For the last, well forever really, the city has been trying to figure out how to change downtown to make it more… something. I can’t quite figure it out. By the looks of it the only goals City Staff have are to pack as many residents into as many high-density apartment complexes as possible and to hand over as much of Downtown to the local “restauranteurs” which is Ted White (Director of Community Development) for “Bar Owners”.
This past Wednesday night one such plan hit our Planning Commission. The plan was 70+ pages of muddled definitions and empty promises. I’ll summarize:
City Staff has been ignoring their jobs and our municipal code for 15+ years because reasons. It’s hard to do the job we pay them to do so they want to do less of it and they want to relax the rules so the rule-breakers have fewer rules they have to break while making piles of money.
Instead of cleaning up bad definitions and attempting to hold businesses responsible for the melees enveloping downtown each weekend, the city would rather permanently legalize downtown getting louder and more rowdy with the promises that this time, with no indication of staffing changes or practical enforcement, they’ll hold bar owners to a standard of behavior, or perhaps a guideline, or at least an amorphous shape resembling a line if you squint really hard.
It reminds me an old UN Peacekeeper joke where whenever they see somebody doing something wrong they yell “Stop! Or I’ll Yell “Stop!” Again!”. This time they mean it for realsies.
Ultimately Wednesday’s item was held until a possible study session in January and a new meeting in February, which is when we’re totally screwed. The bar owners will get everything they want and then some come February because the Planning Commission is changing. A lot. (more…)
There is a newly minted blog called OC Daily, evidently the brain child of GOP slime ball Dave Gilliard, and operated by another small-time hack named Matthew Cunningham. A Friend directed my attention to this post written by Cunningham about our recent Fullerton election that blames Larry Bennetts’ fourth place finish on a divided GOP – basically throwing the rat on Bruce Whitaker (by name) for not supporting Bennett, due lack of supposed conservative purity on the part of the latter. Cunningham also points out Bennett’s broad bi-partisan support as an indication of his strength.
Backed by all the wrong people…
Since this post shared a link to Bennett’s fabulous list of endorses, I will too. Except that I will pick out a few familiar names and add some piquant commentary that may come as surprise to those who hold the opinion that these endorsements have much value outside the aging little clique who signed on. They won’t surprise you, Friends.
Bob Huff
CA State Senate bag man for Redevelopment profiteers
Dick Ackerman
State Senate Minority Leader – Retired (Tried to sell OC Fair to pals, tried to carpetbag wife into Assembly; 1994 & 2012 recall opponent)
Jennifer Fitzgerald
RINO Mayor – lobbyist for Curt Pringle; refuses to release client list
Jan Flory
Mayor Pro Tem, 2012 recall opponent; illegal water tax supporter; supported utility tax in 1993
John (Jack) Bedell, Ph.D.
RINO Vice President Orange County Board of Education, recently smeared Chris Norby in BoE election
Molly Mc Clanahan
North OC Community College Vice President (recalled from Fullerton council in 1994 for unnecessary utility tax
Hilda Sugarman
RINO Fullerton School Board Vice President,
Janny Meyer
RINO Fullerton School Board Member; wife of previous city manager
Chris Meyer
Former Fullerton City Manager (holder of MASSIVE pension; oversaw a city government with zero accountability)
Paul Dudley
Former Director of Community Development (responsible for massive over development of Fullerton)
Dick Ackerman
Former Mayor (see above; this scumbag is so repulsive he gets listed TWICE)
Don Bankhead
Former Mayor, only person in the history of California to be recalled Twice from the same office
Buck Catlin
Former Mayor, recalled in 1994 for imposition of unnecessary utility tax, father of Janny Meyer
F. Richard Jones
Former Mayor, recalled in 2012; rude, bombastic Southern-fried imbecile
Linda LeQuire
Former Mayor, repulsive former councilperson resurrected for nasty duty every election cycle
Molly Mc Clanahan
Former Mayor (also listed TWICE did I metioned she was recalled?)
