The Voice of OC has a detailed story about how our city council approved giving half a million bucks to something called the Illumination Foundation to acquire and operate a homeless shelter somewhere in Fullerton.
Provide Your Own Caption
As usual Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jan Flory pretended to care about the fact that the public has not been informed of the location of this place even though they know very well where it is. In the end they went along with their brethren Jesus Silva and Ahmad Zahra and voted 4-0 to commit $500,000 to this philanthropic endeavor (their philanthropy, our money). Bruce Whitaker was missing in action.
I really care about you. No, wait. That’s wrong…
Of course Fitzgerald is running for re-election next year in District 1, so we can be certain the proposed property won’t be anywhere near her house, or that of Flory.
T-REX SO HAPPY. FOOLERTON APPROVE NEW EXPERIMENT FOR PERSONS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS. YOU SLEEP IN CAR AND THE CITY GIVE YOU PRESENTS. T-REX LOVE GIVING PRESENTS TO PERSONS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS.
T-REX HAVE IDEAS FOR WHERE TO PUT PARKING AND GIFT GIVING.
MAYBE RAYTHEON PARKING LOT. YUUUUUGE, NEXT TO JOBS AND TRAILS, NEXT TO NICE HOMES, GREAT PLACE TO PARK AND GIFT. BASTANCHURY PARK RIGHT NEXT DOOR, TOO.
RALPH B CLARK PARK HAVE YUUUUGE PARKING LOTS. LOTS OF DUCKS TO EAT. QUIET, PEACEFUL, BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO PARK AND GIFT.
MAYBE FOOLERTON USE CHURCHES ON EUUUUUUCLID. PERSONS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS GET A LITTLE JESUS BEFORE HITTING THE FULLERTON LOOP.
MAYBE MUCKENTHALER. IS CUTE PARKING, GET SOME CULTURE WITH PARK AND GIFT, NEXT TO ROADS AND BUS LINES. PERFECT PLACE FOR PERSONS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS.
T-REX THINK THAT WHERE EVER FOOLERTON PUT PEOPLE TO PARK AND SLEEP, THEY SHOULD BE CLOSE TO JENNIFER FITZGERALD. SHE SEEM SO EAGER TO AGREE TO IDEA, MAYBE THIS TIME SHE FINALLY PAY FOR ONE OF HER DECISIONS. T-REX THINK IT GREAT SHE VOLUNTEER HER NEIGHBORS FOR EXPERIMENT FOR PERSONS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS.
T-REX SO HAPPY. SO MANY NEW FRIENDS. THANK YOU JENNIFER FITZGERALD. THANK YOU FOR YOUR EXPERIMENT WITH PERSONS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS. WE HOPE YOUR NEIGHBORS HAPPY LIKE T-REX, TOO.
Missing person? Well, they better not show up. Or else…
The cops always ask us, when we dare to criticize their unlawful, corrupt,or incompetent behavior: who are you going to call when you need help?Sometimes the question evolves into a statement: I hope we’re gonna be there when you need us. Then it always comes across as a thinly veiled bit of extortion on the part of those sworn to uphold “public safety,” and are taking public money (lots of it) to do so. I’m reminded of the mob shakedown racketeer: jeez, it will be a real shame if something is happening to youse guy’s nice bisness.
But enough small talk. FFFF received correspondence today from a Fullerton resident who believes he recently made a big mistake calling the FPD instead of just relying on the kindness of strangers.
Here is the story in his very own words – as addressed to the Police Chief, the City Council and the District Attorney.
Date: Sunday, September 29, 2019
To: Fullerton Police Chief, City Council Members, Orange County District Attorneys Office
From: Toby R Oliver, Fullerton resident
A call by me to the Fullerton Police Department last night for help in finding a mother and two-year old son has exploded into at hellish nightmare after FPD Sergeants decided to arrest said mother for doing nothing more than getting lost.
My wife and mother of our three sons, Pranee Sribunruang, now sits in the Santa Ana Jail on $100,000 bail, charged with felony child endangerment because two Fullerton Police Sergeants decided it was their duty to put her there after she went for a walk, got lost and took several hours to make it back home.
