This Tuesday, at the request of the Fire Heroes Union, the Fullerton City Council will vote (likely 3-2) to light $68,000 dollars on fire to get a bid from the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA).
What’s $68k between friends?
This is a scam and just a waste of your tax dollars.
Don’t believe the fiscal lies being told here, none of the disingenuous liars who will vote for this care about your tax dollars and they’re certainly not going to get rid of Fullerton’s Fire Department to jump to OCFA.
The entire point of this bullshit bid is leverage to justify a raise for the Fire Department. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’ll prove it by using Council’s own agenda from the exact same meeting this coming Tuesday:
When you join OCFA you typically lease all of your equipment to them at no cost and all of your fire facilities for $1/year (as Garden Grove did a few years ago).
To take this bid seriously, you would have to believe that council is SERIOUSLY considering a bid to change to OCFA and is simultaneously spending $1,546,683.30 to buy Fullerton Fire a new ladder truck that they’ll just gift to OCFA to use as they see fit.
If we went to OCFA, it is them and not us who would decide where trucks (apparatus) would be stationed in order to best serve the cities under their jurisdiction. Thus it makes zero sense for Fullerton to buy a new truck when it might not even stay in Fullerton.
These conflicting agenda items would make no logical sense if this bullshit OCFA bid was serious. But it’s not serious.
This is just the council Dems lighting your tax dollars on fire, well, because screw you, they need to help a union argue for more of your money later during negotiations. Silva, Jung and Zahra refuse to take their role as representatives of the residents seriously any time a union rears it’s ugly head and this is just another gross example.
If the Fire Heroes Union wants this bid so bad they can pay for it their damn selves considering they have no issues spending their own money to try and raise your taxes (Measure S campaigning) or to pick your City Council (campaign contributions).
Your roads suck, your services are getting more expensive and you’re constantly being asked to do more with less by City Hall and City Council. Hell, the City asked you to donate Christmas decorations this last season because they’re so broke.
Hitching to Needles…
But not broke enough to avoid spending $65k of your money to help a union at the negotiating table.
If this bid was serious then the council would be getting bids from LA Fire and Placentia as well as OCFA. That’s how you find out the best services with the most benefits fort he residents at the best price – by shopping around. So of course they don’t want to do any of that.
Later this year when the City is selling everything not nailed down, and a few things that are, remember this moment when these disingenuous liars spent your money on political theater to help out the unions who will always put their interests above your safety.
By now the Friends are well-aware of the attempt by Joe Florentine, the scofflaw proprietor of a restaurant and bar in downtown Fullerton, to fraudulently alter and submit official documents in pursuit of a Conditional Use Permit.
He even admitted it.
Reliable sources have indicated that a criminal investigation has been opened by the Fullerton Police Department based on a complaint filed by the property owner, Mario Marovic, and passed along to the District Attorney’s office.
Now the felonious miscreance of a Fullerton Florentine family member is about as newsworthy as a mailman bitten by a dog – no surprise there. Rather, the key facts of interest in this case are that Mr. Florentine had lots of help inside City Hall, including the Planning Director, the City Manager, and of course our top-notch City Attorney, Dick Jones, who finally had to recuse himself from dispensing laughable advice due to a conflict of interest.
Hitching to Blythe…
Apparently, City Manager Ken Domer knew exactly what was happening and was determined to proceed with the fraud anyway.
It’s hard not to believe that some fall out from this conspiracy will land in the proximity of new Councilmembers Fred Jung and Nick Dunlap, who will certainly be averse to the radioactivity. The City Manager is already on the thinnest of ice after blowing $130,000 on a marginally legal PR campaign to promote Measure S, and then unsuccessfully trying to spend another 90 grand just before Christmas to hire an expert to try to fix the budget shortfall. City Managers are protected by contract but there is no contractual protection for a person who has violated the law. Will we soon be hiring a management search firm?
Staying awake long enough to break the law…
As always, Jones and Meyer are likewise compromised by their corrupt and incompetent and self-serving practices. But Dick Jones, like Talleyrand, always seems to be able to keep his head on his shoulders despite all the revolutions.
Leaving Fullerton even worse off than she found it…
And what was the role of Mayor-for-hire Jennifer Fitzgerald, who was the evident and malignant influence around so much of the Fullerton’s recent mismanagement and the cover-ups that inevitably followed? It’s difficult to believe that she wasn’t pushing this through for the benefit of her pals, the Florentines.
Finally, if in fact, City leaders are found culpable in this conspiracy to commit fraud, what is the legal exposure to the taxpayers of Fullerton for both the legal costs incurred by the property owner in the case, and for other damages he may have suffered?
As FFFF learns more about the status of the case we will certainly share it. City Hall probably won’t.