Leland Wilson
Former Mayor,(RINO- mitigating factor – got rid of Flory in 2002)
Peter Godfrey
Former Mayor Pro Tem, completely useless RINO
Pat Mc Kinley
Former Council Member, recalled in 2012 – created the FPD Culture of Corruption “I hired them all”
Jim Blake
Former MWD Board, busted partying on the taxpayers dime as the perpetual appointee to the MWD
Rick Crane
Former Planning Commissioner, Redevelopment Agency bonanza beneficiary
Samuel Han
Former Planning Commission, Grace Ministries front man for dad and booze peddler map supporter
Roy LeQuire
Former Planning Commissioner, spouse of Linda LeQuire, above
Wade Richmond
Former Planning Commissioner ( Bankhead crony since the year 1492)
Jim Alexander
Local small-time lobbyist
Carol Bankhead
Wife of Don Bankhead
Karen Dudley
Wife of Paul Dudley, above
Norma Jones
Wife of Richard Joes, above
Tony Florentine
(Guy who buil restaurant addition on public sidewalk; operated illegal dance club)
Pat Florentine
Spouse of sidewalk grabber, above
Barbara McKinley
Wife of Pat Mckinley, above
So, basically Bennett was the front man for Old Fullerton, the same crew that has done everything possible to keep Fullerton in a weird stasis in which they ran the show. These were the people that fought BOTH recalls, tooth and nail; that imposed a utility tax in 1993, that have given away the store to the public employees and upper managers alike; that stole $27,000,000 from us in illegal water taxes, denied it, and never even bothered to say “sorry;” that enabled a Culture of Corruption to pervade the FPD, who denied its existence contrary to all the evidence, and who hid behind their curtains when an innocent man was bludgeoned to death by their own little Praetorian Guard.
And every rancid step of the way proclaiming with hosannas their dedication to “good government.”
These are the people who now survive in ever-dwindling numbers, their days long past, who see in people like Fitzgerald and Bennett some sort of embryonic form in which their own feeble genetic material is passed on.
Blaming Whitaker for not backing Bennett? How about shame on all of those who did? Electing Republicans qua Republicans, even though they are supported by all of Fullerton’s Old Guard liberals, instead of principled conservatives is how we got into the place we are today – awash in red ink, overdeveloped and with zero accountability in sight.
Here is a snapshot of a gaggle of Jan Flory supporters proudly wearing their T-shirts at Los Alamitos Racetrack! How they got a T shirt on the that old nag is anybody’s guess.
See if you can find the old nag.
I don’t know who the [dopey looking] guy is on the far right, but the bald, beady-eyed gent in the back is F. “Paul” Dudley, Jan Flory’s old drinking buddy. He’s the creep who gave away the public sidewalk to the Florentine mob, and who played a pivotal role in every single Jan Flory approved boondoggle from 1994 through 2002.
Whirlaway. Win, place or show?
It’s hard to imagine these people getting their greasy mitts on any sort of authority in Fullerton again. But what to I know? I’m just a dead dog. And Don Bankead is running again!
The abode of F. Paul Dudley, possibly designed by Mike Brady
The anti-recall forces keep chanting the mantra that Fullerton is not for sale, despite all the obvious evidence to the contrary, and that under the Jones, Bankhead and McKinley regime, Fullerton has been very much for sale.
Here’s a picture of an anti-recall sign in the front yard of former Development Services Director, F. Paul Dudley, the man who, for over twenty years, participated in a series of calamitous boondoggles, oversaw the over-development of downtown Fullerton, the cookie-cutter development of Coyote Hills East, and the fake New Urbanism of Amerige Heights. F. Paul Dudley is the man who gave the Florentine family a permanent building on a public sidewalk. Apart from being a dyed-in-the-wool arrogant bureaucrat, Dudley is also a happy member of Fullerton’s $100,000 Pension Club, pulling down a whopping $139,420 for doing nothing.
The original, and the best.
But get this: Dudley now peddles his relationship with the Three Hollow Logs acting as a lobbyist for developers! So you see, for Dudley Fullerton is very much for sale. He and a small handful of people like him need a compliant majority on the council so that they can get massive entitlements and stick the rest of us with the impacts.
Normally a non-election year would mean that the pickings for political stoogery would be pretty slim. But 2011 is not a normal non-election year, and the advent of a vigorous Recall campaign has produced that rarest of phenomena: the Off-year Stooge. And so we present the Fringie® nominees in the next category: Creepiest Political Stooge 2011.
