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March 8, 2010March 8, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Register Picks Up On Daly’s $50K Hall of Shame

UPDATE: ALTHOUGH THIS STORY BY MS. MUIR APPEARED ON-LINE, APPARENTLY IT DID NOT APPEAR IN ANY PRINT EDITION – CAUSING SOME OF OUR FRIENDS TO WONDER WHAT SORT OF THRESHOLD OF PUBLIC MISFEASANCE/MALFEASANCE NEEDS TO BE SURMOUNTED IN ORDER TO ACTUALLY BE PRINTED BY THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER.

THE ANSWER: WE DON’T KNOW. BUT MUST IT MUST BE PRETTY HIGH.

WELL, I’VE GOT MORE GOOD STUFF ON DALY AND WE’LL SEE IF THAT’S OF ANY INTEREST TO THEM.

– Grover Cleveland

Jennifer Muir of the OC Register picked up on the Brett Barbre hall of fame brainstormin’ fiasco that cost the taxpayers $48,000 – courtesy of County Clerk Tom Daly’s reckless largess with our money. Interestingly, Muir cites a County rule that any expenditure more than $50,000 has to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. Hmm.

Daly Really2 — I am a fiscal conservative. I am a fiscal conservative. I am... aw the hell with it.

The funniest quote in Muir’s piece was Daly claiming that the whole deal was within his purview and that he paid Barbre for ideas, not “long reports.” Of course he got neither.

Barbre2 — Worked my synapes to the bone, I tells ya...

Hilariously, Barbre claims to have worked 40 hours a month on the project. That would be an average of 2 hours a day. Every working day. For 18 months. That’s 720 hours – with nothing to show for it. Is there a single person in OC stupid enough to believe any of that?

He seemed to be soliciting sympathy with the big revelation to Muir that a trip he made to Boston was paid for out of his own pocket! What self sacrifice!

Barbre also seemed indignant that somebody (us) might imply a nexus between his windfall and the $1000 he gave to Daly’s supervisorial campaign. His self-exoneration? He didn’t even give Daly the maximum amount of $1700! What a guy.

Additionally, we have received an e-mail that really sheds light onto just how feeble Barbre’s and Daly’s “research” efforts really were. Here it is:

Subject: Orange County Sports Hall of Fame

I am a founder of the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame. We began in 1980 with a huge banquet at the Anaheim Convention Center. Over the years, we inducted more than 70 athletes, coaches and contributors from Walter Johnson and Mickey Flynn to Jack Youngblood and Jim Fregosi. We eventually had a museum at Anaheim Stadium that has since been replaced by Angel offices (our artifacts are in storage). Nobody contacted me or other founders (including Cal State Fullerton Sports Information Director Mel Franks and long-time OC business and political leader Buck Johns) regarding research into a Hall of Fame — that existed 30 years ago. If someone was paid nearly $50,000 to do research they did an amazingly poor job. Sincerely, Pete Donovan

Thanks for the e-mail, Mr. Donovan. Just as we expected.

March 8, 2010March 8, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Why Is Janet Nguyen Increasing Staffing In the 4th District Office?

by Mr. Peabody10 Comments

We have heard from reliable sources that Board of Supervisor Chair, Janet Nguyen, has very recently hired two individuals to join the remaining staff in Chris Norby’s ex-office. How?

Under board policy the chairman is supposed to take oversight of that District office.

But, I have to wonder why.

Since there is no longer a supervisor to report to, and hence no staff work preparatory to supervisor’s meetings, the staff should be reduced, not increased. There would seem to be less “constituency” type work to be done since there is no supervisor to direct it, and in any case the replacement election is just three short months away. So what gives?

Is Nguyen just planting “her” people in the office to report back to her directly? And are these “her” people that she intends to keep in place in the wildly remote chance that her boy Harry Sidhu should actually win the upcoming election?

Hmm. More “fiscal conservatism?”

March 8, 2010March 8, 2010About Us

He Went to Boston But Couldn’t Make a Local Phone Call; Original Hall of Fame Founder Calls BS on Daly/Barbre

by Grover Cleveland8 Comments

It’s looking like County Clerk Tom Daly figures he can peddle any old bullshit to a Register reporter and get away with it. And he probably figures on an easy re-election this spring. That’s the arrogance of a career politician for you.

