Friends For Fullerton's Future

October 30, 2009October 30, 2009Dick Jones

Fullerton City Council Term Limits – Who’s For and Who’s Against

UPDATE: Here’s a post from last winter, published again to remind the Friends that Fullerton’s decision-makers promised to put the term limits issue on the next available ballot. Of course that opportunity came and went with the 72nd Assembly Special Election primary. It could still be done in January 2010 if the Special Election itself is required. In any case there is a General Election primary election next June. So let’s all remember!

In dramatic fashion our friends on the Fullerton City Council decided on January 6^th that the voters of Fullerton should decide whether a twelve-year term limit for council members is right for Fullerton.

Pam Keller joined campaign promise keepers Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk in placing the issue on the first available ballot, which should be in June, 2010. Predictably, antediluvian councilmen Don Bankhead and Dick Jones opposed the motion believing that you can never be around too long, be too hidebound, too boring, and too inert to serve the public.

As usual, the good government types (i.e. we know what’s good for you so sit down and shut up) like Jan Flory were on hand to oppose the idea, knowing as they do that the longer you are in office the more likely you are to identify with public employees instead of constituents. These folks pretend to defend the public’s right to choose who their elected representatives are even though they don’t seem to trust the public to do much of anything else without government intervention.

We strongly support term limits. We believe that public choice will be enhanced by term limits because the well-financed incumbents will be forced to give way to new representation that might actually give people of real talent a chance to participate in governance, people who now largely acquiesce to the inevitability of incumbency. Fortunately, a majority of the council seem to agree.

The outstanding legal issue is whether the limits can be applied to previous years in office. The final wording of the plebiscite will have to address this. Let’s hope it works out so we can end the Age of Dinosaurs in Fullerton.

October 30, 2009December 28, 2009About Us

I’d Like to Thank The Academy, and All The Little People…

by admin11 Comments

The LiberalOC surveys the blogosphere...

Check out this fun post by Dan C-somethingorother at theLiberalOC blog. I’ve been named the scariest blogger in OC! Not #3, not #2, but #1! Like Coach used to say they only come after you when you’re carrying the ball!

I think Dan C. is still mad at me for saying that he and Matt Cunningham were just maggots (or maybe it was parasites) burrowing into different sides of the same rotten apple.

I am derided for not pursuing Dan’s “reasoned debate” (say Dan, any more jokes on Norby marriages?); and also that I am a bully (although he remains silent on whom I have bullied); and also because there’s a Chris Norby sign somewhere in Tustin; and because Jim lacy offered to include us in his defense of free speech; but Dan is just a spokeshole for the crooked Boss Agran machine in Irvine so we can pretty quickly find his spot on the shelf and put him on it. He actually goes on to say that he wants Ackerwoman to win just to hear me whine. Well, that won’t happen!

But anyway, its good to get peer recognition whenever you can and some supposed insults can be proudly worn as a badge of honor.

The LiberalOC? Hell, we get more daily hits than they do! And with Dan’s help we’ll get even more.

October 29, 2009October 30, 200972nd Election

Fullerton Redevelopment Bimbo Joins 72nd Campaign!

by The Fullerton Harpoon2 Comments

Hey, big boy, wanna create a Redevelopment Project Area?

Today the fraudulent “Alliance for California’s Tomorrow,” the pay to play slush fund that’s been attacking Chris Norby, recorded an interesting contributor: Marshall Linn. Mr. Linn is the President of Urban Futures, the Redevelopment “consultant” that cooked up the totally bogus Redevelopment expansion scheme for Fullerton. He kicked in $2,000.

Well, now we take that personally! Urban Futures is nothing more than an opinion for hire – hacks and paid Redevelopment agency hookers. They make Mr. Linn’s nice living for him by creating phony justifications for Redevelopment: recognizing blight where none exists. FFFF is suing the City of Fullerton for its fraudulent Redevelopment expansion, and now the president of this parasitic enterprise is trying to defeat Chris Norby – enemy of eminent domain and Redevelopment abuse.

Well, Marshall, thanks for popping up like the weed you are. This will make our dealings with the city that much more entertaining!

October 29, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

Linda Ackerman Runs Away From GOP – Steps In Elephant-sized Pile

by Grover Cleveland1 Comment

In what seems to be an increasingly desperate campaign, the Ackerwoman sent out a mailer to Democrats trying to woo their unlikely votes. Nothing all that unusual there. The only problem is she says that she “is not defined by being a Republican.”

