FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Thus pleaded former Fullerton cop, and MADD Hero, Timothy Gibert, to charges of conspiracy and grand theft up in the high desert, and repeating a phrase that is becoming the recognized official motto of the City of Fullerton.
Here’s the news as reported in the Daily Titan.
The same day that Senator Josh Newman (D. 29th State Senate District) voted to further rob us at both the gas pump and DMV he claimed support for CA Assembly Bill 5. This bill would let California Voters decide, in June of 2018, if the legislature can use our stolen money to do anything but fix our failing infrastructure. Our failing infrastructure that should already be funded and fixed by our current gas taxes.
To his credit he wants to put a toothless California Constitutional Amendment on the ballot to make sure that our new CalPERS transportation taxes aren’t misspent. It’s too bad he didn’t care if we voters got a say on the issue of these taxes in the first place.
This bill was introduced in March of 2015 and has sat in committee as a non-urgent matter since that time. This means that it was proper urgent that Newman, Quirk-Silva and the rest of the Democrat-Controlled legislature to tax us into oblivion NOW NOW NOW but not so important that the money they steal from us via ever higher taxes actually gets used for their intended purposes.
Assembly Bill 5 is a perfect example of how everybody in Sacramento does things in entirely the wrong order. It would have been smart and prudent for the Assembly/Senate to put a bill on Gray Davis’ Jerry Brown’s desk to limit how money is spent for the intended purposes and then put the NEW TAXES on the ballot and not the other way around. Sadly we don’t get a choice in how much they rob you, just a choice in how they pretend to spend the ill-gotten goods.
That this sort of measure is even needed and yet ignored until politically convenient shows you all you need to know about the priorities of our electeds such as Josh Newman & Sharon Quirk-Silva.
Our local statewide electeds, Josh Newman (D. 29th State Senate District) & Sharon Quirk-Silva (D. Assembly District 65), have opted to vote to increase vehicle registration fees, gas taxes and add a new tax on zero emission cars in order to fix the budget that their own party is too incompetent to balance.
The vote was on California Senate Bill 1 (SB1) and both Newman and Quirk-Silva voted “Aye” on 06 April 2017.
I’m especially annoyed with Josh Newman because I thought, at the very least, that he wasn’t totally full of it. That he had a solid first name helped some during the election as did the GOP running their own brand of horribleness. Newman seemed like a reasonable guy who wouldn’t buckle to the whims of his party’s thievery.
Newman’s website, in the “Why Newman” section, states the following:
It’s time to push back against the special interests and political careerists in Sacramento. As your State Senator, my priorities will be your priorities: creating opportunity, improving schools, balancing budgets, and solving problems.
I didn’t read that as “I’ll tax you into oblivion and work with the political careerists to give them their gas and vehicles taxes that they’ve been clamoring for for far too long”. True to that (D) behind his name Newman played the standard tax’em-into-oblivion game that his chosen party oh so loves.
I voted for Josh Newman but bear suit be damned I will not make that mistake again. (more…)
Tomorrow the planning commission is going to be dealing with more parking issues. Or shall I say they’re going to be talking about something they have no control over because the State already stepped on them.
Back on 27 September 2016 Governor Moonbean signed SB 1069 into law. SB 1069 deals with “Additional Dwelling Units” or in the common vernacular “back houses”. You know the units as they’re the ones that get added behind a house so a homeowner can rent their second/third/fifth property to two groups of people as opposed to one. Charitably they’re known as “Granny Units” and uncharitably as “‘Mommy why is the creepy man staring at me all the time’ Units”.
The merits or pitfalls of these units notwithstanding, as we now legally have to allow for them all over town, this particular piece of legislation includes the following nugget:
Cities must waive parking requirements for ADUs that are entirely contained within existing structures, or that are within one-half mile of public transit, one block of a car-share vehicle, or in a historic district.
Within one-half mile of public transit. Okay, so let’s put that into context. Here’s a map of Fullerton to which I’ve added the major bus lines of OCTA in blue.
Using the Google Maps Distance Tool I can say that 1/2 mile would mean that Fullerton cannot require additional parking for ADUs anywhere approximately South of North Court. Likewise no new parking requirements would be allowed 1/2 mile East or West of Euclid or State College for ADUs. I’d worry about the neighborhood by CSUF but with CollegeTown coming back (courtesy of Japanese Chat Girls) that’s the least of their worries.