When questioned by the Reg’s Jennifer Muir about his sports hall of fame fiasco in which he paid “consultant” and campaign contributor Brett Barbre $48,000 to “study” the notion, Daly said he paid Barbre for “ideas, not long reports.” Not quite right, Mr. Daly. See, we read your contract with Barbre even if you didn’t. He was supposed to be doing research on the feasiblity of the scheme – a scheme, by the way, that falls way outside the County Clerk’s job description. That specifically included contacting similar entities.

And here’s the kicker: we already had a hall of fame in the County – which apparently was located in Angel’s Stadium in the 80s and subsequently mothballed. And we got an e-mail from a gent who says he was one of the founders: Pete Donovan. Mr. Donovan asserts that nobody ever contacted him or fellow founders about this idea. Here’s Donovan’s e-mail:

Subject: Orange County Sports Hall of Fame

Gee. Barbre had time to go to Boston to “study” the issue at Fenway Park, but not not enough time to make a couple of local calls to people who had already given it a go. Come to think of it, maybe those were exactly the people Barbre and Daly didn’t want to talk to!

Well, that pretty well sums up the incompetence and/or corruption of the whole stinking pile.

Want your $48,000 back?

March 7, 2010March 7, 2010About Us

FFFF Goes Mobile

by Travis6 Comments

Can’t get enough FFFF? Now you can point your phone to fullertonsfuture.org for a mobile-optimized version of your favorite Fullerton blog.

While you’re at it, don’t forget to join the Friends for Fullerton’s Future Facebook page. Invite your friends too.

March 6, 2010March 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Another Day, Another Embarrassment For Sidhu

by Joe Sipowicz10 Comments

Harry'sFriend — My good friend Chriss came this close to beating the rap...

Reading Harry Sidhu’s list of endorsers really makes you pause. I checked out the list of “honorary host committee members” to his upcoming fundraiser.

Oh, look! There’s Brett Barbre, the OC Municipal Water District creep who gouged County taxpayers for $48,000 to study an athletic hall of fame, and who kicked back a $1000 campaign contribution to Tom Daly – they guy who gave him the do-nothing job at our expense.

Easy Street — I think Harry has a bright future...even brighter than mine.

Look again and you see the name Chriss Street, the County Treasurer who yesterday was found guilty by a judge of breaching his fiduciary obligation by systematically plundering a business trust that was his responsibility. He was ordered to pay over $7,000,000 by the judge in the case. John Moorlach has called for his immediate resignation.

And Street had previously gotten into hot water by having hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of remodeling work done at his office without soliciting bids. How did he do that? He split up the work into dozens of small purchase orders. He also got County employees to dummy up fake bid solicitations after the fact. Chris Prevatt did a pretty good job describing the DAs subsequent whitewash, here.

What slimy rocks does Sidhu turn over to find these miscreants?

March 5, 2010March 5, 2010Arts & Architecture

Friday Haiku

by Yoshii The Bushido Poet3 Comments

A wall of green sea

The tsunami came and left

A feast of roast pork

March 5, 2010March 5, 201072nd Election

More On The Duvall Saga: The OC/Sacto GOP Angle

by admin8 Comments

After my meeting with Mike Duvall the other day, I decided to see If I could learn anything more about the events of last summer that led to Mike’s ultimate resignation as the 72nd District State Assemblymen.

One of our good Friends happens to know a well-placed legislative aide who works in Sacramento and who, I was told, could help fill in some of the gaps. So I called this person.

According to this individual, it is not at all unusual for legislative staffers to request audio records of committee meetings; in fact it is a fairly standard practice. Thus, the fact that Jeff Miller’s aide requested a record of the meeting doesn’t signify any sort of prior conspiracy by Miller – or anyone else for that matter. My source logically pointed out that Miller, to a lesser extent, ended up getting painted by the same brush as Duvall.

