You searched for committee - Page 14 of 26 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

December 15, 2011Fullerton City Council

Fullerton’s Water Rep to Step Down

Amid Fullerton’s water rate debacle the City’s representative on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California announced Tuesday that he is stepping down. After representing the City of Fullerton for 24 years on the MWD Board of Directors, Jim Blake says he is done.

It is rumored that Fullerton’s retired city manager Chris Meyer is looking to be appointed as Blake’s replacement but that will require a majority vote by the Fullerton City Council. Since City Council Members Bankhead and Jones appointed Meyer as City Manager in 2002, there is little doubt that they wouldn’t give him the MWD nod as well.

However, with Fullerton’s water rates under scrutiny and an illegal tax being batted about City Hall for justification, you have to wonder how much of the water mess can be attributed to Meyer- not to mention the rest of the City’s countless woes.

An appointment of Meyer to the MWD Board might bring further outcry to City Hall, something the new Mayor might wish to avoid. Since August the Council members have been cussed at, cursed at, sworn up and down, and yelled at. They are now being held accountable for their general lack of leadership by a campaign to recall three members, Mayor Pro Tem Pat McKinley, and members Don Bankhead and F. Dick Jones.

Many believe that the appointment should be filled by a current council member so that they can be held responsible by Fullerton voters for their actions on the Board. Currently, Blake is answerable only to the Fullerton City Council.

If the appointment is to be held by a non-council member, then the process should be open to ALL candidates equally like any other council appointment to a commission or committee.

Whoever is appointed will be tasked with a massive budgetary shortfall that rivals Sacramento’s. The appointee will be asked for double-digit rate hikes and even more spending. They need to know the water industry and even more about public policy and long-term investment solutions. They need to know Fullerton and not just through the myopic eyes of service clubs.

Fullerton deserves an accountable and credible representative on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

December 14, 2011December 15, 2011Fringie Awards

Another Fringie®! Best Image of 2011

by Jan Florys Dog84 Comments

Due to reasonable requests from Friends for additional images, the Nominating Committee reopened the selection process and has generously included additional images for consideration.

– JFD

In one of our most popular categories our Nominating Committee considered images from 2011 that aggravated our collective angst, that seared our frayed synapses, and that moved us to laughter, rage, tears, blood and sweat. Such mind-numbing work can only be assuaged by mind-numbing medication, and so the Committee found itself self-medicating frequently and without any of the controls imposed by people who control controlled substances. Controcontrolcontrolcontrolcontr…okay where was I?

Oh, yeah. Best Image Fringie® 2011. Here are your nominees:

1. Smirking police spokesorifice Andrew Goodrich. This image of utterly smug self-satisfaction, bloated self-worth, utter disdain for the civilians that pay his engorged salary and pension, and utter disdain for the truth came to symbolize a dysfunctional police department. Image and behavior in perfect synchronization. This picture is going to be hard to beat.

2. Ahoy there, matey. Back in late summer former Fullerton police sergeant Arthur Wiechmann deigned to visit our humble blog to defend the killers Ramos and Cicinelli. He left a slime trail that was quickly traced back to his own website. And what we found there was pretty creepy. In case you were wondering, yes, Swinging Loverboy is a proud member of Fullerton’s $100,000 club.

3. Until their mug shots graced world-wide news media there was no face to the cop side of the brutal beating death of Kelly Thomas. When Ramos and Cicinelli became the Faces of Fullerton to the world, the true extent of Pat McKinley’s disastrous stretch as Chief of Police became evident to all except the most delusional. If you can discern an iota of humanity in these photos, God bless you.

Scissors-sm — Ah herebah duhclare this ship launched gahdammit.

4. Back in September Fullerton opened it’s new library remodel and conference room. While only a few hundred feet away a “lynch-type mob” protested the murder-by-cop of an innocent man, a crazed Doc Heehaw and His Business as Usual Co. got tough with an over-sized scissors. Which just goes to show that when the going gets tough, the tough get to cutting ribbons.