The Nominating Committee labored long and hard to come up with the nominees, and we owe them a sincere debt of gratitude. For it could not have been easy pondering the visages and miscreance of these small-town hacks and poltroons. And that may explain the 11 empty bottles of akavit laying around the Editorial Boardroom floor the next morning.
It prefers mealworms.
1. Right out of the chute the Anti-recall forces deployed the limited talents of the unctuous Jim Alexander to attack the character of the Recall leader. Alexander is a reptilian homunculus with a reputation as a small-time bag man for developers who want to grease the City Council.
Celebrate good times: Sizzler Early Bird Special, then lights out at 7:30 PM.
2. Then the same group of uberklowns engaged a four-foot tall gnome-fossil named Bill Gillespie to annoy the FPPC with a hollow complaint drummed up by Dick Ackerman, ironnically the subject of a legitimate FPPC complaint himself for illegal lobbying!
Yo, T! We want our sidewalk back!
3. But they weren’t done. Next they employed the oleaginous services of Anthony “Big Tony” Florentine to lodge yet another empty complaint with the FPPC. You remember this paragon of virtue, right? He’s the guy who built an addition to his bar on a public sidewalk and got the City Council – including Dick Jones and Don Bankhead – to go along with the hijacking.
Otiose and odious. A bad combination.
4. And finally we come to Larry Bennett, the moral bellwether of the anti-recall campaign; a man who earnestly pretends to care about such things as probity and honesty, and yet who lends his name to the worst prevarications cooked up by the amphibio-pus sac, Dave Ellis, and who oversees a website that is nothing more than a pathetic collection of outright lies only made amusing by the unintentional comedic value of the amateur site.
Bennett has distinguished himself by challenging Fullerton water rate payers to find evidence of the hidden illegal 10% tax on their water bills. Of course they can’t find it. It’s hidden, jackass. It’s not on the water bill. And that’s why it’s illegal.
These are your nominees. There will be no winners, only losers. Until we have a Recall, that is.
It looks like our City Council is all set to discuss the topic of outside dining on Tuesday. Again.
It seems like only yesterday that the council handed over a public sidewalk to the Florentine Mob under the guise of an outdoor dining lease. The ink wasn’t even dry when Florentine started erecting a permanent, enclosed structure on our sidewalk! The Fullerton Shadow wrote all about it, here.
Sit down and grab some sidewalk, brother...
In 2007 the City gave the whole idea of outdoor dining permits second thought. But now with this gosh darn recession a-lingering the subject is cropping up again.
Well, somebody better go to this meeting to make sure no more public property is given away. After all “Dick” Jones and Don Bankhead chose to look the other way before, just to protect their incompetent staff. And Pat McKinley’s got lots of friends downtown, right?
Don Bankhead has been on the Fullerton City Council so long many say his tenure precedes the discovery of dirt.
Nope. Don's been here longer...
Well, actually, Bankhead clambered up on to the Fullerton Council dais in 1988, and except for a six-week hiatus between his Recall and his re-seating in December 1994, he has been ensconced there ever since.
Man, talk about adhesion
Since we have previously promoted a 12 year limit on councilmembers we naturally feel it’s time for Bankhead to call it a wrap. He is up for re-election in 2010 and we sincerely hope he decides that he has done enough for Fullerton.
We are having trouble recalling a single instance when Bankhead hasn’t schlepped for the city staff in the past 16 years – from the unnecessary Utility Tax, the SRO debacle, and the Basque Yard catastrophe through the horrible giveaways to “the Pinnacle,” “City Pointe” (why do these people so often stick an e on the end of their monstrosities?) , “Amerige Court” and the soon-to-be-renamed “Jefferson Commons.” He cheerfully went along with the sidewalk grab by the Florentine Family to protect city staff and even approved a retroactive pension spike for the cops. Lately Bankhead has been rah-rahing for more Redevelopment, even going so far as to sign a staff essay to the Observer in defense of Redevelopment expansion.
Take your pick. They all say "AYE"
Don’s recent embarrassing shilling for an absurd railway museum suggests that maybe it’s time for Bankhead to lay down his gavel and explore the exciting world of model trains in his basement.