FPD Sergeants Brandon Clyde and Emmanuel Pulido pitched a mission of help and concern when I met them out front of our home last night, pulling out all the stops to help find Pranee and our two-year-old son Leo. Then just as the Sheriff’s Department blood hound was about to be given her scent, Pranee stepped out of a vehicle that had pulled up, driven by a good semaritan who found her and Leo at a gas station and brought them home.
This is when it all changed.
Immediately, Pranee was someone who had done something wrong. Forcing her to sit on the curb, out came a thosand questions from the officers. Where did you go? What were you doing? Who were you with? “What do you mean you wanted to walk to Norwalk, you can’t walk to Norwalk,” Sergeant Pulido spewed. I tried to step in, and the officers pulled me away, saying this and that about needing to talk to her separately. One of the junior officers brought me aside and tried to calm me down, “We just want to help her, find out what’s going on,” he said. “Go inside and I’ll call you out in a minute.”
I waited a few minutes, went back outside and Pranee was gone. I asked where she was. “She is being arrested,” they said. “For what,” I replied, “which car is she in?” They wouldn’t tell me, and they wouldn’t tell me what she was being charged with. “You’ll find out Tuesday,” one of them said. Then I saw her head up against the back side window of one of the patrol cars. I went toward her, grabbed at the window and said “babe.” I didn’t know what to say. It had all gone horribly wrong, so quick. And I was responsible because I had called the FPD for their help.
Before I could do anything else, one of the officers jumped in the car and tore off down the street, leaving me there looking after her. I still didn’t really understand what was happening. This was supposed to be about finding Pranee and Leo. Now they were taking her away before I could even hug her.
Pranee is the kindest person I know. Her life is about showing kindess to others. Everyone she meets falls in love with her and her kind spirit. She had never been arrested before. She never even had a speeding ticket. No misdemeanors, no arguments with anyone (except me, her husband), and certainly never any child neglect or endangerment. The only way you knew she was mad at you was when she didn’t speak to you. Now she sits in the Santa Ana County Jail thanks to Sergeants Pulido and Clyde, and our family is torn apart.
The officers asked me earlier in the night, “has she ever threatened to harm herself or her son.” No I said emphatically. Her and I have had our issues, as most couples do. And she has experienced some depression recently, and we are working on this and trying to seek some mental health treatment. All this I told the officers, but sergeants Clyde and Pulido took this to mean something very different.
There was no harm to my son Leo. There was no endangerment, unless walking on the sidewalk at night is felony endangerment in today’s Southern California. Clyde and Pulido just didn’t like her explanation that she wanted to walk to Norwalk to see a friend and trade jewelry. I had explained to them that I had her only debit card because I had misplaced mine the day before, or, she told the officers, she would have taken Uber. Her phone had no service, so she couldn’t call us. It just didn’t add up for Clyde and Pulido so they decided “she met the criteria” and ripped apart our family, just at the moment we were reunited.
Now, I realize the worse thing I did that night was to call FPD, because in the end she made it home on her own – even though we were all very worried – and we would all be home together tonight enjoying each other. Instead FPD has torn our family apart, and we are lost. Never will I seek the aide of FPD again.
And one last thing, I don’t blame Clyde and Pulido as much as I blame the FPD. Where would they get this attitude, this aggressive nature? Where would they get the idea that somebody needed to go to jail in this situation. This is training that comes from the top, and that is your real problem Police Chief and City Councilmembers. Something very rotten is at the heart of your police department, and you need to do something about it.
Toby R Oliver
Now of course this is only Mr. Oliver’s story, but as stories go, it seems to have a degree of verisimilitude. The City will have its own version of the tale, no doubt, even if we are never allowed to see it.
Please note Mr. Oliver’s two conclusions: namely, that it would have been far better for him to have never called the Fullerton Police Department at all; and that there must be an ingrained culture of aggression and inhumanity in the department. As to the first conclusion, I leave that for others to determine. As to the second issue, those of us watching the FPD and the way it operates, have long ago detected a wide vein of callousness that accompanied the criminal and abusive behavior by its employees.