5. Colonel HeeHaw as Colonel Sanders. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.

6. Boss HeeHaw as Boss Hogg. All hat and no cattle. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.

mckinley-she-bear — Lookin' out for the ladies, oh yeah!

7. The She Bear, Pat McMcKinley lumbered through our collective consciousness in 2011, leaving copious amounts of She Bear scat in his wake. This picture resonated with the Nominating Committee as one of the great reflections of hypocrisy anybody could recall. See, if you’re one of Pat’s “Special Ladies,” you are not credible and your claims to have been sexually assaulted by one of McKinley’s cops is unbelievable.

Chris-Meyer-Burger-Time — Living high on the hog...

8. This cheerful image of former City Manager Chris Meyer surfaced in connection with the bloatation of Fullerton’s $100,000 pension club. Meyer cashes a $14,300 pension check each and every month so he doesn’t have to worry where his next meal is coming from. As City Manager the Meyer oversaw a Fullerton Police Department that sank into its current Culture of Corruption.

9. Thanks to Friend JT for reminding us of this fun still harvested from an entertaining video about police union boss Barry Coffman handing out citations for “excessive horn honking” a new Vehicle Code violation cooked up by the Fullerton Police Department to harass protesters. For sheer overfed haplessness there’s just no getting around this image. That the haplessness is accompanied by a badge, a gun, arrogance, and self-entitlement should give all freedom-loving people cause to reflect.

Kelly-Thomas-Protest-300x117 — The Year of the Protester

10. Since Time Magazine© has named “The Protester” as Person of the Year, it seems fitting to give due notice to Kelly’s Army for their diligent two-month protest in front of the police department. To all the protesters right, left, and center who joined together, God bless you.

That’s enough abuse. Who will take home the coveted Fringie©? Stay tuned and find out!

December 13, 2011December 15, 2011Fringie Awards

The Fringies® Continue: Creepiest Political Stooge 2011

by Jan Florys Dog62 Comments

Normally a non-election year would mean that the pickings for political stoogery would be pretty slim. But 2011 is not a normal non-election year, and the advent of a vigorous Recall campaign has produced that rarest of phenomena: the Off-year Stooge. And so we present the Fringie® nominees in the next category: Creepiest Political Stooge 2011.

The Nominating Committee labored long and hard to come up with the nominees, and we owe them a sincere debt of gratitude. For it could not have been easy pondering the visages and miscreance of these small-town hacks and poltroons. And that may explain the 11 empty bottles of akavit laying around the Editorial Boardroom floor the next morning.

1. Right out of the chute the Anti-recall forces deployed the limited talents of the unctuous Jim Alexander to attack the character of the Recall leader. Alexander is a reptilian homunculus with a reputation as a small-time bag man for developers who want to grease the City Council.

Bill-Gillespie4 — Celebrate good times: Sizzler Early Bird Special, then lights out at 7:30 PM.

2. Then the same group of uberklowns engaged a four-foot tall gnome-fossil named Bill Gillespie to annoy the FPPC with a hollow complaint drummed up by Dick Ackerman, ironnically the subject of a legitimate FPPC complaint himself for illegal lobbying!

3. But they weren’t done. Next they employed the oleaginous services of Anthony “Big Tony” Florentine to lodge yet another empty complaint with the FPPC. You remember this paragon of virtue, right? He’s the guy who built an addition to his bar on a public sidewalk and got the City Council – including Dick Jones and Don Bankhead – to go along with the hijacking.

4. And finally we come to Larry Bennett, the moral bellwether of the anti-recall campaign; a man who earnestly pretends to care about such things as probity and honesty, and yet who lends his name to the worst prevarications cooked up by the amphibio-pus sac, Dave Ellis, and who oversees a website that is nothing more than a pathetic collection of outright lies only made amusing by the unintentional comedic value of the amateur site.