Welcome to Fullerton. Instead of working for solid solutions to tough financial problems the city is pan-handling for Holiday Decorations to make sure YOU see/feel the pain for their malfeasance now that their Hail Mary Pass of Measure S got blocked and blocked hard.
I’d feel remiss if I didn’t point out that the city is asking YOU to donate to the government so they can decorate in the most politically neutered and poll-tested way possible. We all know they won’t be putting up any religious icons for fear of offending people around religious holidays.
Of course they want YOU to be more giving…
Good luck friends, here’s hoping our new council isn’t as ridiculously and cartoonishly incompetent as councils past that led us to this point. Well, except Zahra and Silva. There’s no saving those two corrupt clowns.
Because nothing says “holidays in the time of Covid” like your city government begging you for decorations to keep the empty locked down streets… festive.
I’ve been watching the votes trickle in over the previous week and a half just giddy at how much of a pounding both Measures S & U took here in Fullerton.
To the 25,215+/- of Fullerton voters who voted to ban fireworks – kick rocks. You suck. Conversely, thank you to the 37,560+/- who voted to keep fireworks, our community groups thank you and it’ll be nice to be able to launch fireworks in our front yards since it looks like we’re headed for perpetual lockdowns.
As for Measure S.
Let us not forget Fullerton City Manager Ken Domer’s words on Measure S:
“In the event the local sales tax measure is not placed on the ballot or if it ultimately fails to gain voter approval in November, the City will continue to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible, but we will be forced to begin to make very difficult decisions regarding service levels and operations of programs in order to achieve balanced budgets over the succeeding years.”
City Hall got greedy, wasted our money to sell us on their graft and then they got slapped by 57% of voters.
I guess it’s time for City Hall to start making very difficult decisions. You know, the job we hired & pay them handsomely for as opposed to covering for dirty cops, virtue signaling for woke points and building stairs/bridges to nowhere.
As I’ve outlined in previous posts, our City spends an inordinate amount of money on pay/pensions and less and less each year on actual infrastructure and things that benefit us, the local taxpayers.
I’m used to the pushback from the local BooHoos who love taxes, but I caught a post by City Council hack Ahmad Zahra claiming that our financial troubles are from past councils and that he wants to look forward.
“Regardless of how we got here…”
“Regardless of how we got here and who to blame, we’re here now and we’re on the bring.”
Our veritable Government Rafiki would have you believe that the sins of the past don’t matter because he wants to look to the future (but only when government incompetence is involved).
I honestly couldn’t eyeroll hard enough when I saw that nonsense from Zahra for the simple reason that Ahmad Zahra SUPPORTS the very financial sins that got us where we are today – being begged for more taxes so bureaucrats and union hacks can make more while watching our roads & our city crumble.
Because Zahra won’t tell you the truth or give you the facts, it’s time for a history lesson from yours truly.
Back in the day our then idiotic governor, Gray Davis, signed SB 400 which was sold on a lie (like most all legislation) that it would benefit government employees but wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime more in actual costs. Those benefits came in the form of a 3% at 50 pension formula which, despite the lies told to sell it, bit us in the ass because the government is full of thieving bastards who have no incentive to the tell the truth or worry about taxpayers. Oh, and they also suck at math and their jobs.
These pensions are calculated on highest pay which means that after 30 years on the job, officers would qualify for 90% of the highest pay for the rest of their lives. This was also grandfathered and given to people who were never promised it during employment or contract negotiations.
This next part is very important and needs to be repeated. This pension giveaway isn’t based on averages or aggregates. If an officer worked patrol for 27 years making $75k/year and then jumped into command in the last few years of the job making $150/year, his pension would be based on that $150/year.
So Officer Friendly here will get 90% of $150k for the rest of his life and contrary to popular mythology the average officer outlives the average taxpayer.
The math on this problem is simple. 90% of $150k is $135k/year meaning the officer in this scenario will get $60,000 MORE in retirement every year than he earned over the first 27 years of his career.
But wait, there’s more!
This is a “defined benefit”. That means that if the State screws up in their planning (what? no!) and under-funds the pension funds (in this case CalPERS) then Officer Friendly loses nothing. If the market goes to hell (like when the State kills the economy over a virus) you can kiss your 401K goodbye but not so if you work for the government. They lose nothing, nadda, zip, zilch. That’s right, zero. Here in CA we have what’s known as “The California Rule” which was made up by the courts to say that once you promise a government employee something you can never take it away regardless of how bad it may hurt you. If your city promised the moon and stars to the police and then goes bankrupt, you the taxpayer still owe them the moon and the stars.
This has been fiddled with slightly over the years and newer hires get 3% at 55 but all of the problems still persist.
Which brings us back to Ahmad Zahra. Governor Davis passed the law that allowed that 3% @ 50 formula but it had to be approved in contracts at the local level. Here in Fullerton it passed in 2002 in a 5-0 vote with City Council members Bankhead, Clesceri, Jones, Norby and…. Jan Flory all voting to screw us financially well into the future.
