Friends For Fullerton's Future

October 17, 2017Behind Closed Doors

Pay The Lady: Nepotism At Its Worst

Today’s ethical lapse comes to us courtesy of the Fullerton Fire Department. See those shirts pictured above? Fire Captain Brian Seymour ordered nine of them for some kind of “Peer Support”.

Once the use tax is factored in, we paid about $40 per shirt.

Check out the reconciliation report. One can clearly see the purchaser was Brian Seymour.

Below, we see the invoice from the vendor, Linksoul, where the salesperson was Mary Seymour. Wait a minute, that must be a coincidence. No City employee would be foolish enough to use taxpayer money to purchase unnecessary clothing from a relative’s clothing business, right?

Mary Seymour is the Fire Captain’s wife. Linksoul is a clothing company started by her brother. A couple minutes with Google was enough to locate this article from Carlsbad Magazine with a quote about nepotism that couldn’t be more ironic under the circumstances.

Hinman, W. (2014, March & April). The Man Makes The Clothes. Carlsbad Magazine, 38-43.

So while the City of Fullerton prepares to be crushed under the weight of CalPERS pension obligations, we have people like Brian Seymour not just wasting our money — he’s sending cash to his wife’s family business.

Brian Seymour made $294,761 last year in pay and benefits. Why didn’t he pay for these shirts with his own money?

Did anyone make him reimburse the City? Whose idea were these shirts, anyway? Perhaps most important is why didn’t it occur to Brian Seymour that sending money to the family business was improper, and likely a violation of City policy and/or State Law?

Thanks to a certain FFD employee for bringing this to our attention. You know who you are.

October 16, 2017Behind Closed Doors

Bad Neighbor!

by David Curlee21 Comments

Would you give neighbors access to your bank account?

No? That would probably come as a shock to some at City Hall where (at least) three City of Brea employees have been issued VISA procurement cards belonging to the City of Fullerton.

Fullerton and Brea have a shared Fire Department command staff. The Fire Chief, Deputy Chiefs, Division Chiefs, Battalion Chiefs, and an EMS manager perform services for both cities, even though they remain employees of the City where they came from. Those from Brea have been given the Fullerton VISA cards. Now, I can hear some people uttering phrases like “so what,” and “who cares,” and “what’s the problem?” I can help you with that.

Fullerton Fire Station 3 on Acacia Ave was the recipient of five La-Z-Boy recliners, on the City VISA card. The purchaser? Chris Guerrero, a Brea employee. The supervisor approving the purchase? Kathy Schaefer, another Brea employee. And where did the money come from? Fullerton.

The receipt raises another question because Engine 3, based at this fire station, only has a crew of three. So why purchase five recliners?

I’d bet money the extra recliners are for the CARE Ambulance employees based at Station 3. Nothing in the housing agreement between the City and CARE Ambulance talks about furnishings, so the recliners appear to be a gift.

A gift from Brea employees using Fullerton’s money.

October 12, 2017October 12, 2017Bruce Whitaker

Bruce Whitaker’s Cash Cow

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy21 Comments

The other evening the Fullerton City Council discussed the issue of letting bar owners cram more of their top-shelf patrons into downtown Fullerton night clubs, a move that the bar owners ludicrously claim will actually help with all that mayhem that occurs on a typical week-end evening. As a tangent, the idea of taxing the generators of all the trouble came up.

Here is our esteemed Mayor, Bruce Whitaker, calmly explaining why some sort of public revenue generating scheme would a bad idea.

This is so disingenuous in several aspects that it’s hard to know where to start. The idea that the private business interests are the best at providing some sort of “management” at the lowest cost is absurd given the fact that the taxpayers are already providing vastly subsidized security and maintenance in the downtown war zone. It is the o-so trustworthy bar owners (that Whitaker claims have the biggest stake in a smoothly operating downtown) who benefit from public services they aren’t paying for.

