The word of Mike Duval’s resignation has spread like a wildfire. I just got off the phone with soon to be termed out Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby and according to Chris even though he’s only had 30 minutes to think about this he told me, “I believe this is an opportunity I have to take”! “Opportunity”? Hell, this is the Red Sea parting.
Everyone who knows Chris’ avowed principles knows that he would better serve the public by being in Sacramento and advocating for Redevelopment reform than by hanging around Civic Center Drive and Broadway recording “vital” records. There’s no better place to advocate for Redevelopment reform than in Sacramento.
With the disgrace and unavoidable collapse of our State Assembly-zit Mike Duvall of Yorba Linda, a perfect opportunity has arisen for our termed-out 4th District County Supervisor Chris Norby to step into the picture.
Whoo-hoo! The best part is it'll drive Ackerman crazy!
Chris has taken some heat here from some of our fellow FFFF bloggers for his County Clerk campaign which to some of them gave off an aroma of desperation for a job. Well, the politico gods seem to have placed a job right in Norby’s lap – a job at which he would excel – statewide policy – particularly Redevelopment reform. Do it Chris!
The rather gross story that has emerged about our State Assemblyman Mike Duvall the insurance salesman from Yorba Linda will not be retold here. It is related in disgusting detail by the relentless Scott Moxley at the OC Weekly here.
We’re not so much offended by this clown’s infidelities, which are his business, as by the utter lack of tact in bragging about them, and the stupidity of doing so in an open mike. Why can’t the GOP find better representatives? And why does the same cast of characters – including Dick Ackerman and Ed Royce – keep foisting these nitwits on us?
PS – JC, I believe this is the thread you may wish to comment on.
Here’s another source for the Duvall video: http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2009/09/ca-assemblyman-mike-duvall-resigns.html
Teri Sforza has produced another fine Watchdog post over at the Register about the gravy train that already awaits MWD employees in retirement, including a list of over 40 of these watercrats who pull down over $100K a year in pension payements click here . The former top dog who retired in 1993 gets almost $225K per year and has received over $3.5 million since he stopped clocking in. Sweet. For him.
grrrrrr
If that weren’t bad enough, now MWD wants to raise their pension formula even more. A few days ago we threw down the gauntlet to our City Council to be accountable for the upcoming vote by their chosen MWD representative, Jim Blake. Well, now we do it again. The vote is next week and we will be reporting back to the friends.
And remember. MWD cost increases are passed directly on to us. On top of that, in Fullerton 10% of gross water revenue (from your water bill) goes directly into the General Fund. And that’s a hidden tax increase, folks.
Here’s the MWD $100,000 club. If you know anyone on the list make sure he/she thanks the water rate payer for their largess:
Fullerton School District Trustee Minard Duncan (or someone doing a marvelous impersonation) visited our site a while back and left this observation about City Councilman Shawn Nelson’s wife, Sharon:
Nelson’s wife is a very pretty women as well as pleasant and cordial! It is hard not to drool around her.
Apart from the sharp needle-jump into the red on our FFFF creep-o-meter, it set us to thinking about mature male politicos and attractive, significantly younger females.
Pretty and cordial, too!
Some politicos avoid having their pictures taken with beauty contest winners for fear that the young woman will get all the attention, and the politician will look rather like an ugly duckling alongside. Others either haven’t learned that lesson, or are so starved for attention that they do it anyway.
No personal space in this biz. Smile 'til it hurts
And of course some just can’t seem to resist laying hands on the pretty young things.
UPDATE: The MWD Board will take up this matter at its meeting on Sept 15.
The Metropolitan Water District, one of the shadowiest and least transparent agencies in California is contemplating raising its employees pension benefits. The Register opines about ithere and makes reference to an original story by Teri Sforza here .
With bad news about how its own pension plan has been rocked by huge CalPERS investment losses, and with financially teetering state and municipal governments it seems like a poor time for the MWD to be grabbing for more tax-payer backed gravy to benefit a giant gaggle of water bureaucrats. Plus, the MWD just passed along a water commodity rate to its members that we are all paying for.
Fullerton is original member of the MWD and has been represented for a long time, some say way too long, by a fellow named Jim Blake – as we wrote about here .
Jim Blake from the MWD is here, and he's here to help. But whom? The ratepayers or the MWD bureaucrats?
UPDATE: The MWD is scheduled to take up this matter at its meeting on September 15.
Jim has been on the MWD Board for so long that almost nobody can remember when he went on back in the 80s (1980s, that is). The people who originally appointed him are all long gone. But Jim has well-managed his continual reappointment without anybody else getting a shot at the job. Well, now he’s got an issue that may just spell trouble for his lengthy tenure.
