A Letter to the City Council by Judith Kaluzny

UPDATE: A version of this item is back on the agenda for tonight’s council meeting. Council denied the $69,997 expenditure last year. Now the Redevelopment Agency has broken the project into smaller increments, hoping that it can slither its’ way through in 2010.

jkcl15047_150A POST UPDATE FROM A FRIEND:

This item failed on a split vote last night. Keller and Quirk against, Jones and Nelson in favor, with Bankhead absent.

I read the state laws regarding business improvement districts.  The process is that business people sign a petition to the city council.  It is not the job of redevelopment to gin up a petition to give the appearance of support for this new taxing agency.

Cameron Irons did a survey February 2008 and got about 10 responses regarding a BID, mostly negative.

Sharon Quirk as councilmember said in 2007 that people should pay for the privilege of doing business downtown.

Maybe you want the money for city improvement, but it is not RDA’s place to create a demand for a taxing agency business people rejected in a private survey–the appropriate kind for a BID–last year.

Please do not waste money on this ill-advised venture.  Vote no on Item 17 on May 19.

Yours truly,
A downtown business person,

Judith A. Kaluzny, Mediator and Lawyer
149 West Whiting Avenue
Fullerton, California 92832

On The Agenda – April 6th, 2010

Here we are in April with no real change in the City’s business practices. View the agenda for April 6th.

In the Redevelopment Agency’s Closed Session we find three properties being negotiated for.  Everyone’s favorite land Czar, Rob Zur Schmiede, wants to spend your money to buy 345 E. Commonwealth, 147 W. Santa Fe, and 324 W. Valencia.  What could our Czar want with these fruited lots?  Certainly the transaction will bring tremendous revenue to the City’s general fund, will it not?  NO.  Once again, we get the short end of this stick, too.  Hopefully, one of our Friends can enlighten us with details as to what the Czar has planned.

In the Open Session, the Council will consider an appointment to the Parks and Recreation Commission.

There are 7 items on the consent calendar.  Aside from the minutes there are a few items worth commenting on.

Item 2 seeks to raise the speed limits on a few streets.  I noted on my March 16th comments:

“Now you get to punch that gas pedal and really feel the wind in your hair!  Item #15 seeks to change the speed limits on Sunny Ridge and Pioneer Avenue.  The PD asked Traffic Engineering to conduct a traffic study.  The results: RAISE, that is correct, the speed limit!  Here is the breakdown:

Pioneer Ave (Sunny Ridge to Gilbert) Increase from 25mph to 30mph.

Pioneer Ave (Gilbert to Parks) Establish a speed limit of 40mph

Sunny Ridge Dr (Malvern to Pioneer) Increase from 25mph to 35mph

Sunny Ridge Dr (Pioneer to Roscrans) Increase from 25mph to 30mph

All other speed limits remain unchanged”

Why do you suppose the PD would want to raise the speed limit?  Surely they aren’t concerned with traffic congestion.  The text of the ordinance states that these speeds are  “…for the safe operation of vehicles…”  Perhaps it is because the PD cannot enforce the speed limit with radar at their currently posted speeds.  Raising the speed limits to as much as 40mph would likely result in more citations which equal more revenue.  So, maybe don’t punch that gas pedal too hard.

Item 3 could change the way the City does noticing for public hearings.  It seems the newspapers are just too expensive.  Staff will have four places to post notices of public hearings: City Hall, Maintenance Services Yard, Museum, and the Main Library.  It’s odd that they would use the main library (all of about 150 feet from City Hall) and the museum (about two blocks over from City Hall) for the notices.  It seems a broad approach including certain parks or perhaps schools would have been considered.

Council wants Fullerton designated as a “Recovery Zone”!  Read item 4.  The Redevelopment Agency, lead by everyone’s favorite land Czar, wants to go after some financing opportunity available if only council adopts this resolution.  This looks to be a 30-year bond worth initially $2,705,000.  I’m not much of an accountant so someone needs to do the math and find out what it will really cost.  It sounds like another way to waste our money.  After passing this resolution, we will all need to get checked into recovery…  We can start with a few council members!

