Friends For Fullerton's Future

January 28, 2010January 28, 2010Harry Sidhu

They’re Baaaack!

Those boys need to learn about cash for clunkers...

Yup. Those bad boys in the white van were spotted in the Linbrook Bowl Lanes parking lot yesterday. The mescaline and the revolving bowling pin may have provoked some transcendental moments, but apparently the fellas got down to work because they forwarded an audio file. There is a lot of interference on it that sounds like the crashing of bowling pins, so we have had to deploy our expert audio forensic team create a transcript. And here it is:

(sound of phone ringing)

Scott Taylor: Hello?

Harry Sidhu: Uh, Scott. This is Harry.

ST: Where the hell are you?

HS: Well, I am here at the Calabria. I think I was being followed so I came over here. Just to be safe, you know.

ST: Followed? Aw, Hell. Tim Clark is with me. I’ll put you on speaker.

HS: Oh! Hello Tim! How are things going in my campaign.

Tim Clark: Well, we’re trying. I’ll be honest Harry. There’s still a lot of stink on you from that ass-kicking Mimi laid down on you in 08. Geez she won every precinct in Anaheim. Then running so soon after your re-election to the Council – our polls say that people think you’re just desperate for a higher political job.

HS: Yes, jobs.

TC: Huh?

HS: I am a job creator.

TC: Ah, gee Harry. People in our poll weren’t impressed by minimum wage job creation. They didn’t seem impressed no matter how hard we pushed.

HS: Jobs.

ST: Um, focus, Harry.

HS: Jobs. Enterprise zone. Small business.

ST: Yeah. Okay. Okay. This carpetbagging thing is tough. Carol Rudat took it on the chops over this and it just killed Linda Ackerman and they’re gonna keep hammering that one. No way around it. For chrissakes just don’t get caught going home at night, Harry. Jesus, we’ll end up with Dave Lopez at the gate!

HS: Well, you know, those peacocks don’t feed themselves. Somebody has to do it.

TC: Okay focus, guys.

ST: What are we gonna pitch? Harry do you know anything about the County government?

HS: Jobs? I went to Norby’s office all the time. I will tell them I am just like Norby, only richer.

ST: Um, better not do that. We need something, you know, specific. Anything, really.

(prolonged silence)

Well, don’t worry, I guess we can cook up something.

HS: Well my friends that is why I have hired you. Oh! Now look at that would you. What a filthy disgrace! A dirty white van behind the wall spewing fumes.

Ah! And look at the time! I must be going, um, well, you know – home.

(at this point the telecommunication was terminated)

January 27, 2010OC's Fourth District

Tom Daly: Career Politician Who Wears the Union Label

by admin16 Comments

Well you heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Tom Daly has and will be beholden to the public employee unions. He tries to put a fig leaf over this ugly fact by describing the unions as his neighbors with a stake in the “quality of life” of his community. Notice how Daly conveniently confuses the individual with the collective? What a hoot!

Well I hate to break the news to you Mr. Daly, but it’s the public unions and their never ending fiscal demands that have pushed our cities, our county, and our state to near-insolvency and dismal credit ratings. And the citizenry has finally gotten wise.

Say good night, Tom.

January 26, 2010January 26, 2010Former Fullerton Councilmembers

More Fun at NUFF Forum: The Flory Blurt

by Jan Florys Dog8 Comments

Looking down from Doggy Heaven at last night’s NUFF forum I noticed my former mistress Jan Flory in attendance. At one point during Shawn Nelson’s observation that County bureaucrats were hardly a necessity to get hitched, my one-time owner blurted a loud ejaculation.

It sounded like “who’s going to marry you?”

Well, that’s a Hell of a stupid question, besides being pretty rude to someone who’s speaking, but that’s my mistress for you. Of course if anybody pulled that stunt on her she would have smacked them with the business end of her broomstick.

FloryBird — Defender of traditional marriage - the kind performed by a County bureaucrat!

Anyway, I’ll tell you who will marry people: their priests; their rabbis; their ministers; their ashram maharishis. Who cares? Why should a civil servant in a plastic robe do it under a dopey arch of fake flowers?

Jeez, I can figure that out and I’m just a dog.

January 26, 2010January 26, 2010Dead heads

Red Going Mauve

by admin14 Comments

Right on cue, Cynthia Ward AKA “Colony Rabble” the newest blogger at the Purpling County blog tossed a bouquet to her soul mate whom she “just loves to death,” Democrat Tom Daly.