I loathe writing about roads and parking, truly I do yet unfortunately our elected betters seem to not understand human nature and thus the issues constantly come up.
This no required parking if within a half-mile of public transit is because allegedly the low-income take public transit unlike those who write these stupid laws. The poor take so much public transit that we subsidize the snot out of buses, streetcars, trolleys and hubs such as ARTIC. The poor love their public transit so much that we keep having to exempt streets from overnight parking in the lower-income apartments thanks to their under-parked nature. Why if only the folks in those low-income apartments could find parking for all of the public transit that they love to take we wouldn’t need to exempt so many streets.
Add this newest parking issue to the quiver of arrows that will be used to kill the overnight parking ban. As an aside I wonder how many new AirBnB rentals will be built here in Fullerton thanks to this “affordable housing” bill.
Young Kim, who last year managed to get herself unelected as our State Assemblywoman still lusts after political office, it seems. So now, unemployed, she is running for County Supervisor, a job she is no more qualified to hold than she was a seat in the State Legislature. Actually, a ling cod is more qualified to be a County Supervisor.
Her campaign, run by the proudly sleazy Dave Gilliard, just announced that Kim is endorsed by OCs two top law enforcement officials: DA Tony Rackauckas and the Sheriff, Sandra Hutchens. In days gone by these endorsements were no doubt a help to a campaign. Now? Probably not so much.
Hutchens and Rackauckas are both embroiled in a several years-old scandal involving the illegal creation and deployment of a system of jailhouse snitches. The jail deputies have repeatedly lied about the existence of the system and its use, and the DA’s crew has not only known about it, but has prosecuted people based on it. And tellingly, the DA has charged no Deputy Sheriffs with perjury even as the evidence of their lies and their destruction of evidence has become irrefutable. The result of this crooked fiasco so far is that the Feds are investigating the County – which will, of course, lead nowhere. More problematic is the DA causing the release of murderers and other not nice people in order to keep a lid on the whole steaming pile.
I know, “public safety,” right?
But loyal repuglican foot soldiers that they are, both the DA and Sheriff got on board the Young Kim Express as it was crawling out of the station, getting behind, they hope, the front runner who might eventually approve their budgets some warm June day at the County; and maybe willing to deploy the considerable resources of the County of Orange to run interference for their own criminal behavior.
The City — but mostly the police department — periodically receives donations from various groups. The donors range from businesses like McCoy Mills Ford, to local service groups such as the Elks Lodge, Rotary Clubs, Ebell Club, or even Fullerton residents. Before anyone pummels me in the comments section for something I didn’t say, I have nothing against these groups and I’m sure their intentions are good.
That being said, I suspect nobody realizes how their money is being (mis)spent once it leaves their hands and enters the City coffers.
Lax oversight and false promises should not come as a surprise. Such is the case when the Fullerton Rotary Foundation gave $500 for the police Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). Former Police Chief Dan Hughes made the following claim in his agenda letter to the City Council:
Below are the procurement card transactions for the last two-plus years on the RSVP account. Remember, Dan Hughes said the money would be used for supplies and equipment…
Dan Hughes made other questionable assurances about donated money. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such fund (account) in memory of FPD officers Jerry Hatch or Tommy De La Rosa. Nothing appears in the Chart of Accounts for either of their names. (anybody in the know, feel free to correct me)
Paul Hatch, who donated $500, is the father of deceased FPD officer Jerry Hatch. One has to wonder if Dan Hughes told the elder Hatch that, indeed, there was a fund in his son’s name — when, in reality, there probably isn’t one.
The Fullerton PD, like many others, has an Explorer program for teenagers. If we take the website at face value, the meetings and duties resemble a college class coupled with part-time job. Surprise! The procurement card purchases tell a different story. Pizza parties, bowling, airsoft games, trampoline jumping, $2100 of coins, and enough kettle corn to induce a coma. They even charged some RSVP expenses to this account by mistake.
The check registers for the same time period show a handful of checks issued:
October 14, 2016 — Learning for Life $18.75
September 16, 2016 — Orange County Law Enforcement Explorer Advisor Association (OCLEEAA) $300.00
August 19, 2016 — Andrew Coyle $127.16
March 4, 2016 — Learning for Life $41.25
December 11, 2015 — Learning for Life $250.00
October 23, 2015 — Orange County Law Enforcement Explorer Advisor Association (OCLEEAA) $300.00
March 13, 2015 — Learning for Life $355.00
Moral of the story? They spent more on bowling, pizza, and buffalo wings than on any educational materials for the explorers.