Whitaker knows very well that the open air saloon known as Downtown Fullerton costs the taxpayers more than $1,500,000 per year. It’s a classic money pit. The irony is rich. The idea that the city government might milk DTF is absolutely absurd. The fact is that Whitaker’s bar-owner campaign contributors are making money on the backs of the rest of us – and Whitaker – despite his rhetoric – knows this damn well.

The real point is that once again Whitaker and his spineless council colleagues are going to bat for their saloon owning pals, people who have stolen public sidewalks, habitually violated the City’s noise ordinances, whose patrons wreak havoc on our streets and on themselves every night. Whitaker and the City Council have not only turned looking the other way into a full-time job, they have gone out of their way to prop up and publicly subsidize the booze peddlers they enabled in the first place.

And as usual, the rest of us pick up the bar tab.

October 11, 2017Chronic Failure

Faux Cost Reductions

by David Curlee9 Comments

The City Council was warned earlier this year that (long overdue) changes at CalPERS to tackle pension debts would spell fiscal disaster for Fullerton. This problem is very much real and will be quite painful in the years to come.

What isn’t real was the feigned appearance of City Hall trying to cut expenses. Truth be told, nobody at the City seems to care.

Remember the Hillcrest Park ‘Pine Forest Stairs’ ceremony, which lasted maybe 30 minutes, and was attended by forty or fifty people?

The balloons you see above cost the taxpayers $776.51. Were they necessary? Of course not.

Meanwhile, at other locations across town, the never-ending waste from Parks and Recreation continues unabated. $350 for two hours of face painting and a clown to blow up balloons.

Another $450 down the drain for a game of Human Foosball.

These aren’t unusual expenditures — this stuff goes on all the time.

So this is the cue for [new City Manager] Ken Domer to step up and make this nonsense go away. It’s also a cue for the City Council to hold him accountable in that regard.

October 8, 2017October 8, 2017Bad Cops

FPD Making Movie Magic

by Mr. Peabody13 Comments

The cops actually paid money for a big, stupid McGruff the Crime Dog helmet, which they used to produce this terrible video. I have no idea where the trench coat came from, nor do I want to know.

The film has reached 36 views on YouTube since it was published in July.

I’d be happier of the Fullerton police got out of the moronic video business, quit the relentless PR campaign, and just stuck to honest public service.

October 6, 2017October 6, 2017Bad Cops

Toll Road Scofflaw Dan Hughes

by David Curlee15 Comments

Dan Hughes’ career as police chief came to a pretty embarrassing end in November 2016. OCDA investigator Abraham Santos opined that Hughes criminally obstructed justice when he ordered Joe Felz be driven home without an arrest after the now infamous DUI collision. As a result, Santos is now fighting for his career, the result of him blowing the whistle on the OCDA’s refusal to press charges.

Like any politician who lacks integrity, Hughes always tried to portray himself as an upstanding citizen. How ironic because this past July, the Fullerton Police Department learned that a toll was never paid on SR-73 all the way back in December 2015.

You guessed correctly — the vehicle involved was the unmarked City-owned sedan assigned to Dan Hughes.

I haven’t included all of the e-mails back and forth, but suffice it to say, several City employees wasted numerous hours trying to pin down whose car it was, and to ultimately reduce the toll penalties due.

Hughes has a couple of options here:

Own up to his mistake. Reimburse the City for the toll and penalties due. Prove to his old department, his peers, current employees and Disney management that he really is a man of integrity. If this was an error on the part of the toll roads, offer some sort of plausible explanation of what happened that day.
Be a coward. Do and say nothing. Make the residents of Fullerton pay for yet another one of his failures. Hide behind the half a million he rakes in annually between CalPERS and Disneyland.

This will be really interesting because I fully expect him to choose the second option. I hope he proves me wrong.

September 27, 2017September 27, 2017Hidden Government Agencies

DEA Helicopter Crashes at Fullerton Airport

by Deadeye25 Comments

There was a crash at the Fullerton Airport this morning. By the time the media arrived, the FAA registration numbers on the tail had been carefully covered up with a tarp. Initial media reports indicate that nobody was injured and the media was instructed to start calling it a “hard landing” instead of a crash. The the rotors broke and the back fell off.