Instead what this person says happened is that the embarrassing audio record did end up in the wrong hands – at least as far as Duvall is concerned. My source indicates that Duvall’s personal enemy Jon Fleischman did indeed come to possess a copy of the tape; and sometime between July 2009 and late August 2009 orchestrated the leak of the information to KCAL’s Dave Lopez and the OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley.

Although Fleischman’s motives were said to be personal, others such as OC Republican power broker Mike Schroeder were also aware of the impending ambush, according to my source, although Schroeder’s motives for participating in Fleishman’s scheme in some way or other were not made abundantly clear.

Schroeder and Fleischman. Who knew about the impending ambush ahead of time? — Schroeder and Fleischman. Who else beside Fleischman knew about the impending storm?

As with my interview with Duvall, I can not immediately confirm the veracity of my source’s information, and the journalists in question will surely not reveal their source(s). Still, our insider is indeed well-placed to know what happened and I confer a certain level of credence to the story.

What is still unknown is what other high-level Republicans knew of the tape, it’s impending release, and the obvious political fallout from that release. If indeed Fleischman was the mastermind of the Duvall ambush, it is very hard to believe he would dare to do so without the consent of at least some of the OC Republican ruling party bosses – folks such as Schroeder, Dick Ackerman, and even Party Chairman, Scott Baugh. Why these party worthies would prefer, or even allow a public scandal instead of a quiet resignation by Duvall is something we may contemplate at our leisure.

However, as I noted yesterday, discussion of the Linda Ackerman candidacy on the integrity platform seemed to appear on cue, if way out of left field, before the ink had even dried on Duvall’s letter of resignation.

March 4, 2010March 5, 201072nd Election

My Lunch With Mike. Mike Duvall, That Is

by admin37 Comments

UPDATE: I HAVE POSTED A FOLLOW-UP STORY HERE, ABOUT THE SPECIAL OC ANGLE OF THE STORY.

It must be tough when just about everything anybody says about you is prefaced with the words “disgraced former assemblyman.” But that’s what Mike Duvall lives with every day.

On Wednesday I had lunch with Duvall.

Now, I’ve known Mike for a long time and thought that it would be interesting to hear his take on the events of last summer that led to his resignation and replacement as our State Assemblyman by Chris Norby. And he seemed eager to tell his side of the story.

Duvall has lost a lot of weight and looks pretty good. He attributes this to getting exercise and is benefiting from being away from the non-stop Sacramento smorgasbord provided courtesy of all those lobbyists. Well, I guess every cloud has it’s silver lining.

We met at Mike’s office and later moseyed on out for lunch. As our meeting progressed, Duvall shared his thoughts about what happened last summer.

Duvall said that he had become well known in Sacramento for “rocking the boats” of other legislators, and that fact may have been at the root of the events that transpired. He was known, he said, for his unorthodox attitude to Sacramento, even upon one occasion, introducing some of his biker buddies into the Capitol.

Although he can not fully explain their motives, Duvall stated that he believe the likeliest scenario is that he was set up by a conspiracy involving Jeff Miller, the assemblyman from Corona, and his aide. He believes the whole thing was either orchestrated or exploited by Republican operative Jon Fleischman, likely in retaliation for the forced resignation of Fleischman’s wife, a former employee in Duvall’s local office. He claimed that Fleischman had become extremely hostile to him personally.

According to Duvall the “hot mike” on the day his comments were recorded was Miller’s, not his; that in retrospect Miller seemed to coach the conversation into its lewd direction; and that Millers aide almost immediately went to retrieve a copy of the recording. Duvall stuck to his story that his comments were not a true revelation of anything that actually happened, and in fact he was just repeating stuff told to him about another legislator altogether.

When I asked him what Jeff Miller’s motive was to cooperate in the alleged set-up, Duvall speculated that it might have been done, at least in part to take heat off of him from the KFI John and Ken team who had been mercilessly attacking Miller, and who subsequently appeared to have stopped their attacks.

What still remains a mystery, except to the participants, and not explained by Duvall, are the events that transpired between July 2009, when the recording was made, and late August, 2009 when the story finally broke. Almost two months passed.

