Poor Maisie was a great devotee of the Belles Lettres – the smartest gal in Scranton, PA, everybody said. There was even talk of a portrait by John Singer Sargent, though nothing came of it.
Then she wasted away with the Consumption.
Update: Ten days ago I posted this piece about the Fullerton Collaborative’s empty on-line calendar. I opined that maybe it was the executive director’s job to keep it updated, and archly suggested that maybe there wouldn’t be that much on it anyway. We received the usual irrelevant and hardly coherent comment-blather from Collaborative member Minard Duncan informing us all about the wonderful work Keller does.
Well, the calendar is still empty for all of 2010! Apparently Minard didn’t bother to let Keller know that the on-line public has no immediate information about what the Collaborative is up to; or, if he did, Keller decided that she was too busy to catch us up on what she’s planning for 2010. C’mon, Pam. You can’t be that busy!
The Fullerton Collaborative’s website calendar page declares ever so earnestly:
There are so many ways to get involved in our community. During the next few months there will be many fundraisers and community events to benefit local non-profit organizations and educational institutions.
And yet a perusal of the monthly calendars shows nothing. Blank. A completely clean slate, clean for all of 2010, in fact. Check it out if don’t believe me.
Now maybe I’m sort of funny this way, but I figure if you’ve got an executive director whom you are paying over $50K (for a part-time job) that individual ought to be able to at least take a few moments out of her busy day to fill in some of the blanks on the calendar. I mean, that’s Pam Keller’s job isn’t it?
Of course if Keller actually does get around to filling out the calendar, then fellow collaborators and even the public may find out how little fifty-thou buys you nowadays, executive director-wise.
As this blog noticed last year, Keller is not a Collaborative employee, but a Fullerton School District employee contracted to work for the Collaborative – where her job entails raising money from members and donors to pay the FSD for her dubious services. Sweet gig. No boss, no oversight, not even much paperwork.
Maybe in 2010 she can get around to filling in the Collaborative calendar.
UPDATE: THIS ISSUE IS GETTING EVEN MORE FUN. ONE OF OUR FRIENDS HAS INFORMED US THAT ON BOTH THE RED AND BLUE BLOGS A FELLOW NAMED BILL TAORMINA POPPED UP TO DEFEND GALLOWAY. APPARENTLY HE OWNS THE PROPERTY IN QUESTION AND CLAIMS THAT IT IS “MIXED USE” THUS ALLOWING SOMEBODY TO LIVE THERE. HE GALLANTLY OFFERS TO TAKE ALL THE BLAME IF THERE IS A SCREW UP. THE CITY HAS IT LISTED AS OFFICE PROFESSIONAL ZONE.
WILL BILL AND LORRI RECEIVE VISIT FROM CODE ENFORCEMENT? WILL LORRI HAVE TO UNDERGO AN EMBARRASSING RELOCATION ELSEWHERE IN THE COLONY? WILL LORRI JUST PACK UP AND MOVE IN WITH LONELY HARRY AT THE BEAUTIFUL CALABRIA APARTMENTS? STAY TUNED FOR…
AS THE COLONY TURNS…
In what can only be described under the heading “hilarity ensued,” the Red and Blue blog clowns have picked up on our post about carpetbaggin’ Lorri Galloway’s new abode in Anaheim’s historic “Colony District.”
In our post we noticed the address – 1155 E. Lincoln – was in a odd enclave of relocated old houses. One of our Friends observed that the egregious Paul Kott had a commercial real estate sign on the property. At the eerie Red County blog the Colony’s self-appointed grande dame, Cynthia Ward, observed that the zoning was “light commercial/retail” (whatever that is) and thus Galloway’s “residency” constituted a code violation. Looks like she sicc’d code enforcement on Galloway.
We’re not experts on Anaheim zoning so whether a “caretaker” type individual is allowed to live on these premises is not known, to us.
Meanwhile, at the Blue County blog, Dan C-somethingorother – an ardent Galloway swain – typed up an “exclusive” response to the question, purportedly from Galloway herself. It came complete with a picture of Loretta Sanchez – a not too subtle trick by Danny Boy. But this post only made things worse, since according to it Galloway claims to have checked into the legitimacy of her new home with 1) the County Registrar of votes Neal Kelley; and 2) with the Anaheim Public Utililties Department.