Bennett has distinguished himself by challenging Fullerton water rate payers to find evidence of the hidden illegal 10% tax on their water bills. Of course they can’t find it. It’s hidden, jackass. It’s not on the water bill. And that’s why it’s illegal.

These are your nominees. There will be no winners, only losers. Until we have a Recall, that is.

December 12, 2011December 15, 2011Fringie Awards

The 2011 Fringies® Are Here! Dumbest Thing Said By A Politician

by Jan Florys Dog160 Comments

Sweet, iridescent, radioactive Jebus, how can one choose from such a wealth of material? 2011 may never be surpassed for dumb stuff uttered by our representatives. The Nominating Committe ruminated long and hard to come up with the nominees. And by ruminating long and hard I mean they did major bong rips into the wee hours. And speaking of wee, here are your nominees.

1.You want dumb? How about when Doc HeeHaw exclaimed that he had seen far worse injuries than Kelly Thomas’ in ‘Nam that were survivable?

2. And then there was this pearl from F. Dick, likening the peaceful Kelly Thomas killing protesters to “a lynch-type mob.” Ouch.

bankhead-crown — Would the Reign of Error never come to an end?

3. The Nominating Committee insisted that King Don Bankhead the First be recognized for the idiotic statement that Fullerton would “biterally” be a ghost town without Redevelopment, and then lying about having said it! Oops! Caught on video!

MCKinley3 — Gimme a sec'.The longer I think the dumber it will be...

4. Not to be out done by his superannuated colleagues, the comparatively spry Pat McPension uttered perhaps the stupidest and most odious comment of all, when, after noting he had gotten “bloused” eyes himself, claiming that Kelly’s facial injuries were not life threatening.

5. Then, of course, there was the breathtakingly stupid utterance at the Soroptomist She Bear Pow-wow that left everyone speechless, essentially insinuating that perv-cop Albert Rincon’s victims deserved what they got, and in any case sexual battery by a cop “ain’t a dangerous thing.” Well, actually, hardly anyone was speechless after that.

Sharon_Quirk_190px — Those socks aren't going to knit themselves!

6. And finally, to round out our nominees, the committee just couldn’t overlook the predictably irrelevant observation from councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva that homeless people really need socks. Yes, Sharon, they probably do, and many other things, besides. But they would also appreciate not being beaten to death for no reason by your police force, if it’s not too much trouble.

Well Friends, them’s yer nominees in this all-important Fringie® category. Feel free to opine in the comments thread, as always!

December 10, 2011December 15, 2011About Us

The 2011 Fringie Awards® Are Coming!

by Jan Florys Dog34 Comments

Yes, Friends, it’s that time of year again when we announce the nominations for the 3rd Annual Fringie Awards®, followed by the decisions by our esteemed selection committee.

Announcement of the nominees in all of the exciting categories will commence on Monday, so be sure to stay tuned for all of the fun.

If this doesn’t make you want to go lift your leg on a Fullerton fire hydrant or city councilman, then there is definitely something wrong with you.

Arf!

December 10, 2011December 10, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

The Sea Turtle Strategy

by Joe Sipowicz95 Comments

RecallTurtles — Their odds didn't look too good.

Some creatures in Nature’s realm need to mass produce their potential offspring. It’s a numbers game. Sea turtles lay thousands upon thousands of eggs in desperate hope that at least a few will return to the sea and grow up to be happy sea turtles.

In politics, the act of desperation is reflected in blind mailings to all voters in the vain hope that a few voters will respond. Yes, it sure is desperate. In the reptilian campaign to save the scaly hides of the Three Dithering Dinosaurs desperation has set in, all right. You might call it a last gasp.

Here’s a very expensive mailer they just sent out to everybody, anybody, trying to get folks to rescind their signature on the pro-recall petition. But they have zero idea who has signed the petitions. Talk about desperation! Just to show how inept the Three Sluggish Sloths’ handlers are, they even sent one to – Tony Bushala!

