A source inside the County government has directed our attention to a contractual relationship between the County Clerk’s department and a “consultant” that bears closer scrutiny. Our source has indicated that monies were paid out for questionable or dubious “services.”
This contract involves Barbre & Associates; Brett Barbre is a former County employee, a Water District official, and now a self-styled political public relations guy. It appears that Mr. Barbre received at least $36,000 through last summer to do something (see vendor report, above). What did he do? Our source tells us it was supposed to have something to do with organizing an Orange County Hall of Fame memorabilia display.We’re not buying into that just yet since such an inconceivably profligate waste of money, especially in a recession, is hard to ascribe to anybody – even a big spender like Daly.
Nevertheless, Barbre’s name immediately piqued our curiosity since he claims to be in PR, a function that Daly supposedly hired former reporter Jean Pasco to perform. Furthermore, Barbre, a nominal Republican, was an early and public supporter of Democrat Clerk/Recorder Tom Daly in his quest to be our County Supervisor. Check out the “host committee” to Daly’s 2009 fundraiser. Yes, Brett, we see you right there, #6 in the first column. Later in 2009 Barbre also took on the job of introducing Daly’s hand-picked successor and Clerk Department employee, Renee Ramirez, to the OC GOP Central Committee. Coincidences?
Since Daly and Ramirez run the Clerk/Recorder’s office, we immediately started to wonder just what Barbre did, to pick up that 36K. We have such suspicious minds, you see.
And so we have made a public records request with the County to find out the scope of services that were supposed to be rendered by Barbre and just what was accomplished for all that money.
And when we do find out we will certainly share the information with you.
“Tough-minded advocate for streamlined efficient government.”
That’s how 4th District Supervisor candidate Harry Sidhu describes himself in that dopey Fullerton News Tribune ad he bought last week. We also read that Sidhu claims to have “fought to eliminate excessive and wasteful government spending.”
No examples, of course, to support the statements; evidently we are expected to accept Harry’s word for it.
But let’s make a quick visit to Sidhu’s campaign webiste. Under the “Transportation” issue heading we discover stuff all dressed up to look like an accomplishment that in reality gives the lie to Harry’s claim to be anything but an irresponsible public spendthrift.
Turns out Sidhu is a big cheerleader for the California High Speed Rail scam, a boondoggle on which hundreds of millions have already been squandered in “studies,” and with a gargantuan $50 billion price tag that ridership will never pay for. And of course he beats the drum for the jaw-droppingly expensive ARTIC plan in Anaheim, presumably hoping that if you build the southern terminus of the HSR a choo choo will have to show up sooner or later. A trip to the ARTIC website “benefits” page makes things crystal clear: $180,000,000 (yes, Friends you read that right) for a make-work government jobs program – mostly paid for with Measure M funds that everybody in the County has to pay through sales tax. Hardly the behavior of a fiscal conservative, is it?
Our Friends in Anaheim tell us that Sidhu is all gung-ho for this titanic fiasco to grease his relationship with outgoing Mayor Curt Pringle, who is neck deep in the HSR rip-off and who is looking for a soft place to land.
Pringle on his knees again...
Pringle, not coincidentally, is supporting Sidhu’s carpetbagging run for Supervisor (he supported Ackerwoman, too) and has been raising money for him. Symbiosis. And we get stuck holding the empty sack. Typical.
Sidhu is “tough-minded” about one thing: perpetually running for political office. On matters involving our tax dollars he’s about as tough as a mildewed marshmallow.
The Tom Daly For Supervisor campaign being operated out of the back of the Mauve County blog offices enlisted an unlikely stooge today in an attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson.
The individual’s name is Thomas Anthony Gordon (pictured, below), a participant in the byzantine and highly bitter world of Santa Ana politics. We had to do some digging to find out who this individual even was, and why he has all of a sudden taken an interest in the 4th Supervisorial District election.
When you get beyond the personal appearance issues things really start to get unattractive...
The gist of Gordo’s post is that Nelson is a defense attorney, and because Nelson works to get his clients acquitted he is “soft on crime” and hence unfit to be a Supervisor. Some logic, huh?
This attack really isn’t too surprising. Daly’s campaign manager Chris Jones kept popping up here recently (until we busted him) using aliases trying to say the same thing. And it’s been obvious for a long time that Mauve County was just a vehicle for political promoter and Repuglican John Lewis who has been setting up the Democrat Daly as a lobbying target for years. But who orchestrated this little Valentine? It’s not very likely that Lewis, or Jones even know this Gordon character.
Aha! I think I’ve got it. The Mauve editor Matthew J. Cunningham is a prize pupil of Lewis and, of course a backroom Daly supporter. He’s been over here a lot lately commenting anonymously, too. It seems quite plausible that Cunningham stirred up Gordon, probably with the fact that their mutual enemy Art Pedroza has an ad for Nelson on his blog. What an idea! The stooge can do the dirty work and Cunningham can (try to) keep his hands clean.
Just call me up and I won't explain everything.