A sad state of affairs.
When it comes to influence peddling, nothing succeeds like alcohol and that’s what Curt Pringle and Associates is peddling at the upcoming big SCAG event down in the desert.
For the uninitiated, SCAG is “Southern California Association of Governments,” a regional agglomeration of government planning know-it-alls whose vision for the future includes big expensive transit projectors, ever more stack and pack housing, and, well, you get the drift. Here’s a funny Fullerton example of the mental perspicacity of one of their “senior” planners.
And Curt Pringle? That’s the employer of our lobbyist-councilcreature, Jennifer Fitzgerald, whose sole loyalty on the Fullerton City Council appears to be to big out-of-town developers. What a match.
The idea that SCAG needs to shift its bulk down to a swanky Palm Desert resort just to celebrate the sort of future it wants to shove down our throats is laughable, but this is a Big Annual Event, and as you can imagine the tab is on the dues paying members – budget-busted cities just like ours. And what better way to get lobbied than at a free wine bar before the Big Banquet (yes they are throwing a “banquet” for themselves!).
Will Jennifer Fitzgerald be going this year? Will she be going as an elected official or as a lobbyist? Is there any difference in her mind? Probably not. It’s called multi-tasking. Or God’s Front Row Seat. Or something.
Earthly human Friends, you may or may not care care for the proposed motto in the title. If not, feel free to share your own in the comments thread.
All I know is that the line of criminal defendants is getting even longer and the list of uncharged miscreants longer still.
Of course to the Old Guard, like my former mistress, everything is just copacetic in Fullerton and the real problem is not a busted budget, lying councilwomen, cratered streets, broken water mains, occasional landslides, a hit-and-run city manager or even a conga line of bad cops.
No. The problem is a lazy, ignorant and cheap citizenry that expects honest cops, decent roads a competent $200,000 city manager and a truly balanced budget.
When I was on Earth used to complain about the conditions at Casa Flory and then BAM, out came the broomstick. Well Fullerton humans, I can already see the backswing…
The OC Register reports that one of Fullerton’s Finest, Miguel (AKA Sonny, Sonny Black) Siliceo has pleaded not guilty to charges leveled by the District Attorney.
A while back I shared the news that Siliceo was charged by the DA with filing a phony cop report. It had to do with a case in which some dude in our downtown booze palace had been busted and charged with “resisting” Sonny’s attempt to hook him up. The trouble was that cop video exonerated the guy. This has been an unfortunate recurrence in Fullerton where all sorts of people end up in the Fullerton jail and workable pretexts need to be ginned up by the cops to explain their presence in the clink. Remember the unfortunate Veth Mam?
And Sonny himself is no stranger to throwing the wrong guy in jail, but apparently now nobody is willing to run interference for him, including our gelatinous acquaintance Andrew Goodrich who once blew off Sonny’s seemingly deliberate misidentification of Emmanuel Martinez that left the guy in jail for 5 months.
Poor misunderstood Sonny has been on paid leave since October, which is costing us plenty, but it still may be cheaper than having him on the streets getting into mischief.
According to his mouthpiece, Michael Schwartz, Siliceo came to Fullerton in 2006 from Tustin. Which makes you wonder why a 40-year old cop would suddenly move to a new employer. Of course because of the obnoxious Police Officer’s Bill of Rights, the taxpayers and citizens are not permitted to know anything about Sonny’s departure from Tustin. But now we can start to make some educated guesses.
And just for fun, you may remember Mr. Schwartz as the beneficiary of the bungled case our District Attorney tried against the one-eyed Fullerton cop, Jay Cicinelli, who smashed in Kelly Thomas’s face with a the butt end of a Taser – right before the homeless man was bon voyaged by the FPD into a lethal coma.
Fullerton has a serious leadership void. No, I am not talking about our electeds telling us our budgets are balanced when they clearly aren’t and I don’t mean that we have a culture of corruption/cover-up with different rules for different people.
Those are well documented issues which will continue to be explored. No, today I’m talking about our actual leadership void.
Since last year Fullerton has lost City Manager Joe Felz, Police Chief Danny Hughes, Library Director Maureen Gebelein and now according to public 700 disclosure forms our Deputy Fire Chief Julie Kunze as well as Museum Director Dannielle Mauk.
That leaves a yearly compensation package of $1,245,302.21 on the table for those 5 positions so get your resumes ready.