FFFF has previously noted here and here that Ms. Ward’s presence on a supposedly conservative blog was merely to promote the candidacy of Daly – which can’t be done out in the open by Matthew Cunningham, the blog’s editor, who has been indirectly promoting the Daly candidacy on behalf of his boss John Lewis for almost a year. Repuglicanism at its very worst.

Her post is nothing but a big, sloppy wet kiss for Daly – for his supposedly sparkling performance at the 4th Supervisorial District candidate’s forum held in Fullerton last night. Apart from the fact that Daly is a Democrat who proudly announced his pride in accepting union contributions, his perfomance at the forum was anything but superlative.

And that’s the snag in the script. Daly was truly awful. I was there taping the event. He actually seemed like he was underwater. His performance was not engaging and just seemed “phoned in.” He really did appear like somebody just going through the motions, and keeping his employment options open.

He even waffled hard on the High Speed Rail project, Ward’s pet project du jour. But it hardly matters. Her screenplay is already written.

It will be interesting to see whether Red County blog boss Chip Hanlon goes along with this nonsense. Only last week he was reacting enthusiastically to the Scott Baugh Manifesto, that not only denounced public union money but excoriated Democrats.

January 26, 2010January 26, 2010OC's Fourth District

NUFF Forum Comes, Goes. A Little Learned, But Not Much

by The Fullerton Shadow42 Comments

If avoiding specifics, dodging straight answers, and putting ignorance on public display were virtues, then the crop of 4th District supervisorial candidates at the NUFF forum were virtuous in the extreme.

An hour and half of questioning produced almost nothing in the way of inspired leadership and mostly cliched responses to pretty specific questions directed by the Register’s Jennifer Muir. They all agreed that north County was getting screwed on park funds (or lack of same), that yacht owners should pay something toward patrolling Newport Harbor, and that there was going to have to be a multi-tiered pension system in the future. Well, that’s just stating the obvious.

Here’s a brief and summation of the candidates and how they comported themselves.

faher_r — He may be slow getting warmed up...

1. Richard Faher. Incapable of constructing a concise, intelligent answer. If someone really wanted an excuse to get drunk they could do a Richard Faher Drinking Game and take a shot every time he starts a sentence with the word “okay.” Faher did provide the amusing highlight of the evening when he thanked “Friends for Fullerton” for putting on the event. Gee, you’re welcome, Richard!

rose_espinoza_medium — Wait, let me go collaborate with my city manager...

2. Rose Espinosa. Despite the attempts by the Local Left to paint her as some sort of credible politician, she came across as, well, just plain dumb. And by dumb I mean a sack of door knobs kind of dumb. And ignorant. She appeared perfectly clueless about County issues and kept deferring to what others had said. She spoke in the lamest sort of generalities about every single question put to her. She repeatedly referred to getting her information from her city manager, and that’s bad. She talked about “collaboration” several times. Ouch.

3. Shawn Nelson. Came across as pretty articulate and knowledgeable about the ongoing harbor patrol budget scandal. His statements about getting County government smaller and less intrusive was cliched stuff right out of the GOP playbook, but his comments about why the Clerk/Recorder performs marriage ceremonies was right on. He also may have surprised some by his observation that the County’s current lawsuit against the Deputy Sheriff’s retroactive pension spike was a sure loser, and that he would share information on-line about all meetings with lobbyists. But he dodged answering the specific question about supporting regulating those lobbyists.

Nelson also took credit for courage in supporting Sharon Quirk to be mayor of Fullerton. That elicited snickers from many of the NUFFsters and maybe even from Pam Keller who was sitting toward the back of the room.

4. Tom Daly. He appeared to have popped too many quaaludes before the program, but maybe that’s just his style. He talked a lot about all that he got done as mayor of Anaheim, perhaps hoping that the NUFFsters were unaware that the Anaheim mayor is simply one of five votes. He appeared to be the the most knowledgeable about the way the County government is actually constituted, but that sort of familiarity comes with a price tag: career politician; and it did not produce any inspired ideas of reform, restructuring or right-sizing.

Daly took some oblique shots at Chris Norby for failing to deliver park funds which was fun because Norby was hovering in the back of the room like the amiable chorus in an Aristophanes comedy. Whether Norby was even paying attention is unknown, though unlikely.