Sound sort of weird. Of course it is. But the mission of Mauve County is now clear. Promote the career politician Daly, and attack Nelson.
For a blog that keeps pretending to be right-of-center it’s pretty sad that they evidently will be working against the only true conservative in the race. And all so that John Lewis can make money lobbying his boy Tom Daly in the County Hall of Administration. Repuglicanism at its worst.
Not to be outdone by fellow 4th District Supervisor campaign carpetbagger and multiple address occupier Lorri Galloway, Harry Sidhu has pulled up stakes again and abandoned his address at the beautiful Calabria Apartments, #106. The Registrar of Voters verbally confirmed the switcheroo this morning.
Let's hope Harry got the Manager's Move-in Special
Was it the proximity to the bowling alley or the pool hall? Was it the complete lack of landscaping? Or was it just the sheer impossibility as the residence for a rich man like Sidhu, whose carpetbagging was getting a lot of attention anyway. It sure was a great image and just the sort of thing to burst a political bubble.
Some of Harry’s campaign blog monkeys have been hinting recently that Harry was now living in a house he owns in the 4th District – a lot more plausible than the Calabria, to be sure, but in no way mitigating the fact that HARRY SIDHU IS A CARPETBAGGER! Whether or not Harry will even pretend to live in his new home for the next four months is an excellent question, the answer to which we will no doubt be pursuing diligently.
So far I have moved this many times in 2010!
Ah, well. Thus endeth Harry’s flirtation with the common man. Wonder if he ever even got to meet his neighbors.
But he doesn't even live in our district, does he?
I came across this sort of goofy Harry Sidhu political ad in the News Tribune the other day, repeating the mantra of his paid blog monkeys that Sidhu has “represented” 40% of the 4th County Supervisorial District by being on the Anaheim City Council.
Harry and his “team” must be really concerned that the carpetbagger label is sticking. It is, and it will, because that’s what he is. But that’s only part of the problem. The other issue is whether Sidhu even lives in the District at all.
Please also note that the ad uses the simple title of “Mayor Pro Tem.” Why no mention of Anaheim? Harry can’t be dumb enough to think people in our city are ignorant enough to believe he’s Mayor Pro Tem of Fullerton, can he? Or is it just more sloppy work by his “team.” We already know that he holds Fullerton residents in such low regard that he dodged the Supervisor candidate forum held by NUFF a couple weeks ago. Sad.
The text of the Sidhu ad is even more pathetic. Experience? Harry doesn’t identify a single thing he’s done to make Anaheim government more “streamlined” or “efficient.” He says he fought to eliminate “excessive and wasteful government spending” but doesn’t give a single example of his fiscal conservatism. Wonder why?
Apparently Sidhu and his handlers also hope that voters are ignorant of the fact that the County government has almost no involvement in any sort of job creation schemes; and owning fast food franchises seems to be Harry’s only job creating calling card. More sadness.
Too bad for Harry that constantly running in political campaigns isn’t a job skill that voters hold in high regard.
When you really get to know me is when the fun starts...
Nothing to talk about and seemingly unaware of real County issues – that’s the campaign. And that’s a bad combination.
A few days ago I did a post about how Tom Daly’s campaign for 4th District Supervisor received a contribution from Sharon Quirk’s campaign account and how the County Code prohibits that.
Turns out Harry Sidhu was the similar recipient of a fellow politico’s largess. On August 16, 2009 he received $250 from “Marty for Brea City Council.”
That would be Brea City Councilman Marty Simonoff.
Helen Logan of Fullerton sent us the following note regarding a “community opinion” printed in the latest edition of the Fullerton Observer:
Is S.K. of Fullerton actually Sharon Kennedy, who lives with her mother in Fullerton, the author of this letter? If so, then why would she write a letter to herself?
The Fullerton Observer’s letters to the editor policy allows the editor to only identify the author with his or her initials and the city he or she lives in, if there is a good reason for requesting anonymity from the editor, Sharon Kennedy. Why the need for anonymity for the above innocuous letter? Who in Fullerton fears retribution from angered Haitian shop owners or militias?
I sought the answers to my questions in a separate Observer article titled “Haiti Supplies to Survivors & a Brief History”. Only one sentence, replete with syntax and spelling errors, mentioned distribution problems arose and survivors had to wait a few days to get these supplies.
The poor research and writing of the Fullerton Observer’s articles and its lack of journalistic ethics reveals this newspaper to be nothing more than a collection of opinions. This newspaper and its editor lack credibility.
The Fullerton Observer touts itself as Fullerton’s only independent newspaper. I thank those other newspapers that are dependent on investigative reporting from real journalists and their valid editors for giving me insight into the facts.
Some man/woman calling him/herself 4th SD Observer started giving me and this blog a rasher o’ crap on a Pam Keller post yesterday; you know, we’re conspiratorialist wackos, yadda, yadda, yadda. This technique is common in blog circles: you try to color your political opponents as paranoid, nutsy, weird, tin foil-hatted, cross-dressing Nazis – whatever. And of course their objective is not only to marginalize you, but to divert attention from your point.