So what will come of all this except embarrassment for his family and big legal bills for Mr. Oliver? He won’t get any satisfaction from his communicants, that’s for sure, or even an apology. No, for the FPD admits of no error as its careening incompetence smashes across the lives of the people who have had the misfortune to be in their way.
California’s Brown Act specifically enumerates when public agencies can meet in secret (Closed Session, they call it) away from the prying eyes of the nuisancy public that pays for the whole show. One of these exempt categories is “litigation,” in which secrecy is deemed to be okie-dokie. The problem is that government agencies, when given an inch will invariably take a mile.
But when you fail to specifically constrain the arm of government, they will invariably flex those muscles. And so it is that “litigation” has come to includeanticipated litigation which, of course, could cover just about anything, anywhere, at any time. And that label seems to give the City of Fullerton reason to believe it can omit the names of anticipated litigants. The anticipated litigants must, necessarily remain in the dark about what the government is about to do to them, while the government, for its part, gets a jump on its adversary. Of course this isn’t right, but what do rights have to do with the City of Fullerton government?
Let’s first take a look at the City’s Closed Session agenda for September 17:
Opacity from a “transparent” government…
Notice the final two items have been draped in the magical shroud of “anticipated litigation.” We may wonder what the Big Mystery is. Rumors are circulating that at least one of the the items in question is the City’s desire to sue humble little us, Friends for Fullerton’s Future, and that the council has voted to do so.Could that really be true? FFFF, of course, would be the last to know. But the City Attorney made no mention of such doings while “reporting out,” from the Closed Session. If they’re true, what are we to make of the rumors?
Roosevelt Palmer Esq., Seeking Five Sisters…
The City has already sent a couple of laughable nastigrams in our direction, both of which were duly ignored, so litigation is plausible, but only if the City initiates it. This means that it is the City instigating, not reacting to likely litigation, and begs the question of why this issue would not be a matter for public discourse. And it also suggests that it is the city manager and his bumbling lawyers who will have advocated this harassment to cover up their own corruption they didn’t want exposed.
Well, I’m sure that covering up its clownish behavior is the last thing the esteemed council, upright city manager and brilliant city lawyers would ever do, so it seems pretty certain everything will be made clear. One way or another.
Uh oh. Another sexcapade courtesy of the Fullerton Joint Unified High School District.
Armed and twisted…
A few weeks ago we learned of the fun hijinks of FPD Pervy Peeping Policeman Jose Paez deployed on FJUHSD campuses as a “resource officer” which, if you think about it, if a pretty funny title for this creep.
Getting to the bottom of kids problems…
Yesterday, news outlets reported on the playful doings of Ms. Kristin Lynn Boyle, a school psychologist at La Habra High. She is accused of rape in a classroom.
What is it with this sort of thing? Makes you wonder why the grossly overpaid educrats can’t run their operation just a little better. Did anybody bother giving the psychologist a psych test of her own? And how many of these minor transgressions will be successfully whitewashed and written off as bad luck for the organization?
One of these people is a tax and spender. So is the other…
First we get to hear the obligatory boohoo tale from our imbecile mayor, Jesus Silva about how a cop with a growing family just can’t afford to live with the paltry crumbs doled out by the taxpayers of Fullerton.
Play it again, Ken…
Then we get to hear from our $230,000 a year City Manager, Ken Domer, as he focuses his keen, analytical mind on the issue:
“We’re about 18th in pay, but we’re also the sixth largest city in Orange County. So our pay is clearly not where it should be,” Domer said.
Notice how this dull blade conflates city population with deserved cop pay? This is just insulting. Is he that stupid or just have that low opinion of our intelligence? And notice the language: “clearly not where it should be” as if perhaps his moronic formula is actually validated somewhere by a scale he just made up. No, Domer, what’s not where it should be is the monster salary we pay you not to be stupid – or at least not to say stupid things that end up in the media.
If anybody cares, the vote was 4-1 with Bruce Whitaker voting no. The rest, of course, went along for the ride, even though the City’s finances are so precarious Silva is promising a new tax on the ballot next year. And no doubt the cop union that is more interested in keeping dues paying members than in the well-being of our city will be backing it big time.