Blake has always been a big pro-staff drum-beater, and its hard to imagine that if, left to his own devises, he wouldn’t go for the pension jack. If he goes for it now, the people who appointed him may discover that it is they who are ultimately responsible for the actions of their appointees. Under ordinary circumstances this might not bother Fullerton’s own pension spiking gang too much. But 2010 is an election year, and we feel certain that this the pension increase will become an issue if it goes through. The city council needs to know that this continued fiscal recklessness will not be tolerated.
You will never see me taking money from developers...
Green?
We’ve been sharing information (when we find it) with our Friends about the unusual – well, unique, really – relationship between the Fullerton Collaborative and the Fullerton School District. Fullerton City Council woman Pam Keller is the Executive Director of the former, but remains an employee of the latter. We’ve coined a term for the process – “contracting-in.” It’s such a rare strategy that we’ve never actually seen it in use before.
Many of our Loyal Readers’ eyebrows have been caused to arch by the possibility that Pam Keller might have been soliciting donations for The Collaborative that actually went to pay FSD for her own services. And those eyebrows got even closer to hairlines when speculation began that Pam may have been soliciting donations from interests that had business before the City of Fullerton.
Today we share the 2009-2010 agreement between the Collaborative and the FSD – agreed upon by the Board of Trustees unanimously and without discussion as a “consent calendar” item.
Notice the asterisk in item #1 of the Collaborative’s responsibilities. It leaves open the possibility that the District may give the Executive Director a raise – and stick the Collaborative with the bill! Now we ask you – what kind of an organization would agree to an open-ended codicil like that in a contract? We’ll help out: one in which the Executive Director (who is also a board member), is the direct beneficiary, that’s who!
We also note in the 2009-10 FSD budget documents a throw away line stating that the Collaborative kicked in extra money to the FSD. It’s noted in that little box at the bottom of the document (below). Now why would the Collaborative do that? What kind of “charity” gives additional money back to a contractor? Possibly a charity whose fund-raiser’s efforts are so successful that a surplus exists which could be kicked back to the District to pay for that raise described in item #1 of the agreement. Of course we’re just speculating here.
But, none of these speculations would be so thought provoking if the Collaborative’s mission weren’t so fuzzy, and if it had major expenses other than the cost of hiring a government employee to be its Executive Director/fund-raiser. But the mission is so loose as to be practically meaningless, and the cost of the Executive Director consumed most of its budget in 2007.
All of this really ties back to the fundraising issue and who actually gives money to the Collborative. But it’s perfectly clear now that the funds – donations, fees, whatever – that go into the Collaborative, go to pay Keller – via the FSD; the question of additional “revenue” given to the FSD by the Collaborative opens up a new issue for people who contribute to this endeavor and who might start wondering why the Collaborative can’t be run by its own employee, or better yet, by volunteer labor.
Fullertontrash in green bins is goldto hundreds if not thousands of recyclers throughout North OC. People who are in the marginal business of recycling are now flocking to neighborhoods throughout Fullerton Monday- Friday. Depending on the day of the week that your trash is picked up you may notice people competing to score the goods from the green bin. It’s no coincidence that it’s green is it?
So who does the recyclable stuff belong to? Good question. Someone “inadvertently” forgot to label the bin Property of MG Disposal or Property of the City of Fullerton, and the recyclers believe that they are doing business as usual.
Most people understood that if everyone helped (recycled) by sorting our trash, then the hauling rates would be lowered (or at least not raised) and would save us a little money on our trash bill. But now that we are all sorting the “goods” for the recyclers on trash day it has become an added bonus for those in the shopping cart recycling business.
Is a crime being committed? Is anybody cited for it? Who makes up the loss for MG Disposal?
Did the city and MG Disposal leave out an important clause in the contract? Or is it just easier for everybody to look the other way?
We were constantly told how wonderful the 1:1 Laptop program has been for the education of Fullerton school children, but something just didn’t smell right to us. Sure enough, we find out that many parents are finally saying “NO”. Resistance to the autocratic technology program has grown drastically in the last 6 months. After having a taste of the laptop program, parents at Golden Hill Elementary strongly rejected the continuance of the program at their school.
A report from the school district shows that Golden Hill parents failed to meet the 90% “willingness” threshold that is required for the laptop program to be continued. Despite ominous threats of moving children to an inferior school if the parents did not respond the survey “correctly”, only 51% of parents volunteered to participate in the program. The threshold was put in place after the ACLU sued the school district for violating children’s Constitutional right to a free education several years ago. Many parents at both Hermosa Drive and Nicholas Jr. High rejected the program as well, but the school district found enough money to subsidize parts of the program anyway.
After years of congratulating themselves for this high-tech boondoggle, the stupefied school board could only muster up support to continue the program at a single school. That’s not good, and it’s only going to get worse now that the parents are catching on.
How much longer can the district afford to keep shoveling money into the laptop pit as teachers are laid off and struggling parents stop paying their bills?
What will parents do when they find out how unsafe these Internet-ready laptops really are?