Despite the effort to deidentify the plane, an ABC7 reporter posted a photograph that shows the aircraft as a Eurocopter AS 350 with the FAA registration of N515ET. Aircraft registry websites show that the helicopter has a history of operating in Southern California.

What’s special about this bird? It was initially registered to the US Department of Justice in 2006 until its ownership was transferred in 2011, along with 14 other planes owned by the Drug Enforcement Agency, to a suspected DEA front company called Chaparral Air Group.

Well, there it is. The DEA was secretly operating out of the Fullerton Airport, and then they crashed their expensive toy. And now you’ll get to buy them a new one.

September 25, 2017Chronic Failure

We Will Find You. Or Not.

by The Worm22 Comments

The Fullerton PD just publicized these photos of a patrol car that was tagged with graffiti by a downtown reveler over the weekend. The vandalism allegedly occurred while the officers were away on “proactive” foot patrol.

The social media pronouncement was accompanied by some humorous posturing, including the hashtag #WeWillFindYou.

Now anyone who’s filed a graffiti or vandalism report in the city of Fullerton knows that these types of crime reports usually get stuffed in a drawer, dismissed as non-priorities. You’d be lucky if you can get a cop to come out and take a report, let alone collect evidence and track down the perp.

In this case, some egos have been offended and so we might expect to see some sort of minimal effort expended. But I wouldn’t count on it.

September 21, 2017September 21, 2017Bad Cops

Bryan Bybee Branches Out

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy8 Comments

Let’s say you are in the market for a realtor – one who may be willing to bring a certain, um, shall we say, pugnacious flavor to your real estate negotiations. FFFF may be able to help!

Here’s the real estate promo for one Bryan Bybee, a Fullerton cop who’s looking to make a little extra cash moonlighting in the real estate business:

So who is Mr. Bybee, you may ask? We originally introduced the Friends to this gentleman, after he rammed his police vehicle into a guy on a bike. Bybee’s name also figured prominently in a very expensive lawsuit brought by the Ortiz brothers, Luiz and Antonio, against the City. They alleged (and alleged successfully, it seems) that Bybee and a few of his FPD cohorts beat them up for no apparent reason, threw them in the Fullerton lock-up, and charged them with fictitious crimes – charges that were eventually rejected by a jury and dropped by the DA. That fun-filled episode cost us Fullerton taxpayers a tidy $280,000.

Anyhow, like I said, Bryan’s just looking to make some extra dough on the side, so let’s give a brotha’ a break, right? If you’re looking for “boutique” real estate services and someone to bring a special brand of negotiating talent to the table, Bryan may be just be the fella to meet your needs.

September 21, 2017September 21, 2017Behind Closed Doors

Another Felzian Development

by Mr. Peabody31 Comments

Word has got out that disgraced former city manager Joe Felz is working with Crittenton Services on a new “mixed-use” development on Harbor Boulevard. It’s hard to imagine Crittenden – that takes care of wayward and abused girls – being in the land development business so that doesn’t quite make sense – unless maybe it’s to build themselves a new corporate complex.

Is Felz working for a fee so he can profit from all those inside contacts he continues to cultivate after his (and our) municipal humiliation? Maybe he is donating his valuable time for the sake of the charity. Either way, it hard to see why Crittenden would think the services of Felz, who quit after getting popped driving off the road and trying to make a quick getaway, would be anything other than an embarrassment to them.

A little research shows that Crittenden has assembled quite a bit of real estate over the years. And curiously (or not) it is directly adjacent to the “Fox Block” monstrosity that never seems to go away.

If the city made a deal to get rid of the “useless” triangle parking lot, the rest of Crittendon’s property along with the covering of a flood control channel and the elimination of an alleyway would make a great apartment block.

And finally, I note that the Fullerton Redevelopment Successor Agency is holding on to $6 million for the Fox Block – vestigial redevelopment Monopoly money that will end up in some developer’s pocket.