If you happen to get one of these in the mail you can do the Recall a favor. Write in: Go Screw Yourself, Ackerman, and mail it in. See, Pat McPension, the kook who hired all those crooked Fullerton cops, and who makes almost $20,000 a month in retirement, has to pay for the postage!

Recall Reply Mail Contest!

Show the anti-recall committee your creative writing skills by scratching something fun onto their reply cards. Take a picture, upload it to www.tinypic.com and post it in the comments before you mail it away!

November 7, 2011November 7, 2011Local Media

How About a Debate?

by Travis168 Comments

The following is an open letter from Chris Thompson of the Fullerton Recall to Larry Bennett, the Chairman of Protect Fullerton – Recall No (the anti-recall campaign). It was emailed directly to Larry a few moments ago.

Dear Larry Bennett,

As one of the supporters of the Fullerton Recall, I would like to publicly invite the leaders of the anti-recall committee known as Protect Fullerton – Recall No to debate the issues of this campaign. We believe that the public would benefit tremendously from your organization answering our questions publicly and openly and by the leaders of the Fullerton Recall answering yours. We are utterly open to any venue, format, time or circumstance as long as a public vetting of ideas, issues and values is the goal. Our preference would be to include the three council members involved, but we are willing to debate only the anti-recall supporters and leaders. In the hope of encouraging your participation, we are willing to call for recall supporters to stand down and even disallow protests and signage if the law allows. In fact, if it is your preference, a forum could be held in a closed environment so long as both sides are allowed to video the event in its entirety. We are willing to discuss format, rules and participants and are likely to defer to your wishes as long as the forum allows for bringing our assertions and yours into the light of day.

We have made many assertions about Pat McKinley, Don Bankhead and Dick Jones’ failure to lead. You have answered with many claims of self-interest and political axe-grinding by recall supporters. I think one thing that you and I can and will agree on is that the truth of these claims are very important to the Fullerton community.

Simply stated, if Tony Bushala is pursuing this recall for the sake of his own business interests at the expense of the taxpayers, it absolutely serves the voters of Fullerton to be educated on this reality. In fact, if I become convinced of this, I will cease to be a political ally of Tony’s. In turn, if McKinley, Bankhead and Jones have placed the protection of… and interests of public employee unions and their supporters ahead of the interests of the voters, this should be brought to light.

If right and truth are on your side, I can see little downside to this proposal for your campaign. I know that you have my number and email Larry. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Chris Thompson, Representative
The Fullerton Recall

November 1, 2011November 1, 2011Dead heads

The Union Pacific Park Sink Hole. What’s Next For The Park From Hell?

by The Fullerton Shadow27 Comments

upparkpoison1-500x375 — The Park That Never Was...

The history of Redevelopment failures should weigh heavily in the upcoming recall campaign. The disasters and boondoggles are many, but none so painful, perhaps, than the Poisoned Park. This is a saga of utter incompetence with zero accountability; in other words, business as usual for our illustrious City Councilmen Bankhead and Jones. McPension gets off this hook because he wasn’t part of this calamity, although you could bet your bottom dollar he would have gone along with it, too.

This post was originally published 27 months ago. The public is still fenced off from the contamination.

– Joe Sipowicz

It was supposed to be a park. That’s how they pitched it over at City Hall. The only problem was that nobody asked for a park. And nobody outside City Hall wanted a park. Commonsense could have predicted the future of a park.

We are referring, of course, to the Union Pacific Park on West Truslow Avenue, the sad history of which has been well documented on these pages; and one of many in a conga line of Redevelopment disasters perpetrated by Terry Galvin and Gary Chalupsky of the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency- in this case aided and abetted by Susan Hunt the lady dragon of the Community Services Department, and former City Manager Jim Armstrong, mastermind of a million Fullerton failures. We have also stressed the fact that so far nobody has been held accountable for this miserable failure and waste of millions of tax dollars. No one.