Item 5 states that the PD wants the City to accept some federal and state grant funding worth $93,782.  The individual grants vary and all have strings attached.  Some include $44,652 for DUI checkpoint-related costs, body armor costs that have doubled and approved of at an August 5, 2008 council meeting, and an FBI reimbursement of up to $12,680 in 2009-2010 and $16,903 in 2010-2011 for overtime, training, and equipment for an officer to be assigned to the Orange County Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory.

Item 6 is a maintenance declaration between Engineering, the Land Czar (a.k.a. Redevelopment Agency), and the Walter N. Johnson Family Trust.  The idea is to get the alley to be maintained by someone other than the Engineering Department which is broke as is the alley.

Pay more for your water!  Item 7 says that Engineering wants you to pay more for your water so they can fund the city’s League of Cities slush fund?  WTF? Approval of this item gives staff the go-ahead to mail out notices of a PROPOSED rate hike.  According to the staff summary, the proposal is for a $2 per month per customer increase in the service charge.  So, if we take every residential water meter and add $2 each for each month, staff thinks it will add up to $700,000 in to the Water Fund for the 2010-2011FY.  If my math is correct, which it rarely is, that means we will have 29,167 water customers paying an additional $2 per month for a 12-month period. Good luck Bankhead and Keller when the voters find out about this little scam!

Item 8 of the Regular Business is the Land Czar’s recommendation to Council that they re-agendize (it’s a made up word on the agenda, likely means “to place on the agenda again”) the proposal from the Business Improvement District’s consultant Urban Place.  The proposal is for $3,100 for “initial Business Improvement District explorative community outreach.”  Give me the $3,100 and I’ll give you a shiny report with glossy photos and a little exploration of reaching out to the community…

You have to love the way Item 9 is stated:  “AFFORDABLE HOUSING RFP SELECTION CRITERIA DISCUSSION”.  It’s quite laughable if you consider that the Council and Land Czar always say we need more affordable housing.  Doc HeeHaw likes to proclaim that by golly it’s the law.  In the unlikely event you believed old Doc, he likes to lie.  Affordable housing quotas aren’t law, they are the strings attached to some of the silly grants our city staff chases after.  Remember, Doc’s best years, if he had any, were gone long before he set foot in the council chambers.  Anyway, if you think council needs to have certain selection criteria for their affordable housing RFP’s, then chime in.

And lastly, old Doc made news when he Hee-Hawed is way off of the Vector Control Board’s meeting last month.  Item 10 states: “Recommendation by City Clerk’s Office: Appoint a representative to the Orange County Vector Control .”

The key word is REPRESENTATIVE.  I’m sure the OCVC Board will be happy to have anyone but Doc around.  I would really like to know what set him off.  Maybe we could do it at the next council meeting and get him to quit…

In summary, if tax dollars were turds, this agenda might represent more waste than even the Orange County Sanitation District could handle.

As always, if you have any information to contribute or if you feel I missed something important, please give us your comments.

The Stooge In The Middle

Dear Friends, we just received this fun post from a mutual Friend and I believe you will agree that it’s funny and pretty accurate. So enjoy.

Admin

Several years ago Morris Feinberg penned a biography about his late brother Larry Fein entitled “Larry, The Stooge in the Middle”.  This clever and memorable title suggests a parallel to our own Fullerton City Council.