Now why on earth would anybody check into this with the ROV and think that would mean anything? That’s just strange. And second, why would Galloway believe the Utilities Department would have any authority in the matter? Did it not occur to this simpleton to simply call up her own Planning Department and inquire? How long has this featherhead been on the Anaheim City Council – five years?
Right on cue, Ward dropped into the Blue miasma, now sharing city info that the Galloway parcel is zoned “low-intensity office,” still a seemingly incompatitble use for a residence.
At the end of the thread Dan C-somethingorother tried to deflect the issue, change the subject, and naturally tried to make it look like the big, bad Republicans were picking on his poor little sweetheart. Newsflash, Dan C.: we’ll beat her at the polls even if she doesn’t belong on the ballot, just like we dealt with Linda Ackerwoman!
Anyway, to us the legality of Lorri’s new home is really just an issue fun for its entertainment value. The real issue for us, of course, is that she, like her council colleague Harry Sidhu, is a carpetbagger from the 3rd Supervisorial District.
UPDATE: One of our eagle-eyed Friends has discovered that Cynthia Ward, aka “Colony Rabble” picked up on this post and shared the news with her fascinated readers over there.
What caught our attention was her statement that we have been deleting her comments over here. That is patently not true. We don’t delete comments here – except in really, really rare instances, and Ms. Ward is far too civil to ever trip our threshold.
– The Fullerton Shadow
Following up on our brilliant post about the carpetbaggin’ Anaheim councilman/billiards aficionado Harry Sidhu taking up residence in the 4th Supervisorial District, we turn our focus on the race’s other carpetbagger – Lorri Galloway, who until recently, lived in the 3rd Supe District along with Harry.
One of our Friends just got an invitation to a campaign coffee klatsch with Lorri “in the comfort” of her “lovely restored historic home” in Anaheim’s Colony District. She seems to have moved into a neighborhood near the busy corner of East St. and Lincoln, in a small enclave carved out by the UP underpass in which the City of Anaheim facilitated an historic preservation petting zoo. Not the greatest neighborhood, to be sure, but a whole helluva lot better than Sidhu’s crib farther west on Lincoln Avenue.
Say, what is it about Lincoln Avenue that attracts Anaheim Hills carpetbaggers?
Last year just before Christmas the Fullerton City Council voted 3-1 to approve the idiotic Richman housing project, a staff-driven boondoggle that makes zero planning, housing, or economic sense. We wrote about it here.
We also wrote about the review of the same fiasco-in-the-making by the Planning Commission here, in which we lauded Commissioner Bruce Whitaker for his solitary stance in opposing it. As the YouTube clip shows, Whitaker objected on economic grounds citing the project’s dubious fiscal foundation.
This position was immediately questioned by Commissioner Lansburg who inquired about it of the city attorney, Tom Duarte:
Commissioner Lansburg: is it within the Commission’s purview to look at this from a financial standpoint or are we only to look at this from a planning standpoint?
The city attorney Mr. Duarte answered: In the commissions purview its a land use issue, the city council will look at the financial impact.
Well, the project was passed by a Commission majority, with only Whitaker dissenting.
Subsequently Commission Chairman Dexter Savage addressed the following communication to staff, seeking clarification of the issue.
And now, Lo and Behold, the issue has been agendized by the City Council; and just look at staff’s response: economic considerations are indeed within the purview of a planning commission in many respects, and are nowhere prohibited.
This response begs several questions. Why did the city’s attorney misinform the commission? Is he incompetent, or was he motivated to press the approval of a project near and dear to the hearts of the city staff, without any reference to the law.
Why did the staff present like (John Godlewski) not correct him? He countersigned the above memorandum contradicting Duarte, yet was at the meeting and said nothing.
The facts can really only be interpreted in one way. Both the attorney and staff were more interested in the approval of the project, no matter how bad, than in the service of the public interest, or the truth, or the law.
Now the entire matter has been brought to the City Council for its enlightenment as agenda item #16 at the January 19, meeting. But it’s really to late for the Richman project – a Redevelopment/housing staff concocted project that has all the tell-tale signs of a disaster in the making.
And Friends: there you have it.