Thar’ she blows…
And as our decrepit roads and infrastructure deteriorate ever farther, they will be used by the cops and the bureaucrats to leverage more revenue from us. Revenue that will go right back into employee compensation for the people who brought us the bad roads in the first place, and who have cultivated and protected the FPD Culture of Corruption.
Folks here at FFFF have been prognosticating a new tax for several years. Even as councilcreatures Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jan Flory lied to the public by telling them the budget was balanced, we’ve been watching the strategic reserve fund dwindle away to almost nothing, leveling off last year only because so many positions were vacant.
The fact is that ever-escalating “public safety” pay and benefits, and a ruinous CalPERS pension debt have created what budget bean counters call a structural deficit; meaning, that the annual red-ink baths are a permanent condition that you can’t weasel your way out of selling marginal city-owned properties.
And so the harsh and inescapable reality has finally come home, like a wayward vulture, to roost. And harsh realities always trump the happy lies of politicians. It’s just a matter of time.
And that is why so many people have begun to hear stories that Councilcreature Jesus “Don’t Call Me Jeesis” Silva is sending up the trial balloon of a sales tax on the November 2020 general election ballot. The choice of that date is cynical since the General Election is will produce an electorate much more sympathetic to tax and spend policies of liberals like Silva, Ahmad Zahra, Flory and of course Fitzgerald. The seeds will be officially sown during the 2020-21 budget kabuki next spring. I am giving huge odds.
They always cleaned up after me!
It’s going to happen. Zahra and Silva are not up for re-election so they must figure they’re safe; Flory is the lamest of lame ducks, a flightless bird, in fact, and thoughtful Friends have already suggested that she was put back on the council precisely for an automatic yes vote on a new tax. After all Flory’s first love has always been public emplyees.
And this leaves Fitzgerald, an erstwhile Republican free to oppose the vote putting the tax on the ballot in order to unburden herself of running for re-election with the tax monkey on her back – exactly where it belongs.
The pieces are now pretty much in place. The only question is how much the FPD Culture of Corruption and their buddies lounging in the “firehouse” are willing to invest in their shakedown.
You think we’re full of it when we warn you about the severity of the pension problem in Fullerton (and elsewhere). You think we’re joking about the pension crisis that threatens to eat our city budget whole.
You ignore when Fitzgerald laughs off structural deficits and joins our council in voting for every pay/benefits package our heroes demand.
Well it is a crisis. A crisis of math and a crisis of ethics.
How bad is it?
It’s so bad our City Manager is actively considering giving away property we can’t readily sell to pay what we owe on the pensions.
Here’s an except from an email forwarded by CM Ken Domer to now-former Administrative Services Director Michael B. O’Kelly, CPA asking for his feedback (emphasis added):
I wanted to share information about fairly new alternative funding concept in public pension – funding using “assets-in-kind”.
Followed by:
The concept of using assets-in-kind for pension and OPEB funding is currently being considered by the State of CT. Attached is one of the presentations made during the hearings of the CT Pension Sustainability Commission that explains the approach (PDF document). I thought it may be interesting for you to review. Of course, the approach is not specifically designed for the states, but can be implemented by the local government as well.
Essentially, the pension fund is ready to foreclose on Fullerton.
First we’ll lose worthless assets like the poisoned park, the bridge & stairs to nowhere, some undeveloped land. Then council will vote for some more hero benefits and CalPERS will change the discount rate again and we’ll move on the hunt branch library, the main branch library, the community center, Hillcrest and so forth. At some point we’ll sell City Hall and Council Chambers to the pension fund which would be fitting considering the heroes and their pensions already own our council and staff.
We’ll do all of this because, according to our council majority the budget is balanced.
In case you haven’t heard by now, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office which is led by Todd Spitzer, filed a peeping charge against Fullerton Police Officer Jose Paez for filming up the skirt of a 16 year old student.
Let that sink in for a moment. A 16 year old, who Paez was on campus to protect, was his victim under color of authority.
According to the case information the violation date was 11/03/2017 and according to the FPD press release it was found by accident while investigating something else.
Based on the Body Worn Camera audit conducted by FPD we know that Paez also attempted to film up a teacher’s skirt on 08/29/2017 which shows a pattern of behavior.
