
And the next time Matthew Cunningham preaches at you that you must believe in the joys of small government and lower taxes, or when he suggests whole village child rearing is Obama socialism, just give him a wink and a nod and try not to stare too hard at the giant scarlet H on his forehead.
This picture of our esteemed City Council done by some kid was recently featured on The Fullerton Observer’s “April Fool’s” back page. There was some sort of attempt at a joke that I didn’t get – probably because the Yellowing Observers are not known for their senses of humor. If you read the stuff you’ll see what I mean.
What I really don’t get is how come of all the council members, Pam Keller’s head appears to be photo-shopped on to this picture from a real photo. You can even see the stitching at the neck.
There’s a story behind this pic. Anybody know what it is? Now I’m really curious to see the original picture to see how the artist captured our Pam.
