Friends For Fullerton's Future

November 2, 2009May 23, 201172nd Election

“No New Tax” Ackerwoman Raised Water Rates by 20% in April. Where There’s a Will There’s a Way!

I was dizzy from balancing all those budgets... — Maybe I was just dizzy from balancing all those budgets...

UPDATE: HERE’S AN INFORMATIVE POST WE RAN A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO ABOUT HOW GOVT REVENUE RAISERS DO IT AND EVADE THE “TAXER” LABEL. THE OTHER GIMMICK IS ‘FEE” INCREASES. IT TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ACKERWOMAN’S HOLLOW NO TAX PLEDGE.

Yesterday we published an e-mail from Joe Sipowicz about the lame-brain “no tax pledge” signed by Mrs. Linda Ackerman, presumably to shore up uncertainty about her conservative credentials. She needs to.

As Joe trenchantly pointed out, there are all sorts of ways to raise revenue without calling them taxes. Let’s cast our minds back a few months.

Back on April 14 of this year, never dreaming of ever becoming a candidate for political office, Linda Ackerman went along with the pro-government revenue crowd – voting to raise MWD water rates by an astounding 19.7%. That’s right folks. A 20% commodity increase for the water MWD provides to local water purveyors – like the City of Fullerton; and to the OC Water District for basin replenishment.

Here’s the excerpt from the April 14, 2009 MWD meeting minutes.

47859 Regarding the water rates and charges, Business and Finance Committee Chairman Grunfeld remarked on the unprecedented amount of time both Directors and staff spent on the rates and charges, keeping in mind their fiduciary duties and general responsibilities to the 19 million people that Metropolitan serves via their respective member agencies. Committee Chairman Grunfeld then moved, seconded by Director Santiago, that the Board adopt the CEQA determination and approve Option #2 set forth in the revised board letter signed by the General Manager on April 7, 2009, with an amendment to add Item (d) and:

a. Approve an 8.8 percent increase in water rates, plus a $69/AF Delta Supply Surcharge for a total average increase of 19.7 percent, effective September 1, 2009; b. Adopt Resolution 9087 to Impose the Readiness-to-Serve Charge;
Minutes -9- April 14, 2009
c. Adopt Resolution 9088 to Impose the Capacity Charge, said resolutions entitled:

Resolution 9087: RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIXING AND ADOPTING A READINESS-TO-SERVE CHARGE FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2010
Resolution 9088 RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIXING AND ADOPTING A CAPACITY CHARGE EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2010
and

d. Direct staff to work with the member agencies and the Board to evaluate the historical cost-of-service methodology utilized by Metropolitan, including a review of additional fixed charges, including property taxes, with the intent to ensure that all rates and charges recover the full cost of service when the Board establishes rates for the 2010/11 fiscal year .
Comments were made by Directors for and against the motion with emphasis on the treatment surcharge and decreasing reserves. The Chair called for a vote on the motion.
The following is a record of the vote on the motion:

Ayes: Anaheim (Dir. M. Edwards, 3,466 votes), Beverly Hills (Dir. Wunderlich, 2,033 votes), Central Basin Municipal Water District (Dirs. Apodaca and Hawkins, 11,185 votes), Eastern Municipal Water District (Dir. Record, 6,731 votes), Inland Empire Utilities Agency (Dir. Santiago, 8,440 votes), Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (Dir. Peterson, 1982 votes), Long Beach (Dir. Lowenthal, 3,984 votes), Los Angeles (Ayes: Dirs. Grunfeld and J. Murray. Absent: Dirs. Quiñonez and Sutley. 40,455 votes), Municipal Water District of Orange County (Ayes: Dirs. Ackerman, Dick, and Foley. Absent: Dir. Bakall. 34,917 votes), San Diego County Water Authority (Dirs. Barrett, Lewinger, Pocklington, and Steiner, 38,213 votes), San Fernando
Minutes -10- April 14, 2009
(Dir. Ballin, 150 votes), Santa Ana (Dir. Griset, 2,169 votes), Santa Monica (Dir. Abdo, 2,332 votes), West Basin Municipal Water District (Dirs. Gray and Little, 13,663 votes), Western Municipal Water District of Riverside County (Dir. Lopez, 8,456 votes). Total 178,176 votes.

Noes: Burbank (Dir. Brown, 1,803 votes), Calleguas Municipal Water District (Dir. Grandsen, 8,160 votes), Foothill Municipal Water District (Dir. J. Edwards, 1,272 votes), Fullerton (Dir. Blake, 1,457 votes), Glendale (Dir. Kavounas, 2,226 votes), San Marino (Dir Morris, 399 votes), Three Valleys Municipal Water District (Dir. De Jesus, 5,031 votes), Torrance (Dir. Wright, 2,186 votes), Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District (Dir. Robinson, 7,257 votes). Total 29,791 votes. Not Participating: Pasadena (Dir. Brick, 2,037 votes). Total 2,037 votes. Absent: Compton (Dir. Arceneaux, 362 votes). Total 362 votes.
The Chair declared the recommended water rates and charges and resolutions to impose charges for fiscal year 2009/10 passed by 178,176 ayes, 29,791 noes, 2,037 not participating, and 362 absent.

Thanks, for that one Linda! Anything else you’d like to share with us?

November 1, 2009Redevelopment

“Pumpkin Launch” A Metaphor for Redevelopment Failure

by The Fullerton Harpoon9 Comments

The OC Register reports about a strange event that went awry: a pumpkin launched from a pnuematic “cannon” by engineering students overshot its target and crashed through the scoreboard of the CSUF football field.

So why is this an apt metaphor for Redevelopment? Consider the venue: a football stadium financed by the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency for a football program that was disbanded the year after the stadium was built . Then consider the dopiness of the event itself. Then reflect upon the fact that the participants didn’t seem to have a clue what they were doing – missing their mark by 120%.

And finally, the cavalier attitude of the event organizer: damage was minor, and “They had no idea how far it was going to go,” (Keith) Brush said. “You know, with engineering projects, they usually don’t work out the first time.” And of course the the ultimate subjective stamp of approval that would have done any Redevelopment Director proud: 3000 kids had a good time. And of course we can’t put a price tag on that, now can we?

At least the pumpkin launch damage will only cost a few thousand bucks to fix (just wait’ll CSUF gets done with that bill!). Fullerton Redevelopment boondoggles cost a lot more.

October 31, 2009Big Brother

Swine Flu 1976: Paranoia and Propaganda

by Fullerton Ladybug13 Comments

Watch this CBS “60 Minutes” documentary on the swine flu epidemic of 1976. It went on air only once and was never shown again. This will shock you.

In the video, a government agent is caught lying to the public about risk of neurological disorders in subjects who took the swine flu vaccine. Mary Tyler Moore is interviewed after the government claimed that she took the swine flu as part of its widespread televised propaganda. She denies to the reporter that she ever took the swine flu.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has granted complete legal immunity to the manufacturer of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine.

October 30, 2009October 30, 2009Dick Jones

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

by admin38 Comments

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.

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