Taking a brief break from the non-stop coverage of (mostly) bad news from the Fullerton Police Department, we have received our first candidate response to the FFFF Candidate questionnaire, and it is realtor Johnny Ybarra, who is running in District Five.
To reiterate: all City Council candidates for the 2018 election are strongly encouraged to respond to the questionnaire and their responses will be reprinted in full at our earliest opportunity. All candidates have received the questionnaires already and we hope to hear what the other candidates have to say soon.
Our original questions, and Mr. Ybarra’s responses, are as follows:
Well, it looks like District 5’s ballot is going to be one candidate shy come election time this November as our prospective progressive/socialist climate warrior neighbor Jose Trinidad Castaneda III didn’t quite make the cut.
If you don’t know – you need 20 registered voters to sign a petition for you to run for city council and they must be valid signatures. 20. Castaneda, with his “deep roots” in District 5 opted to turn in just 23 (leaving the 7 extra spots blank) and a few were disqualified. Apparently Castaneda couldn’t be bothered to do the bare minimum which is to turn in 20 valid signatures.
Upon finding out that turning in just above the bare minimum number of signatures, despite some bloviating on his campaign Facebook page, wasn’t good enough owing to disqualifications he did what any good socialist does and he sued.
Let that sink in for when he runs his write-in campaign or perhaps carpetbags in 2020. He couldn’t be bothered to meet the bare minimum threshold and then sued because he didn’t think the rules should apply to him. This is not a mentality Fullerton needs or can afford and yet the mentality that typically is attracted to our City Council.
It seems that in this 60% Latino District the top two Progressives are a Caucasian Carpetbagger and a Syrian Showman. Which of the race baiting district election supporters saw this coming?
*Editorial Correction – In the original version of this post we said that District 5 lost a candidate. According to Castaneda’s lawyer, Greg Diamond, “Trini” plans on running a write-in campaign. So while he may still be a losing candidate, there will in fact be one-less than anticipated candidate on the ballot.
The original post also stated that Castaneda did the bare minimum. The law is to turn in 20 valid signatures and thus stating that Castaneda did the bare minimum is factually incorrect. Had he met the minimum threshold he would have qualified. He factually did less than the bare minimum and attempted to do just above the bare minimum.
Here is the actual copy of the Felony Complaint filed by the District Attorney’s office against Fullerton Police Sergeant Jeff Corbett as we mentioned was coming earlier today:
The charge is as follows:
118.1 PC False Report by a Peace Officer – Felony
For those who are curious here is what that CA Penal Code is:
Every peace officer who files any report with the agency which employs him or her regarding the commission of any crime or any investigation of any crime, if he or she knowingly and intentionally makes any statement regarding any material matter in the report which the officer knows to be false, whether or not the statement is certified or otherwise expressly reported as true, is guilty of filing a false report punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year, or in the state prison for one, two, or three years. This section shall not apply to the contents of any statement which the peace officer attributes in the report to any other person.
My suspicion that it was related to Felz’s accident was spot on, though it looks like it was done without (or around) the Grand Jury. Danny Hughes clearly threw Corbett under the bus and was given a pass.
Who wants to lay odds that this goes to trial or that the “false report” sees the light of day.
We received information today that (former?) Fullerton Police Sergeant Jeff Corbett is to be charged with a felony. Could this be from the recent Grand Jury investigation and relating to his mishandling of the Joe Felz DUI incident of election night 2016?
We’ll find out soon enough as a Press Release is forthcoming from the District Attorney’s office as I type.
Well over a year later, this letter shows that some of the accusations leveled at Sergeant Jeff Corbett and Lieutenant Goodrich, under the leadership of the since-departed Chief Danny Hughes, were indeed sustained.
Can we expect an Instagram Press Release from FPD? Maybe photos from the scene of the crime? A booking photo? Or are those only reserved for people not promised a government pension?
Last we heard, Doug “expected to be briefed” about why Fullerton’s $400,000 a year Chief of Police had been placed on leave.
That was days ago. Still no word on what was so significant that we lost our top cop without a public hearing, without a public notice, without a freaking phone call early Saturday morning.
And now the City had cancelled the scheduled September 4th meeting. Hmph. I guess we have nothing important to discuss!
Maybe something has happened to our good Mayor Doug. He was last seen helping his wife move into her new $250,000 condo in the southeast corner of town.
We know that Doug is real busy working on his political campaign for his next job as our County Supervisor, but if someone could find him and let him know Fullerton doesn’t have a Police Chief and no one knows why, we’d really appreciate it.
For those of you playing along at home we know that two of Fullerton’s Finest (Chief Hendricks & Captain Oliveras) have been put on a paid stay-cation (costing us approximately $1,955/day) for their conduct at a Lady Antebellum concert in Irvine. With City Manager Ken Domer putting Captain Bob Dunn in charge of FPD we are now being run by… Dunn & Domer.