At the end Daly rolled out his big guns. 1) He was opening his satellite office in Fullerton on Sunday, Feb. 14 to perform bureaucrat weddings (no mention about paying employees overtime to do it); 2) he had worked out a deal with the Lincoln Library to host a road show of Old Abe memorabilia. This produced some chuckles later in the FFFF editorial room as we recalled our post on Daly and another dead Republican.

Two Chickens — Harry and Lorri ponder the perplexing crossing of the 91 Freeway

5 & 6. Harry Sidhu and Lorri Galloway both took a powder. They were not missed. Their presence would no doubt have simply added another half an hour to an already pretty depressing evening. Still, credit to the NUFFsters for putting the event together, and shame on Sidhu and Galloway for blowing it off. Were they afraid of having to deal with the carpetbagging issue, or just their inability to talk cogently about bedeviling County problems? They needn’t have worried.

January 25, 2010January 26, 2010Harry Sidhu

Carpetbaggers Skip Out. Leave NUFF Holding Bag

by The Fullerton Shadow20 Comments

The other day we mentioned the 4th District Supervisor candidate forum sponsored by Neighbors United for Fullerton (NUFF) held tonight at the Fullerton Main Library.

The Register’s Jennifer Muir is the moderator and has posted a piece about the event, here. Apparently two of the would-be Supes aren’t going to be there; and coincidentally both – Harry Sidhu and Lorri Galloway are carpetbaggers. Harry is pretending that he lives in a crummy pink stucco tenement behind the Linbrook Bowl; Lorri that she lives in an old relocated house converted to professional use on the busy corner of Lincoln Avenue and East Street.

Harry’s a no show.

Sidhu’s excuse for skipping the event is pretty standard: out of town on business. Galloway, on the other hand refuses to attend because the filing deadline hasn’t arrived and and she says one of the candidates may not be running! She asks for a re-schedule after the deadline!

Galloway is used to having people bend over backwards to accommodate her, but she can’t be serious. Does she really want to reschedule? Or could it really be that she’s not quite sure how to handle the carpetbagging and residency issues that her political ambitions have created; and that she has such a feeble grasp of County issues that she wants to avoid humiliating herself. Come to think of it, Harry won’t be able to bring his ghost writer with him and he could be in for a rough time improvisation-wise.

lorrisfortune — You will soon make a fool of yourself

Either way, north Orange Countians are going to miss an opportunity that Anaheim council watchers enjoy twice a month: to actually see Sidhu and Galloway in action. Apparently the show is entertaining.

January 25, 2010January 25, 2010Pam Keller

Why Is Pam Keller’s Roe v. Wade “Celebration” Relevant?

by Travis9 Comments

Last week I published a blog post on Pam Keller’s pending participation in a Roe vs. Wade “celebration”. Several commenters responded with angry challenges to the post, asking why Keller’s stance on abortion is relevant to Fullerton and her upcoming attempt at re-election.

First off, the post itself was not about her stance on abortion; rather, it discussed her participation in a political event… a highly-politicized event that boasted an attendee list of political figures at various levels of political importance – certainly nothing beyond the scope of a political blog. Regardless of how you feel about abortion, participation in a “celebration” of such a contentious nature is certainly news.

Second, who can say that a national issue will never become local? Almost every federal matter eventually makes it’s way to the local level in some inane form or another. War memorials, gun laws, medical marijuana come to mind. It was only a few months ago that abortion became an issue at the county level. Americans live under at least four basic levels of government, all of which have ever-expanding jurisdictional tendencies. It would be naive to pretend that we know about every issue that will come before an elected over the course of four years.

And finally, there are plenty of voters who consider abortion to be a simple issue of respect for basic human rights, a concept that transcends all levels of government. For those individuals, the post may serve as simple news of Pam Keller’s stance on the issue. If Pam didn’t want voters to consider her position on abortion then she would not have included her name in the press release.

January 23, 2010January 23, 201072nd Election

The Scott Baugh Manifesto

by The Desert Rat7 Comments

Last week the OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh addressed his cohorts at the periodic Republican Central Committee meeting.

His speech was much anticipated and much commented about the next day in such venues where anybody gives a damn about what Baugh has to say. I waited a few days to display my disdain for such antics.

It seems Mr. Baugh tried to channel some of the angry energy of the “Tea Party” movement to zap some life into his team.

Baugh unloaded on RINOs; on candidates who get the GOP endorsement and then take public union money; on the “slick consultants” who call the shots. It must have sounded pretty good to the true believers in the audience; but the Repuglican cadre that has turned Orange County into its own little plantation – people like John Lewis and Ackerman, Inc. must have rolled their eyes a bit. Electeds in the audience who gladly took money from police and fire unions were no doubt (quietly) offended and/or frightened, depending on their dispositions, and this includes just about every Republican city councilman and Supervisor in the County.