I always prefer the middle

Twice a month first term Mayor Pro Tem Pam Keller takes her seat at the council dais between Dick “Moe” Jones and Don “Curley” Bankhead.  In recent months she has become the crucial third vote to approve some dubious Redevelopment projects.  No stranger to giving her stamp of approval to terrible developments like Amerige Court and Jefferson Commons, she is always careful to pepper the city staff with a few probing questions before throwing her support firmly behind it (“I got it Moe!”).  Lately, though, with Sharon Quirk-Silva withdrawing her support for boondoggles like the recently approved low income housing on Richman and the illegal Redevelopment expansion, and Shawn Nelson voting likewise against them or taking a powder entirely, Pam Keller has cast the deciding “yes”, taking her place as The Stooge in the Middle.

The middle here I come

Larry Fein had a long stretch as a Stooge, but Pam Keller is up for re-election this year.  One has to assume that challenger Marty  Burbank has come to boot Pam aside to claim the mantle of middle Stooge for himself.  He has already signaled his worthiness of the title by shilling for the Chamber of Commerce in support of the aforementioned expansion of Fullerton’s Merged Redevelopment Area.  Of course, we don’t know what else Marty stands for, since the “Issues” page on his website is completely empty, but we don’t suppose he means to bump aside fellow Rotarian Bankhead, who will undoubtedly endorse the new would-be Larry.

There are some wild cards in play, however.  What if Shawn Nelson is elected as 4th District County Supervisor?  What if the rumors are true that Dick Jones plans to step down sometime this year?  There may be room for Shemp, and even Curley Joe to fill out the second half of as many as two council terms.  Then who will be The Stooge in the Middle?

Large clumps of hair went missing

Funny Google Searches From 2009

FFFF gets thousands of visitors from Google, each searching the web for bits of Fullerton knowledge. Usually those searches are related to local politicos, civic minutiae or nasty rumors. Visitors are led deep into our cyber lair, where they are either offended, entertained or mind-bent, depending on their disposition.

But sometimes folks come to our website after searching for some pretty strange stuff. Below we have categorized the most interesting FFFF searches of 2009.

You’re In the Right Place

These Googlers probably found what they were looking for:

The Original Tarantula Building
  • is linda ackerman a irvine carpetbagger or not? – This one was settled
  • county clerk campaign slogans – How about “Preserving Your Vital Records“?
  • “tarantula building” fullerton – Yes, we have one of those.
  • friends of fullerton golden hill interesting weird website – We’ll take that as a compliment.
  • how to get of roach infestion – Ask the city
  • government doesn’t follow its own laws –  Ya don’t say?
  • define the word “mcspanish” – Fullerton is McSpanish
  • i want this school district to buy my products – Better idea: district forces parents to buy your products.
  • intelligent word for “bull shit” – Those were lost at sea with the Harpoon
  • city manager blunders – Yeah, we’ve got ’em.
  • i want to live without loud music. can city council help me? – Not in Fullerton
  • pam keller fraud – How blunt!

Scary Thoughts

You went there:

  • don bankhead for assembly – Not funny.
  • ackerman will beat norby – did not pan out
  • brick veneer good idea – probably not
  • fullerton activities funded by taxpayers – That would be a big list.
Roski's got the Google

Who is this?

We know who you are:

  • ceqa exemption for stadium – Ed Roski, is that you?
  • “chris;norby” “dirt” – Mickadeit, you’ll have to try harder than that.
  • how to keep brick from falling off buildingChamber Star?
  • how does a school district close a 7.5 million dollar gap?Mitch, you can’t Google your way out of this one

We Couldn’t Find It Either

Maybe they just don’t exist:

  • what does the fullerton police department do right?
  • fullerton blighted areas
  • tom daly for orange county supervisor website – Nevermind, found it.
  • chris norby asleep photo at fullerton city council dais
  • chris norby sleeping in park

Straight Answers

…to tough questions:

  • Fiscal Conservative?

    is pam keller a republican? – No, although she claims to be a “fiscal conservative“.

  • is “rutan & tucker” a good firm? – See Jeff Oderman
  • is a blight designation a good thing? – Only in the Redevelopment business.
  • is fullerton interfaith emergency services a government agency? – Well, sort of.