The school is situated in a leafy glen, smack in the middle of a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city in the Southeast United States. We’re here because kid #2 is testing into its upper school. Nervous? Well, we should be, but we know that her K-8 years in Fullerton have prepared her well. She’s had diligent teachers, a solid home environment and the helpful staff at the Richman Boys And Girls Club who’ve been instrumental in taking her and some lucky teenagers through a nationally recognized leadership program. The only thing she hasn’t had, was a laptop. Her school, Beechwood, has never embraced the program or the belief that they were necessary for success.
The private school here is the stuff you dream of: tetherballs in the lower schools situated in the middle of forest surrounded by tall trees. The sixty-five acre campus is awash with nature. Most students have attended since Pre-K and will graduate with their high school diploma. The teachers are vibrant. Many went to Ivy League colleges, and some have doctorates. They come here because they can teach subjects in depth, while enjoying the support of parents and the enthusiasm of children and teens.
Yet, for all its bells and whistles –which are considerable, the school does not allow students to bring laptops on campus. Why? Because everything is provided for them at school. The computer lab looks similar to the ones found at the public high schools in Fullerton, as do the classrooms and library. But, while the computer is heavily used, they also put a lot of stock into writing with paper and pencil –the kind of writing that catches kids off guard, makes them think on their feet without the luxury of googling for facts, that challenges to formulate a story, idea, argument –and support it all on their own. Tiring? You betcha. That’s the point.
So, if a top tier school that has 19 AP courses, whose students apply to an average of 13 colleges, are admitted into the best colleges and universities, and has garnered over $4 million in Merit Scholarships doesn’t support personal laptops in school, why should we?
Granted, a lot of the students could probably well afford it. Most of them might have them at home. But one thing we noticed was that the students were actively engaged with the instructor. In other words, they were being taught how to learn, to interact, to figure things out. They were listening to the ideas of the other students. They weren’t on their laptops, googling, facebooking, or IM’ing.
The Fullerton School District would be far better off taking those precious resources and investing heavily in leadership skills, the humanities, and social skills that will help the students function in times of adversity. Adversity? Of course. As much as parents want to plan their children’s lives, the only certainty in life is that no matter how well you’re doing, bad things and unfortunate times take place. Plans change constantly, and the more we prepare our children for it, the better they will fare. Nothing should be etched in stone except for your love.
FFFF makes no secret of its opposition to the laptop program. But, we’re not Luddites. The fight against it has been led by Travis, who makes his living in the field using and refining internet technology. What is so appalling about the program is the presumption that laptops are the key to a portal that leads to instant success. It’s simply not true.
We also know that not all kids are college bound, and worse, many enroll without knowing why they are there. Paranoia gives rise to the worst kind of snobbishness –the type that warns children if they don’t follow a beaten path, they will fail in life. This paranoia drives parents to go in debt using high interest credit cards to buy laptops in the hope that the magic of Google will take up permanent residence in their child’s brain. This snobbery drives kids crazy, it depresses them, can even extinguish their deepest desires.
One friend of mine, a social networking theorist with many advanced degrees (and clients to boot) has said that the students who are going to do the best over the next 20 years are the ones who make their living by touching something. That is, healing, building, fixing, growing, organizing, and making things. With this in mind, the school district would be far better off giving each kid a tool kit, a community project, and a detailed lesson in financial management.
What we know is the most interesting and fulfilled adults are often the ones who have overcome great adversity and started off with little. What do they have? Passion, vision, timing. And most of all, persistence and the willingness to work hard and take risks.
This top private school has spent considerable time developing an ethics program. They care very deeply about the character of each student. They place students into very good colleges, including the Ivy Leagues. Many have gone on and will continue to do so to write books, found non profit organizations, lead corporations and be innovators in established and new fields. If they have done all of this without requiring laptops for every students, then we shouldn’t see them as a classroom necessity either.
Yep. The day after former State Senator Joe Dunn addressed the County Board of Supervisors about establishing a mechanism for keeping track of the professional lobbyists who haunt the 5th floor of the Hall of Admin, Matthew Cunningham popped up serially on the “Red County” blog to explain to his readers why the system ain’t broke and why his lobbyist friends have a constitutional right to “petition their government for redress.”
Aha! We called it here. Of course the idea that lobbyists are petitioning their government for anything except a chance to make big bucks for their clients is patently absurd.
We don’t agree with some of the purported details of Dunn’s original idea, but overall the concept of knowing which well-connected middlemen are knocking on your representative’s door in order to swing some deal or other, is basically a good one. Dunn’s timing and presentation to the Board were counterproductive and will be viewed as partisan, in some way. But so what?