Can someone please help take my shoes off?

Oh, oh. Seriously no bueno (as Art Pedroza would say) in some circles. See, Linda is a national GOP committeewoman and is a (seemingly permanent) fixture on the OC GOP central Committee. This has caused a bit of a stir, even at the Red County blog that heretofore had been treating the Ackerman, Inc. prevarications with kid gloves. Blogger Allan Bartlett has demanded Ackerwoman’s resignation from the national committee post haste.

So now Linda has to start scrapping off the bottom of her Gucci shoes, explaining to friend and foe alike just what that mailer really did mean. If she placates the Republicans, she’s sure to offend any Dems or DTS voters stupid enough to have fallen for the ruse in the first place.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

October 29, 2009January 4, 2010About Us

What is “The Alliance for California’s Tomorrow”?

by The Fullerton Harpoon11 Comments

I have friends all over California and some of them are very generous.

You’ve gotten a lot of junk mail from them lately, about the 72nd Assembly race, and mostly reprehensible attacks on Chris Norby. Never heard of this operation with the lame name? Don’t feel bad. Hardly anyone else has either. That’s because it doesn’t make anything, doesn’t stand for anything, and doesn’t even exist – except on paper. It is a political Independent Expenditure “Committee” that’s sole reason for existence is to funnel lobbyist money into political campaigns.

But let’s let Repuglican Bigmouth Jon Fleischman tell it:

“Just heard from Jim Nygren the consultant for the Alliance for California’s Tomorrow, the Sacramento insider crowd that is ponying up big-time to try and elect Linda Ackerman in AD 72.”

Jim Nygren. A political “consultant” who operates a slush fund for “insiders” to get one of their own in power. Redevelopment abusers, gambling interests, etc., etc. These are the real supporters of Team Ackerman. And boy, oh boy do they want their cardboard cutout up in Sacto. where they can put her to work over rigatoni with clam sauce at Spataro.

And check out Fleischman’s post: they’ve lined up the punch drunk Bankhead to provide testamonials for Linda Ackerman, the woman whose husband, Dick, famously coined the moniker “Blankhead”! One letter is meant for Reeps the other for Dems. Geez, they think of everything! But given Bankhead’s embarrassingly vacant performance on the council dais lately, one has to wonder if his support is worth much.

I'd like soup. Are we having soup today?

October 29, 2009October 29, 2009About Us

10/28/09 72nd Absentee Ballot Totals

by The Fullerton Harpoon11 Comments

At the Registrar of Voters site you can keep track of how many absentee ballots have been mailed in. As of yesterday just a little under 13,000 were returned. Since Wednesday’s counts were significantly lower than Tuesday’s it looks like the hump is past and the majority may have already been cast. It will be interesting to see if the Ackerman, Inc. continues its barrage of junk mail in pursuit of a dwindling number of likely voters.

Here’s hoping they waste a lot of their lobbyist money. And here are the totals:

November 17 , 2009 Statewide Special Election
Raw Count of Vote-by-Mail Ballots Returned

date	count
10/21/2009	63
10/22/2009	1,851
10/23/2009	2,441
10/26/2009	3,571
10/27/2009	3,235
10/28/2009	1,746
	Total: 12,907

October 29, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

The Ackerman Anti-tax Pledge. What a Hurl

by admin6 Comments

UPDATE: This post was previously published on October 18th. Our Friend Joe S. asked that we repost as a reminder that the Ackerman campaign is really built on nothing but hot air and bad intentions.

We received an e-mail from our long-time Friend, Joe Sipowicz, yesterday and decided to share it with you. It has Joe’s trademark frankness so please don’t get mad at us. We just pass it along as Joe sent it, with a couple of spelling corrections:

Sure, I'll sign anything. — Sure, I'll sign anything Dick tells me to. We're a team.

I came home from work the other day and brought in the mail. Among the rest of the junk was a Linda Ackerman campaign mailer. One side included some bullshit about how Norby voted to raise his Sanitation District stipend, something I had already read about: he didn’t actually cast a vote so we don’t even know if he was in the room. But the Ackermans just decided to say he voted for it. Throw it up, see if it sticks.