Googling Vicious Rumors

  • john laing +bankruptcy +receivership
  • jpi development bankrupt
  • steve sheldon bankrupt
  • city of fullerton building department-the worst
  • city of fullerton community development-the worst

Just Plain Crazy

  • huell howser drinking game – Tell me more…
  • ed roski says chris norby is a woman – What???
  • fart boy blogs –  I think you’re looking for Red County
  • how much is a public urination ticket in fullerton – You might have a problem.
  • Kharakastan – Out with a bang.

In Fullerton It’s Only Over When Staff Says Its Over

I don't mind being led around just so long as I don't know where I'm going.
I don't mind being led around just as long as I don't know where they're taking me!

A few items in 2009 have caused me to reflect on the way things go in Fullerton, the way things have always gone, in fact. My poodle friends have a saying: la plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme chose. Man, that’s Fullerton all over!

In Fullerton, no screw-up, no cluster f, no civic disaster ever goes away if the city staff doesn’t want it to. They’ll dig in their heels and start the ol’ push-back as soon as it looks like something they really want is about to get torpedoed.

Consider the absolutely horrible decision to relocate the McDonald’s outlet at a jaw-dropping cost of six million bucks. Not even the most compliant council could swallow that one, and ours pulled the plug on it (so we thought, foolish us!) last summer. But within a a few weeks, the Redevelopment staff cooked up a “new” plan for the brainless “Fox Block” scheme. And guess what? It too, involved relocating McDonald’s – just not all the way to the corner. Geez, wasn’t anybody paying attention? That episode was so bad that it really crossed the line of insubordination. But did anybody on the council say a word? ‘Course not. This is Fullerton!

Of course the real problem is is the sort of people that we keep electing to the City Council. The mentally lame, the incompetent, the inert; people who by political and personal inclination identify with the bureaucracy instead of the citizens and taxpayers of Fullerton; people who dodge responsibility. Of the current crop, only Shawn Nelson really seems to take offense at being lied to and led around by the nose like a prize bull. And speaking of bull, Sharon Quirk seems to have finally realized that her advisors have their own agendas that more likely than not are incongruous with the interests of the rest of us. Well, that’s some progress, anyway.

What will 2010 bring? More of the same, no doubt. This is Fullerton. If there’s any hope for us the brain-dead gerontocracy must go. And by gerontocracy I mean the ossified geriatric thinking displayed by councilmembers of all ages, and the interests they represent. Of course Bankhead must go. Jones, too. And Keller. But if they’re replaced with stooges like Marty Burbank or Pat McKinley what the hell’s the difference?

Well let’s throw out a few issues to track to see how bad, or good, things will be in 2010 as far as accountability goes:

Will the council finally once and for all end the Fox Block scam?

Will Keller, Quirk, and Nelson stick to their promise to put the issue of term limits on the June ballot?

Will the council quit wasting time and energy on the idiotic Transportation Center master plan?

Will the council give up on the bogus Redevelopment expansion?

Will the council ditch the moronic “at-large” members of commissions altogether?

Will the council demand accountability on the UP park scandal before they sink another dime into more Redevelopment of it? Will they tell the city manager to quit making unilateral policy decisions?

Will the council have the courage (very little required really) to forget the useless UP ROW “trail”?

Will the council quit subsidizing and encouraging illegal behavior by downtown bars and dance halls?

Well, really, the list is endless and the Friends could no doubt supply their own favorites. Bon chance!

AND THE WINNERS ARE: THE 2009 FRINGIES

And the winners are...
And the winners are...

Well Friends, here they are – the 2009 Fringie Winners. You don’t really deserve this sort of punishment inflicted on you, but…well, hell, maybe you do! The competition was spirited in many of the categories. And by spirited I mean mind-numbingly depressing. And I’m just a dog! I had to take long breaks several times during the nomination and judging to water the fire hydrants along Brea Boulevard.

It was like getting hit with a broomstick all over again...
It was like getting hit with a broomstick all over again...