I have previously wondered about the on the role of Ackerman, Inc. in events of July-September 2009, since on September 10th Linda Ackerman received and responded to an almost immediate communication from the Register’s Martin Wisckol about her possible candidacy – while she was vacationing in Europe. It struck me as very odd that Linda Ackerman’s name would suddenly occur to Wisckol out of the blue without previous coaching. Duvall couldn’t shed any light on that.

But when I asked Duvall if he thought his support for the OC County Fair last summer might have played a role in the motive of someone trying to get rid of him, he acknowledged the possibility.

Is Duvall telling the whole story? Was he really set up, or was it simply the case that his unfortunate comments, true or not, were exploited by political enemies after the fact? The passage of the two month period and then the sudden revelation has all the earmarks of an orchestrated attempt to get rid of him.

The story about a conspiracy to set him up certainly sounds plausible. But without any real evidence to support his claims, Mike Duvall is going to have a hard time convincing a skeptics of his innocence.

March 4, 2010March 4, 2010Harry Sidhu

Game On! Nelson Hits Office-Hungry Truth-Challenged Carpetbagger Sidhu

by The Desert Rat31 Comments

March 2, 2010March 2, 2010Big Brother

An Interview with Bill Hunt – Marijuana and States’ Rights

by Greg Sebourn11 Comments

Last night, FFFF’s Travis Kiger, Fullerton businessman Larry Lazar and myself sat down with Bill Hunt, 2010 candidate for Orange County Sheriff. The roundtable discussion was an opportunity to ask some important questions that we think are on the minds of voters. No topic was off-limits.

We will share with you what Hunt had to say about Marijuana, concealed weapon permits (CCW), citizen oversight, DUI checkpoints, illegal immigration, Sandra Hutchens, Craig Hunter, emerging technology, OC political insiders, controversial endorsement by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, OC jail reform, and dealing with federal agencies.

The lengthy discussion yielded too much information for us to share with you all at once, so we will be breaking it down into topics of interest. For that matter, we will not be spelling out every single word said only because this series of posts would soon turn into a full-length novel.

First Impressions

To my surprise, Bill Hunt arrived by himself with no handlers or henchmen. As our discussion progressed, it was clear why he came alone. Bill Hunt told us that he does not need anyone reminding him of where he stands on any issue. In fact, he didn’t lay out his talking points or any of the shenanigans that you might expect a typical politician to do. Hunt is an energetic man who has spent a tremendous amount of time and thought on the development of his platform and studying what lays ahead for his political race and the Sheriff’s Department. He is well-read and seems to possess new perspectives and insight on old problems. Bill Hunt clearly has an in‑depth knowledge of the crisis that faces the Sheriff’s Department and jail system. He presented some out-of-the-box innovations, leaving us with the hope that he would serve the People well.

Bill Hunt on Marijuana

No, the South County candidate for sheriff isn’t ON marijuana but we did ask him about the subject. Bill made it clear that he isn’t in favor of legalizing pot but that he respects the will of the people.

FFFF: “If you are elected sheriff and the DEA came into OC and asked OCSD to help shut down medical marijuana dispensaries, would you oblige them with support?”

Bill Hunt: “No. I would prevent them, it’s unconstitutional! I’m not an advocate for legalizing marijuana but on the other hand the sheriff is elected to enforce state laws. So, if I’m elected sheriff to this county enforcing state law and I’m using federal law to circumvent state law, then I’m not really being true to my office and my oath of office. The sheriff can prevent the feds from coming in and doing that.”

Hunt goes on to say, “Medical marijuana is legal within certain parameters, just like alcohol is. If a kid is drinking alcohol or if you’re drunk driving, it’s a violation of law and we’ll enforce it. The same thing with people who extend beyond the legal limits of medical marijuana, we’ll enforce that. But we [law enforcement] can’t be taking a vendetta just because the general consensus in law enforcement is they [law enforcement officers] don’t like it. The public has already ruled. Now, I think it’s a zoning problem, a business problem, not a law enforcement problem. The cities need to get together and regulate it just like they tattoo shops and bars just like their CUP’s [conditional use permits] provide. It’s a regulatory issue, I think, right now more than law enforcement.”