The other side showed the Ackerman woman in her staged “experienced businesswoman” pose and costume – a blatant fraud already well debunked as a con by Grover Cleveland’s excellent posts.

But the best (worst) part of this flier was the little corner dedicated to a facsimile of some asinine “no tax pledge” signed by this woman. No new taxes. And a signature.

Then it hit me. What kind of a goddamned idiot would be impressed with this horse crap, and what kind of cynic would think they would be? Well, clearly this flier was meant to appeal to some brain-dead jackass who actually thinks a politician’s pledge is all that meaningful. And of course I understand that the Ackerman woman has no record on anything, and needs to make up stuff. So she signed some stupid piece of paper to see how many of the rubes would go for it.

Given that fact that the Ackerman “campaign” has been nothing but a load of lies from the beginning – residency, experience, etc. it’s hard to believe why anybody would take this lame-ass pledge seriously.

And another thought: people like the Ackermans with their political money machines and their lobbyist enabled free trips to Hawaii know how to game anything in government – even signed “no tax” pledges. There are all kinds of ways to raise government revenue in Sacramento, the most obvious being the notorious “fee” increase, often nothing more than user taxes applied to government services or facilities that have already been paid for by the taxpayer. And raising these fees is just another way of raising general fund revenues through the back door – without actually “raising taxes.”

Well, the back door seems to be the place of preferred entry for the Ackermans: from Sacramento to Lindendale, in Fullerton; through which they must be sneaking in at night since nobody has seem them going through the front door of their rented address.

October 28, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

Facebook Funnies

by The Fullerton Shadow3 Comments

I did it. So can you!

I did it. So can you!

Just because we had nothing better to do we took a cyber stroll through Linda Ackerman’s Facebook site and lookit what we turned up. Note the name: Carol Rudat, the erstwhile candidate for City of Orange City Council who was busted as a carpetbagger and narowly escaped having her candidacy tossed out by a judge. And now she and her husband Dave strongly endorse fellow carpetbagger Linda Ackerwoman! Too funny!

O, bitter irony! Matthew J. Cunningham had a veritable conniption over Rudat’s carpetbagging in Orange, but now looks the other way when the wife of El Commandante does it in the 72nd Assembly District race!

What a collection of miscreants.

October 28, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

72nd Assembly District Pre-ballot Mail-Out Recap: What We Know About Linda Ackerman

by Grover Cleveland23 Comments

Isn't being a "proud grandmother" enough?

UPDATE: as absentee ballots roll in we thought it would be a useful public service to republish our run down about what we know about Linda Ackerman. If you haven’t voted please read, or read again. If you have already voted have fun reading it anyway.

We’ve been reading up on our would-be 72nd Assembly District representative, Linda Ackerman, of Irvine. We’ve done some digging, too, and have perused her website. We have had quite a bit of fun shredding the supposed testimonials by endorsers, statements so false that they hardly needed debunking.

Now, with only a month (Ed. now three weeks) to go before the Special Election primary, and with absentee ballots soon to be landing in mailboxes we have decided to do a recap of the territory we have covered. Consider it a public service.

Linda Ackerman is a carpetbagger who has lived in a gated community in Irvine for ten years.
The Ackermans have “rented” a fraudulent address on Lindendale, in Fullerton to meet the minimum enforceable election law, even though it is a violation of the State Constitution.
Despite her campaign claims of being an “experienced businesswoman” she has provided no evidence to substantiate that claim. She does sit on the Board of a collection agency whose clients are organized as Sacramento lobbyists.
She created an operation called the Pacific Policy Research Foundation, a putative “charitable” corporation; a dodge whose sole purpose is to provide politicians a free trip to Hawaii to be lobbied by big business interests.
She has received at least two $3900 contributions from bogus political campaign “slush funds,” including that of her own husband.
She was paid $76,000 by her own husband’s campaign as a “consultant.”
She is responsible for perhaps the sleaziest campaign mailer seen since her own husband ran for the Assembly in 1995.
She has zero record on any issues. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

In sum, Mrs. Ackerman is a cipher, a virtual non-entity, trading on her husband’s name and hoping to succeed by raising enough money from her Sacramento pals to smear her opponent but good. And there you have it.