These are the names of our destroyers
Skip ahead to 2018 when Jesus Silva vacated his at-large council seat to run in District 3. That newly open seat was filled when Zahra, who had previously signaled a preference for representative democracy, opted to apparently sell his integrity for a seat on the water board and became the deciding vote in appointing the very same Jan Flory back onto Fullerton’s City Council.
There’s a lot of depth to this speculative story but to summarize, Flory was hopping mad that Bruce Whitaker got put on Water Board (a lucrative job) in her place when she left council in 2016 and wanted revenge. The fix was in with Fitzgerald & Silva to replace Whitaker with Zahra should Zahra sell out his pretend principles and gift the open council seat to Flory. Lo and behold he voted for Flory and immediately Whitaker got replaced by Zahra on the Water Board.
Zahra had no clue what the water board but he did what was best for Zahra. Same with Measure S. He doesn’t care that taxes hit the poorest hardest despite living in the poorest district in Fullerton – he needs the Union Hero endorsement so screw the poors if it helps his career. This is man who champions vanity projects while ignoring police oversight all while demanding more and more of your hard earned money via taxation which he calls “revenue”.
This is why Zahra wants to “regardless” his way out of the blame game and ignore who got us into this mess – because the weasel doesn’t want you to know that he endorsed and voted to put one of the very architects of our local financial misery BACK onto the council less than 2 years ago. That he supports the very things that got us into this mess and will continue to support bleeding you dry as long as it benefits him.
And this isn’t just a case of Ahmad being in the majority. Without his vote Jan Flory wouldn’t and couldn’t have been appointed because there were only 4 council members at the time and Bruce Whitaker was a solid no vote against Flory.
Jan “3% @ 50” Flory is only currently back on council thanks to Ahmad Zahra so don’t believe his Rafiki schtick. His actions matter, not his empty and pathetic rhetoric.
That’s right, the local hero unions dropped $10,000 each to try to help sell you on raising your taxes. As always we have to stop and ask “why?”.
It’s a drop in the bucket for how much they’ll get in return
It can’t be to fix the roads because the unions don’t care about your roads or infrastructure as most of their members don’t live in Fullerton. If they DID care about such things they wouldn’t act like mercenaries demanding unsustainable pay, playing cities against each other, while watching your city crumble.
So why did each hero union drop $10k? Because, as we’ve been saying for some time now, Measure S is just a pension tax. Allow me to illustrate the problem with our budget USING the budget.
This is the oldest budget I can find online currently and it’s from 2004-05. I’ve added the percentages in total dollars. Remember, this is from 15 years ago.
Follow the money…
And THIS is from this year’s budget. I’ve added the percentages to correspond to the previous example.
Lookie where all of the money goes…
Do you see the issue?
In the 15 years between these budgets, the budget TOTAL has gone up by over $20,000,000 (20 Million) and in that same amount of time the Police/Fire budgets have gone from consuming 26% of the budget to now consuming 37% of it.
That’s NOT just the General Fund. That’s the entire budget – all special taxes, grants, all of it.
Right there in plain math, that is where your money for roads & infrastructure went.
It should surprise precisely nobody that the city is demanding more money for infrastructure considering that they’ve been systematically cutting it for decades to give it away in payroll and pensions.
Now this is important: The total budget increased by 11.71% over fifteen years.
An 11% increase in the total size of the pie and still the heroes ate an additional 11% MORE (a larger slice) of the budget for a growth of $25Million+ in Public Safety spending over those 15 years.
It doesn’t take a math genius to figure out what’s happening here and why it might be a problem. This is not an issue of revenue. Fullerton takes in more tax revenue than it ever has in the city’s entire history. Every single new dollar that came in from your sales and property taxes, every single one, went straight to public safety salaries, benefits and pensions. It went to fund their outdated and ridiculous service models / toys (such as using a ladder truck to respond to every third passed out drunk or rolling 6 police cars up on every DUI).
And there you have it. This is why our roads suck and our pipes are bursting. This is why our water rates went up and will continue to go up. And yes, this is why the heroes dropped $20,000, so far, into trying to convince you to tax yourselves and your neighbors more. It’s also why the same types of people get endorsed by Police and Fire Unions year after year. The bought and paid for candidates will always make sure the heroes have their lifted trucks and river toys before you have safe roads.
There is no such thing as enough when it comes to taking your money and the return on investment for the unions here is enormous. This isn’t about bias, union hating, or “anarchy” as Ahmad Zahra likes to pretend. This is about simple math – the kind Jesus Silva claims to have taught but refuses to understand. Just look at the city’s own numbers.
Anaheim bankruptcy lawyer and District 1 council candidate, Andrew Cho has sent out a mail piece with the usual dreary pictures of his incredibly happy home life, his conservative Republicanism, and the empty promises of accountability, public safety and miraculous economic superpowers.