I’ve got four problems with Mr. Baugh’s manifesto.

First he coughed up a speech very much like it last year in the wake of the epic McCain disaster and a year of Democrat rule. Apparently not much came of that one; so why expect anything else from the ‘Pugs?

Second, he seems to have failed to address the virus of office seeking that infects the party and that has been manifested in the Ackerwoman and now Harry Sidhu strains. In fact, Baugh was a supporter of Linda Ackerwoman and her fraudulent campaign of deceit in the 72nd – which pretty much tells you all you need to know about him.

Third, the idea that a candidate can’t take the money of a public employee union and still represent the public interest is curious. By the same logic these folks would be unable to resist the blandishments of corporate lobbyists who donate to their campaigns. Hmm.

Finally, Baugh ignores the wider problem of Repuglicanism – the malady of being a Republican for fun and especially profit. Calling for ideological purity seems to ring hollow when it’s pretty evident that the game is being played for one’s own pecuniary interest. Will we ever hear Baugh denounce Curt Pringle’s 50 billion dollar high speed idiocy? Probably not. Baugh uses his own political connections to lobby here and there, including a highly lucrative contract awarded by fellow ‘Pugs on the Board of Supervisors to lobby in Sacramento.

So in the end, to quote the Bard, here’s what I see in Baugh’s address: a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.

January 22, 2010January 23, 2010Behind Closed Doors

As The Colony Turns: Funny Business at the Anaheim Planning Department?

by The Fullerton Shadow6 Comments

First of all, we here at FFFF don’t profess to be experts on urban planning, but something doesn’t seem quite kosher down in our neighbor to the south.

Our Intrepid Travis just got word from one of his Colony sources that the City of Anaheim is now smiling on the legality of Lorri Galloway’s 4th District carpetbagging rental residence in a house located in their “light office professional” (O-P) zone. Check it out. Why is the City smiling? Because apparently they believe that since the fake “carriage house” on site has a studio apartment in it, the whole Taormina property is wide open for residential use.

Hmm. Now that’s quite a leap, but not all that surprising given that Lorri Galloway is an Anaheim city councilmember and Taormina is a big Anaheim property owner and political big shot. So is the story over? We wonder. Consider a few facts.

First, the land use is O-P, within the commercial zoning division, as noted above. The Anaheim commercial zoning code tables provide for no residential uses in the O-P zone at all. None. The city does have a defined “mixed use” overlay zone, but it does not appear at all on the zoning map legend, and it is not shown applying to the property in question. So what gives? How did Taormina get a residential unit on that property in the first place?

Let’s say for the sake of argument that there is indeed a “mixed use” overlay on this O-P property, that is not reflected on the zoning map. The Mixed Use zone definition clearly states that there shall be a commercial use on the ground floor facing the street (modified only by Conditional use permit); and that a Conditional Use Permit shall determine the number of live/work units. So unless Lorri is inhabiting only the upper floor of that house, she needs a CUP. And furthermore Taormina not only needed a CUP to establish a residential use in the first place (if in fact there was an MU overlay), he would need to either modify it or get a new CUP to expand the number of existing MU units.

And here’s another thought: if the existing residential unit does not meet code then it is hard to see how an expansion of it is justifiable especially when expansion of even a legal non-conforming use is generally prohibited in land use law.

Ah, well. Let Heaven and Earth be moved to accommodate Galloway’s carpetbagging! And let the Colonists bang their tabors and joyously welcome their new, well-connected neighbor!

January 22, 2010January 22, 2010Orange County Government

Pam Keller Celebrates Abortion

by Travis51 Comments

Here’s a bold political move…

It was just announced that Pam Keller will soon be attending the “37th Anniversary Roe v. Wade Celebration” in Newport Beach. There she will join OC’s other liberal ladies such as Loretta Sanchez, Beth Krom and Rose Espinoza to relish in their legal ability to terminate the life of an unwanted human being.

Amongst her close political allies, the right to abort a fetus probably represents some kind of crowning achievement in the exhausted fight for women’s liberation.

But to many in conservative Orange County, abortion is the ultimate violation of human rights against a living being. In fact, many of the sleepy voters who voted for the smiling school teacher in the last election might find the conspicuous “celebration” of this act highly offensive.