We will add as an addendum that it became clear during the Dave Lopez Mike Duvall/Linda Ackerman story that Dick Ackerman “speaks for his wife.” And that blatant puppetry ought to give any conscientious citizen cause to pause, especially when we learn that Ackerman is regarded as Mike Duvall’s “political godfather.”

And the desperate hit pieces on Chris Norby by Ackerman, Inc. and its big business and Redevelopment abuser surrogates has not only gotten slimier, but incessant. A new generation of North Orange Countians now knows how low Team Ackerman will go to keep its grubby mitts on power. Any power at all, really.

Well, the voters have a clear choice. And in a democracy you always get the kind of representation you deserve!

October 27, 2009January 4, 201072nd Election

Another Day, Another Phone Call

by The Fullerton Harpoon7 Comments

Following hot on the heels of their last snagged conversation between Dick Ackerman and his various high-minded associates, we have received this sparkling gem from our Undercover Surveillance Unit.

It appears to be a conference call between Dick Ackerman and two of Repuglican OCs minor water bearers, Adam Probolsky and Matthew Cunningham. It is so unbelievable that we will obviously forgive you Friends for treating it as fiction, but here goes, anyway.

It's all coming together...another term in Sacramento!

(Cunningham and Ackerman were already conversing when the interception began. A faint ringing sound is heard in the background)

Dick Ackerman: (snort) You missed the rear tires again.

Matt Cunningham: Sorry, sir. Thought I got them. Won’t happen again.

DA: (grunting noise) Yeah, well it better not…and use Armor All next time…

(ringing stops)

Adam Probolsky: Hey there, Senator. So glad I could join –

DA: (guttural sounds) Shut up and listen Problobsky. Your girlfriend has already got me into plenty of hot water. That shit with Jones Day isn’t going to be free.

AP: I’ll tell you what –

DA: (bark) No, you’re done talking, putz. Clam up. You’re almost as bad as that donkey Fleischman.

AP: Sorry, sir I just –

( a low grade snarl, unattributable)

DA: That asshole Lacy did a poll. Showed Linda down by ten. We go down, you go down. Now get your fat ass out there and refute it. And you, you –

MC: Me? Yessir?

DA: Your job is to screw with that FFFF operation and Bushala. That bastard is putting up signs attacking me. I mean attacking Linda. Nobody attacks me. It can’t be legal. They’re making me look bad. Making Linda look bad. Making us look bad. (several low growls and a snort). Ughhhmmmmph.

MC: He’s fringe. Crazy. I really hate him. I hate his guts.

AP: He’s a terrrorist. They all are, you know.

DA: Shut up, Plobrosky. What are you still doing on the line? You’ve got your assignment now get lost.

(a distinct clicking sound)

MC: Anything else you want me to do, sir?

DA: (snarl) I want you to start going after Norby, goddammit!

MC: Okay….well…its hard…I mean. I haven’t endorsed him…

DA: (several growls)Nobody gives a rat’s ass about your punk endorsement. Just take a shit on him every day.

MC: Well, I’m trying, but you see, John is telling me the same thing, so –

DA: Don’t play hard ball with me you little (unintelligible). If I go down you’re coming along, too see, just like Porbolsky and Fleischberg. And all that Carona shit may come out, too. You and all your little…(loud sound of exhalation). And don’t forget to shut up that Bartlett piece of crap. Thinks he’s so goddam pure and self-righteous. (growling sound)

MC: Well, we’ve been deleting some of his posts and Chip has –

DA: (muffled sounds of indeterminate origin) Shut him up. Now. I’ll take care of him but good after I win. So go after Bushala. Make him look bad. (several quick grunts)

MC: Well, it’s a little hard – he doesn’t seem to care what I say about him. He’s crazy.

DA: Goddamit, call him a liar and a crook. I don’t give a shit. Use some big words. Goddam Jones Day. Worthless. Can’t count on anybody. All out to get me. (a muffled snarl)

MC: Okay, sir. I’ll keep up the pressure. We really need Linda.

DA: Who? Oh, yeah. Right. Now start blogging or your gravy train’s gonna come to a screeching halt, you got it?

MC: Yessir!

DA: And next time get the tires right or I’ll let Fleischman do it.

November 17 , 2009 Statewide Special Election Raw Count of Vote-by-Mail Ballots Returned

November 17 , 2009 Statewide Special Election
Raw Count of Vote-by-Mail Ballots Returned