Too bad we then see his endorsers – a gaggle of liars, grifters, thieves, and idiots you wouldn’t trust to walk your Pomeranian. He shares his bold pledge to support Prop 13, as if that had any bearing in Fullerton. More on the subject of taxes in a bit.
The bottom portion of the flyer is dedicated to attacking his one and only opponent, Fred Jung, as a radical leftist.
But notice what’s missing? That’s right. No mention at all of his position on Measure S, the 17% sales tax that is the brain child of his sleazy string-puller, Mayor-for-Hire Jennifer Fitzgerald; a tax increase that is approved by liberal Democrat councilcreatures, Flory, Quirk-Silva and Zahra.
Well, that’s not very good, is it District 1 Republicans. Poor “Andrew” is in a big bind. The Republican registration is a dwindling minority in D1, and if Cho is trying to shore up the die-hards at this point in a non-partisan election he’s in deep republicrap.
Don’t believe the lies being peddled by the Chamber of Commerce, Lobbyist hacks or the City Council. Covid-19 is just the perfect and newest excuse to put lipstick on the the pig that is City Council’s inability to spend your money with any responsibility.
Exploiting the pandemic to cover up their incompetence
The City, which has been working on this sales tax for well over a year, simply wants to tax you more – the people with a median household income of $73,360 and a 13.4% poverty rate – so 300+ government workers can have total compensation packages worth over $100,000 and that $30,000,000 (30 Million+!) price tag is just the most obvious top layer of why Fullerton is broke.
So the government mandated lockdowns over Covid, the “two weeks to flatten the curve”, is just a convenient excuse for what the city has been planning for quite some time. Here’s the meeting minutes from the Infrastructure committee from back in January where City Manager Domer indicated, and I quote, “a need to raise revenue potentially through a sales tax measure”. That was 15 January 2020, 4 days BEFORE America’s first known Covid positive patient walked into a Washington clinic complaining of a cough and fever.
This has been in the works for well over a year
In fact, the city hired a PR firm, FM3, to poll people back in November of 2019 in order to gauge interest on a sales tax. This survey started BEFORE even China had a known positive case.
It’s been in the works ever since the city finally admitted we were right
That pre-Covid survey directly asked people, related to a sales tax increase: “Q. If the election were held today, do you think you would vote “yes” in favor of this measure or “no” to oppose it?” and gave a sample ballot measure that is remarkably similar to what is on this November’s ballot.
Vote NO!
So don’t believe their lies and excuses as to why they so desperately need to tax you more now. The city wanted this tax long before the world knew Covid was a thing & will say and do anything to take more of your money.
The good government boys and girls over at FTR and their padrone, Tony Bushala, have jumped into the 2020 District 1 council campaign with their standard attack sign with the inevitable Barfman.
First, here’s the sign:
Barf Man Returneth…
They have conflated candidate Andrew Cho with the pet project of his boss, Jennifer Fitzgerald – Measure S. Nobody seems to know where the guy stands on the proposed tax increase, but some reliable sources have heard him support it. And since it is the brain child of Fitzgerald (who hand-picked Cho out of a line up of anonymous Korean-Americans residents) we may assume, that he is for it.
Anyhow the sign seems to go after two birds with the same stone and that’s pretty smart.
No, not against us… yet. Or against the Rock Wagner family for that Kathryn Hamel created wrongful death nonsense. You know the one, that’s the case that led to Hamel “resigning” and the city illegally dropping their sustained findings against her. Yeah, that’s gonna be a pricey lawsuit as well.
But no, this particular million dollar lawsuit stems from the Fullerton Airport Manager, Brendan O’Reilly, lying about when a hangar contract with former tenant Air Combat ended to illegally take said hangar from them to give it to the City Council favored/connected event company Hangar 21.
You have to wonder who was pulling O’Rielly’s strings to make his lie so often…
The ruling was aired live on Wednesday (no archived footage is available), and it hasn’t been released in writing yet, but for those who watched live were able to witness the jury side with Air Combat. The jury agreed that the City lied about the start/end date of Air Combat’s contract and awarded Air Combat $1.2Million in damages. That number will move around a bit as legal fees and other costs are calculated by the judge but it’s a huge slap in the face for Fullerton taxpayers and another black eye for CIty Hall / City Council.
Chalk one more loss up to Jones & Mayer and our incompetent City Staff. I hope you enjoy continually paying out for this nonsense because more is coming (see above).
It was an obvious case of corruption/incompetence at all levels of City Hall & Council that allowed this to happen and nobody, I repeat nobody, at City Hall is being held accountable for this million dollar loss that was entirely avoidable. And THAT dear Friends is the real reason the City wants to raise your taxes with Measure S – because being responsible with your tax dollars is just too darn hard.