In response I was inspired to do a Pam Keller recap.
And just so my “true colors” are not seen to be in anyway unclear, here they are: Pam Keller is a hypocritical, shallow, self-serving, irresponsible public servant (and employee) whose manifest conflicts of interest make her unable to serve her constituents honestly, and who seems to be incapable of demanding accountability on the part of herself or her underlings.
There! I feel ever so much better! A veritable catharsis.
Now let’s take a peek at some of the Keller record; and I’ll keep it short(er) by just looking at stuff that has been written about her on what “admin” likes to call “our humble blog.”
Here are some items for your consideration:
1. When she ran for office in 2006 Keller promised that Fullerton residents would dictate the direction of development in town. And yet within two years Keller had voted to approve the gargantuan, staff/developer driven Amerige Court and Jefferson Commons monstrosities that involved huge get-rich-quick entitlements for their sponsors and that would stick the rest of us with the environmental impacts. Only the recession intervened.
2. When she ran for office for in 2006 Keller promised not to take money from developers. Instead she solicited developer’s contributions to her Collaborative, revenue that supported her employment. And the developers were proposing the Jefferson Commons and Amerige Court projects. Hypocrisy? Much?
3. In August of 2007, not even in office a year, Keller joined the now infamous Steve Sheldon (Jefferson Commons) $1000 per person drinkies-boat-ride-dinner fundraiser for Sharon Quirk. Also on board were the Pelican/Laing hucksters greasing the axles of their Amerige Court investment. Did Pam pay her way, or was it a gift from an importuning developer? Too easy. No prize for answering correctly.
4. Even though St. Jude’s Medical Center is a member and contributor to the Fullerton Collaborative of which Keller is the Executive director, Keller, as a city councilmember voted in December 2007 to approve their development entitlements for its massive project west of Harbor Boulevard. Conflict? Much?
5. In August and September of 2008 Keller supported keeping the public in the dark about the fact that she and her council colleagues were negotiating a retroactive pension spike for City employees. She publicly castigated Shawn Nelson for disclosing the fact that the topic was being deliberately concealed from the public.
6. In October 2008 Keller spent over $1200 in public funds for bills run up at a fancy hotel while attending a League of Cities conference in Long Beach – about 25 miles from her house.
7. In June 2009 Keller enlisted members of the OCCCO to publicly promote the fraudulent Redevelopment expansion. They sure owed her a favor since her Collaborative had funneled over $25,000 their way in 2007 for “community organizing.”
8. In June/July 2009 Keller voted for the bogus Redevelopment expansion with its evident failure to indicate any blight. The findings were a lie. Of course the expansion area had been redrawn to exclude a property Keller owns so she could vote on it. How’s that for fancy footwork?
9. Also in June 2009 Keller supported the relocation of a McDonald’s franchise about 150 feet to the corner across the street from Fullerton High – to tune of 6 million bucks. The childhood obesity issue was embarrassing since one of the Collaborative’s mission is to fight it, not facilitate it. Keller only backtracked when it became clear that the jig was up. Later that summer she proclaimed herself a “fiscal conservative.”
10. In July Keller proposed a City of Fullerton blog – without any bloggers, of course. In other words a City propaganda vehicle that would disseminate filtered information and necessarily involve city employees in censoring the unpleasantries often associated with participatory democracy on the internet.
11. In August and September 2009 our investigation into the Fullerton Collaborative and its doings discovered that the vast majority of Fullerton Collaborative expenses went to pay for Keller herself; that her hapless fellow boardmembers were woefully ignorant of her both her fund raising sources and her activities; and furthermore, that since she was considered an FSD teacher and public employee, she got to maintain her benefits thereof, but was cut loose from any District supervision to pursue her dream of philanthropy and self-promotion.
We connected the dots for you.
12. In October 2009 as a city council person she voted to postpone debt payments to the City from…her employer, the Fullerton School District. Sharing smiles with her boss who was sitting in the front row.
13. In December she voted to approve the fiasco-in-the-making Richman housing project scam – another staff/developer driven monstrosity (see #1, above) that even fails to address Fullerton’s most pressing housing needs (if you happen to be persuaded by such SCAG priorities).
14. In January 2010 it became apparent that for $50,000+ you can’t even hire an Executive Director that will take the time to update her organization’s on-line calendar events. Move along folks, nothing to see here!
15. In February 2010 we learned that even though Keller is a treated as teacher (for her own benefit) not only is she freed from the drudgery of the classroom, but she has apparently failed to account for her time away from FSD on political junkets, etc., as all teachers are required to do. Of course this means the accrual of unused sick/personal day time. It turns out that some real teachers resent it. How odd. Naturally FSD is clueless. Naughty!
Oh, well. That’s enough for now. No doubt more dubious Keller behavior will surface in the coming months, and as it does we will surely share it with you; and just as surely Keller’s Posse of Political Whatevers will make looking the other way into a full time job.