He also had underage sex videos and photos on a phone in his possession. Apparently chain of custody at FPD, regarding Child Pornography, is so lax that they don’t know who has it on what devices or where it’s stored.
To further complicate the issue, Paez was allowed to schedule deletion of his own Body Worn Camera videos.
Taking into account the potential charges such as peeping on teachers and underage students and possession of child pornography on his phone it seems unprofessional that Fullerton PD wouldn’t contract this case out to another department or agency. This ins’t a case of policy violations to be investigated by Internal Affairs but rather it is one of potential criminal conduct against children under color of authority. The community and students at FJUHSD deserved an objective outside source to look into these issues.
This is something they did not get because Fullerton put their perv officer first and the wall of silence stood still. Not a single officer came forward about Paez. Not a single council member. Not a single school board member. An officer was allowed to prey on our children in his capacity of School Resource Officer and the protected status of the police was more important than public notification.
Thanks to the DA only levying a single charge dating to almost two years ago this smells more like another case of FPD being caught with their pants down than actual due diligence. The priority doesn’t seem to be in protecting our city and our city’s children despite all of the attaboys Chief Dunn gave himself in his Press Release on the issue.
What stopped Paez from sharing nude photos of your daughters with his friends and co-workers? What’s to stop his replacement from doing the same?
Nothing and that’s how FPD likes it so shut up and go back to sleep. They’ll make this go away like so many other cases of criminality by their own in blue and then have the audacity to ask for a raise which council will give them.
This is the upside-down world we live in where justice consists of a press release followed by a likely plea deal where a pervert with a pattern of behavior of preying on women and children while under the color of authority will be allowed to walk with barely a slap on the wrist.
Spitzer is continuing the efforts of his predecessor who refused to file charges against Fullerton Officer Rincon despite groping women in his patrol car during traffic stops. A pattern that consisted of letting off Fullerton Officer Christopher Chiu who forced a naked women to stand for him so he could shine his light up her crotch and then ask for her number.
Sexual predation seems to be A-OK behind the Blue Wall of Silence supported by the brass at FPD, City Hall and the DA’s Office.
We all knew, based on the Jailhouse Snitch program, that there was seemingly nothing the Orange County District Attorney’s Office wouldn’t do to protect bad cops but now that includes downplaying sexual crimes against a School Resource Officer. All to protect a pervert in blue.
When did FPD send the case to the DA? How long did they sit on the Paez problem? Was he fired or was he allowed to quit? Chief Dunn won’t tell you. Did FPD or the DA even ask for potential victims to come forward or were they too worried about the bad press they’d get by possibly uncovering a #PaezMeToo problem they ignored for at least a year?
Meet DA Todd Spitzer, same as DA Tony Rackauckas – a hero for self-proclaimed heroes and nobody else.
It was bad enough when we learned that Fullerton Officers had (have?) no oversight in how they themselves are allowed to categorize videos and schedule them for deletion. Do something wrong like the litany of SB1421 criminal cops? Just change the category to delete the videos and nobody is the wiser.
It was worse that we learned that in the context of Fullerton Officer Jose Paez perving on High School kids and teachers while on the job, including for allegedly shooting video up a 16 year old’s skirt for which he’s being prosecuted.
But it turns out that Fullerton cops label their video files wrong 60% of the time according to Chief Dunn himself:
“We also learned the way we label data, officers tag the video via an app on their phones, is incorrect 60% of the time. This contributes to the storage overages and can cause evidence to be missed.”
So when officers aren’t just deleting the videos of their criminal activity, such as Paez did, they’re potentially missing evidence for cases by simply not doing their jobs correctly.
The guys and gals in blue whom we pay the vast majority of our budget to can’t manage to tag a video properly for evidence – when evidence is quite literally one of the most important aspects of their job.
Guess they need more training and raises to justify that training. Bring on Fitzgerald’s taxes to solve this pernicious police problem. Just kidding. We’re paying for software (CAD integration) because a machine is the only thing that can save us from officer incompetence. But we’ll still get hosed with the taxes to pay for their ever growing pensions just you wait.