Cunningham suggests that the whole thing is just a plan to dissuade privatization, but of course he really can’t say how, except that the OCEA union boss Nick Berardino is involved. But why should a lobbyist who is doing nothing improper or illegal fear a little bit of light illuminating his interaction with public officials?
Actually, an effort to squelch the idea will make people even more suspicious than ever about what is going on behind closed doors.
Cunningham is just doing his job, of course: trying to run interference for his Repuglican lobbyist pals like John Lewis who apparently would really rather not have the public aware of his influence with electeds. But the strategy is poor. In a second post he suggests that Dunn is simply trying to force the supervisors to adopt their own plan to avoid his referendum. Good idea.
Rather than let Dunn produce a likely popular plebiscite, the Supervisors ought to develop a sensible sytem for keeping track of lobbyists themselves, and include the union bosses like Berardino and Wayne Quint who are really nothing but lobbyists themselves – paid with ample union dues.
This issue is about recognizing the influence peddlers in OC – people who use their political and financial contacts to make inroads into public policy and pubic expenditure. Nothing wrong with that.
A few days ago on this post about Pam Keller’s blank Collaborative calendar, we received a visit from FSD trustee Minard Duncan. As is usual, Minard’s visit was vacuous and inane. Just about what you’d expect from an educrat. Minard admitted his comments were just made to “rile” us up.
But what was really interesting was when Minard dropped this spud on the Friends, unwittingly revealing a mindset that reveals all the things wrong with Fullerton’s elected representatives:
School board members do not have any power as individuals. It takes three board members out of a five member board agreeing on an issue to have authority. We are the boss of the district superintendent and no one else but not as individuals only as a collective board.
See, Minard indicates that authority (power) is only to be exercised by a majority, and, moreover, through the conduit of a Superintendent – thus effectively removing the “elected” from actually having to do much of anything except hire a single underling and ratify his decisions. And of course the consequence of Minard-think is that the responsibility and accountability attendant upon elected office is conveniently dissipated through delegation to a host of protected bureaucrats who are never held accountable either.
But whoever thought that the absence of a majority meant that a boardmember was somehow robbed of any of the authority vested in him by the electorate? While it takes a board majority to act affirmatively on a specific issue, the authority of an elected is indivisible. Minard is not just a third of a potential majority, nor does he represent only a theoretical one fifth of the property tax payers and parents – although he doesn’t seem to grasp this idea.
It is each boardmember’s responsibility to concern himself with everything that goes on in his district and to take responsibility for it.
Minard-think leads to the complete dereliction of responsibility that seems to obtain not only at the FSD, but also at Fullerton City Hall, too, where electeds delegate responsibility right along with the authority they invest in their City Manager. And of course as any honest council watcher knows, the Council, through laziness and/or inclination, is completely in thrall to the Chief Bureaucrat who is supposed to be working for them. It’s rather like the Stockholm Syndrome.
And you know what? A lot of electeds and their bureaucratic masters sure seem to like it that way.
On his way out the door to yet another government job in Sacramento, 4th District County Supervisor Chris Norby paused just long enough to cast a vote at yesterday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting to support the asinine expenditure of $350,000 on some sort of Viet Nam memorial in a little-known Midway City park.
Forget the fact that there are already two memorials to the war and to the subsequent diaspora in the vicinity; and forget the fact that times are tough and the County is in severe budget cutting mode; but ask: why on the Green Planet Earth should the taxpayers hand over a third of a million bucks to some kind of private “community culture and performing arts society” to design and build what is described as an interactive wall/memorial of some sort. This is the sort of thing that is routinely developed and built with private fund raising.
The whole concoction was the brain-child of Supervisor Janet Nguyen, obviously for political capital. The County Parks Director, some guy named Mark Denny, seems to have gone along without a whimper. We found out that he’s a former staffer to one of the other zeroes that voted for this – Bill Campbell – so no surprise there. The other aye vote on the Board was the clueless septuagenarian Pat Bates who, like Campbell, is not known for adherence to any conservative principles. To his credit, Supervisor John Moorlach voted no.
Which brings us back to Norby, who, at his last Board meeting, could have reminded people what he has always claimed to stand for – and often has. But he didn’t.
Good bye and good….well, you know.