It’s too bad this isn’t a comedy. Instead we’re finding ourselves in more typical Fullerton drama that a little transparency might have avoided. Alas instead of openness and honesty City Manager Ken Domer couldn’t be bothered to let anybody outside of the police department know what was happening in our town at the time, the next day or even the day after that.
In fact per a statement to the OC Register by Jennifer Fitzgerald it took Domer at least 3 days to inform his employers (City Council) of any details (if they have gotten any) and it has taken him 4 days to bother to release information to our fair city by way of a press release. It’s almost like he doesn’t know who he works for anymore.
Fullerton Councilwoman Jennifer Fitzgerald said she knows little about the incident, but “what I know of Chief Hendricks and Captain Oliveras is that they are fantastic guys and fantastic public servants and I look forward to the investigation being complete.”
Let us peruse this fascinating bit of PR garbage:
That’s quite a few words to say almost nothing of substance. What happened? How long is the leave? Was it criminal? Who’s investigating the case?
The City will not provide further information at this time, out of respect for the integrity of the ongoing investigations.
In other words “F U. You don’t have a right to know anything at all because integrity of an ongoing case”.
Except no.
We already know from an email from the City of Irvine there is plenty to see here and we deserve details. I’m tired of this mentality that it’s okay to publicly and loudly (Instgram?!) shame societal nobodies when they screw up but when our overlords do the same all of the sudden we need to worry about “integrity” and bury the details behind a wall of BS.
The first bit of BS that we need to knock down here is that this isn’t just some boilerplate investigation that “related entirely to allegations of off-duty conduct”.
This is an allegation of battery against an EMT. By possibly armed off-duty officers. The alleged battery alone falls under CA Penal Code 243(c)(1) unless the injury was serious and then it elevates.
(c) (1) When a battery is committed against a[n][…] emergency medical technician […] engaged in the performance of his or her duties, whether on or off duty, […] and an injury is inflicted on that victim, the battery is punishable by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars ($2,000), by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment, or by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for 16 months, or two or three years.
Next we have to ask who will oversee this investigation? Why were no arrests made for this alleged battery?
How is the District Attorney involved? Which internal investigator are we planning to hire? Is Irvine being allowed to investigate this case?
These are all pertinent questions especially considering the incestuous relationships we have with other departments. Remember that Irvine’s Chief of Police, Mike Hamel, is married to Katherine Hamel who herself is a Lieutenant under Captain Oliveras and Chief Hendricks.
Is Irvine’s Chief Hamel really going to investigate his wife’s boss? Is this why no arrests were made?
Regarding the “ongoing investigation” angle – that’s the same claptrap the city is still throwing at us over the Joe Felz accident and cover-up that happened 657 days ago. #SorryNotSorry that we can’t trust you and your comrades in obfuscation in the City Attorney’s office to come clean Mr. Domer.
If Fullerton’s City Manager Ken Domer really cared about transparency and “integrity” he wouldn’t hide behind subterfuge and lies of omission. He would tell we the citizenry about what is happening, how it is happening and how we can be assured that another Danny Hughes Felzian cover-up isn’t taking place in our city.
Domer would do well to read his own interview with the OC Register when he said;
You cannot operate local government without partnerships, without collaboration, without openness, transparency.
(Photo by Brian Whitehead, Orange County Register/SCNG)
I’ll be on with John & Ken during the 3pm hour (1500) discussing this issue. You can listen live on KFI’s website or on your radio at AM640.
It’s as official as it usually gets per the city of Irvine.
Here’s the Email from Irvine’s police chief to their council members two days ago. Two. Days. Ago.
Here we are two days (!) later and no official word from the City Manager Ken Domer or our City Council letting us know that our Chief of Police is the subject of a criminal (felony?) investigation.
As you may have heard, once again Fullerton has a police chief in hot water. First we had Mike Sellers run away from his post after bungling the Kelly Thomas case, then Danny Hughes decided to give Joe Felz a pass on drunk driving & alleged hit and run and now Chief Hendricks is in trouble for unspecified reasons.
There is no official word on what’s going on from the City because City Manager Ken Domer doesn’t think we have a right to know who’s running our police department and what is happening in our city. However, thanks to a diligent city employee who shall remain nameless reaching out to several of us we know that Hendricks is on a paid vacation (with the benefit of not needing to use his vacation time) for his bad behavior and Captain Bob Dunn is now acting Police Chief.
But who is Bob Dunn?
We wrote about Dunn back in January when he came to our fair city from Anaheim. He was a Lieutenant there and somehow promoted to the position of Captain in Fullerton without much fanfare.
Now he’s been moved to acting Chief. That’s one heck of a jump in 7 months time. Is he really the best man for the job? Is he up to the task? What will he be doing and for how long? Who’s investigating Hendricks? Is Dunn overseeing an IA whitewash or has another agency been called in?
Nobody knows because Ken Domer doesn’t think you have the right to know and the city council can’t be bothered to make him talk.