Last Tuesday, during the public comments portion of the City Council Show, a longtime resident who lives on Truslow Avenue, across from The Great Disaster spoke about the problems the City had created when they decided to bestow a park upon unwilling residents. Below we share the video of the residents statement, as well as the response by City Manager Chris Myers. The video is a bit long, but well worth the watch. Borrachos, meth-heads, gang members. Who else did the City think was going to frequent this park?

In the end Myers admits that the park is being shut down – toilets closed, tables removed, fences going up, etc. You can decide for yourselves if can detect any contrition in his voice for the complete and unarguable waste of the millions spent on acquiring, designing, and building this park THAT IS ONLY FIVE YEARS OLD.

Now the city wants to create a “reuse committee,” ostensibly to figure out how to clean up the mess they created.

Here’s a free bit of advice from FFFF: SELL THE PROPERTY ASAP! And let’s not forget a complete investigation into this entire disaster with accountability for the people who created this mess. Perhaps the three councilperson who don’t have their fingerprints all over this debacle, Quirk, Keller, and Nelson, will be willing to demand accountability.

October 29, 2011October 29, 2011Behind Closed Doors

More Comic Relief from the Anti-Recall Clowns

by Chris Thompson158 Comments

Yesterday I talked to the Fair Political Practices Commission regarding the complaint filed against Tony Bushala by Tony Florentine. This complaint is actually posted as “Breaking News” on the anti-recall crowd’s ugly website.

So what’s the status of this Breaking News? Tony Florentine’s “complaint” was flatly rejected by the FPPC.

Big Tony — Truth was a concept that eluded him...

In effect, the complaint never made it past the receptionist. It seems that Tony Bushala’s actual transgression was over-reporting! The assertion was that an individual, major donor must file a brief Form 461. Bushala actually legally reported all of his activities using the more comprehensive Form 460 in forming General Purpose committees. In other words, Bushala worked harder than he needed to fully disclose all of his political activities.

The FPPC was not amused by Dick Ackerman's latest clownery.

The FPPC representative actually seemed amused that such a complaint would be filed and made it clear that she personally had fully explained all of these circumstances to somebody calling themselves a treasurer for the anti-recall.

In fact, the only reason to even look at the complaint would be to enjoy some of Florentine’s “evidence,” including humorous mailers leveled against his RINO pals in years past.

Rejected complaint

I can hardly blame these guys for throwing this worthless claim against the wall and then lying about the results. I would have no idea how to defend three RINO council members who have spent us into the enormous financial hole that we find ourselves in while pumping up the staffing, salaries and pensions of their primary supporters.

Time to move on.

October 15, 2011October 15, 2011The Fullerton Recall

Another Jurassic Voice Heard From

by Grover Cleveland51 Comments

We are informed by the anti-recall campaign website that a character named Bill Gillespie has filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission against the campaign to recall the Three Deaf Dinosaurs: Jones, Bankhead and McKinley.

Allegedly this complaint is 25 pages in length the gist of which is no registration is on record for a political organization called The Fullerton Recall Committee. The only trouble is these idiots don’t know the actual name of the recall committee!

The name of the recall committee is: Committee Supporting the Recall of Bankhead Jones and McKinley, it has been registered, and of course has an FPPC number. I have been informed by recall organizers that nobody has made any attempt to make expenditures under any other name and that materials requiring it include the name and number.

Are these people really as stupid as they seem, or is this just a lame attempt to throw up some sort of smoke screen? Hard to tell since they really are pretty dumb.

And as for Bill Gillespie, seen here partying with Miss Fullerton 1992, somebody needs to let him know that being a stooge for Dick Ackerman won’t be paying big dividends, and that there’s no fool like a an old fool.

Here’s Bill’s contact info, courtesy of the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce just in case you want to take him to task for his abject flunkydom:

531 Rosarita Drive
Fullerton CA 92835
(714) 738-8788 | Fax: (714) 738-1870