1. In the category of Least Distinguished Journalist it really wasn’t even close. The OC Register’s Frank Mickadeit took it going away for his complete lack of journalistic integrity. In the end the judges just didn’t feel that Sharon Kennedy or Barbara Giasone even really qualified as journalists. Martin Wisckol was given credit for showing up on the blog even tho’ it was merely to defend his embarrassing whoring for Ackerman, Inc.

2. In the category of the Worst Bureaucratic SNAFU, the judges were clearly impressed by not only the scope of the Poisoned Park disaster and its ongoing potential for more o’ same, but by city staff’s ability to avoid any and all responsibility for the multi-million dollar mess. Bravo, Mr. City Manager, you’re finally catching up with your predecessor, and that’s saying a lot!

3. Worst Vote of 2009. Bankhead, Jones, and Keller for the win of course, with their undying support of the Redevelopment expansion. And by win, of course, I mean disastrous loss for everyone outside the Redevelopment Department.

4. In the category of Scariest Ghost of Fullerton Past, we had an eerily close call. Yet despite the frightening surprise visitation from my former broomstick-wielding mistress Jan Flory, the judges were absolutely horrified by the noxious vapor of Linda LeQuire, conjured up by Ackerman Inc. out of some fetid and accursed burial ground, to smear Chris Norby. It didn’t work, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

5. In the category of Stupidest Statement Made in Public we again had a tough decision. In a year when Dick Jones said so many idiotic things and Pam Keller claimed (with a perfectly straight face) to be a “fiscal conservative,” a dark horse nominee grabbed the brass ring. And by dark horse nominee I mean the daffy, loud-mouthed nincompoop member of “Pam’s Posse” and her crazy-funny “why Pam should be mayor” rhetorical ramble through the brambles. Go ahead and watchit. We dares ya!

6. In the Government Small Change Adds Up category the award goes to the Roscoe’s Famous Nuisance Noise Study, a wonderful example of ill-conceived bureaucratic waste on a small scale that makes us really worried about the big stuff.

7. The Most Entertaining and/or Disturbing Image of 2009. Barney Wewak for the win. Aw, c’mon, was there ever any doubt? The picture even has a dog in it. Arf!

Bary Wewak
The Friends For Fullerton's Future Have Friends Around the World...

8. Best Vote 2009. This one was pretty easy for the judges since by the time they got around to this category they had inhaled copious amounts of medicinal weed acquired from the Dick & MaryJane Jones Dispensary. Our old friend Sharon Quirk-Silva gets a double victory for seeing the proverbial light on the God-awful McDonald’s relocation; and also for opposing that fraudulent Redevelopment expansion.

9. Our final category is the Most Awful Political Candidate of 2009, and it goes to none other than Chris Norby for his abortive County Clerk campaign. Rarely had the judges seen such a blatant fixation on public sector job preservation and such a mismatch of skill set to position. The campaign slogan “Preserving Your Vital Records” was so insipid and so lame I have to lift my leg on it. Again. There. Clean up in aisle #9! Well deserved Fringie, indeed!

Finally, the Judging Committee decided to award three special Fringies in 2009 in order to recognize excessively, aesthetically unattractive behavior on the part of some of our political personalities.

10. Special Fringie #1. The call by Pam Keller for a City-run blog – with no bloggers – was such a wonderful monument to fatuousness and political tone-deafness that as a statement and an act it really was in a class by itself. You can enjoy our original post here and listen to Keller’s statement. Well done, Pam! You excelled yourself.

11. Special Fringie #2. Well of course we had to acknowledge Linda Ackerwoman whose scampaign in the 72nd must be considered positively evil (yes the judges said evil!) by any normal person. This creature did not qualify in the most Awful Political Candidate category since the whole operation seemed more like a jail break than a campaign. Who knows how many hundreds of simoleons per vote this cipher and her Sacramento-organized goons wasted. Oh well. It least it wasn’t our dough!

12. Special Fringie #3. The judges believed that they would have been remiss without a tip o’ the Fringed cap to Congresscritter-for-life Ed Royce, the rat who managed to swim away from the giant suction-vortex of the sinking S.S. Ackerman and happily scampered up the waiting rope ladder onto the S.S. Norby. Well done little rodent!

And so friends, that concludes the 2009 Fringie Awards. We hope you have enjoyed them as much as we have enjoyed bringing them to you. And if you didn’t, tough.

Here’s looking forward to a new year filled with wonderful material from our favorite folks in Fullerton!

Sort of Good News From the Fringe: Best Vote 2009

Okay, Friends, the pickings were worse than slim. They were virtually non-existent.

It's a long way to the highway
It's a long way to the highway

Still, in a generally all-round depressing year, accountability-wise, a few bright spots appeared. Here are our nominees:

1. The Vote to let the people decide on term limits. Kudos to Shawn Nelson, Pam Keller, and Sharon Quirk-Silva for deciding to let the people of Fullerton decide whether or not 12 years in enough time to be on the city council. Naturally Don Bankhead and Dick Jones opposed the idea correctly realizing that such an idea is a direct indictment of their own sad, useless multiple-term careers on the council.

2. The Death of The Great $6 million McDonalds move. Nelson, Quirk-Silva and even Jones got this one right right. The only problem is that an apparently insubordinate staff brought back a new plan later on with – you guessed it – McDonald’s still being relocated again. And with even more embarrassing architecture than ever. Of course this undermines the whole significance of the first vote. But in a thin year you take whatever you can get.

3. The Redevelopment Expansion. Like desperate rats clinging to shipwreck debris Pam Keller, Don Bankhead, and the egregious Dick Jones demonstrated their complete cluelessness and willingness to be led down the Redevelopment garden path. But Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk-Silva weren’t fooled by the blatantly phony findings of blight that provided the corrupt underpinnings for whole tottering edifice. Later on they opposed the shameful backroom deal cooked up with the County to buy off the latter.

4. The very recent vote on the Richman Housing project – a no-bid, staff make-work project that ignores the housing needs identified by housing advocates as the most pressing. Sharon Quirk-Silva saw through the bureaucratic self-interest and voted no.

The Fringies Advance Apace: Worst Vote 2009

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UPDATE: WE HAVE NOW INCLUDED LAST NIGHT’S (12/15/09) CITY COUNCIL VOTE TO APPROVE THE RICHMAN HOUSING PROJECT (SEE #6). SINCE THE COUNCIL IS DONE VOTING IN 2009 WE CAN NOW CLOSE THE NOMINATIONS.

The Worst Vote 2009 category is reserved for politicians who really stepped in it big time. This is one of the biggies, so you won’t want to miss this award. Here are the five nominees:

1. Councilman Don Bankhead deserves recognition, all right. In a 22-year council career jam-packed with horrible decisions this year he truly distinguished himself. His “until death” support of the completely horrendous $6 million McDonald’s relocation move was just breathtaking. Even Doc Heehaw opposed that one, and that’s saying a lot.

2. A joint nomination: Don Bankhead (again!), Pam Keller, and our old pal Dick Jones for their brainless devotion to the Redevelopment expansion founded on a fraudulent finding of blight. We have catalogued all the idiotic things said in defense of the indefensible, and its an impressive catalogue of confused thinking, indeed. And FFFF has sued the Agency to help it get it’s collective mind right.

3. Another joint nomination. FSD Trustees Hilda Sugarman and Ellen Ballard for voting to hire (for up to $100,000) a consultant to “study” the feasibility of a parcel tax. Minard Duncan is also included in this nomination since he abstained, too cowardly to even make a decision one way or the other. Say why does Ed Royce keep endorsing Ballard and Sugarman? (Rhetorical question only – no response necessary).

4. The Fullerton Planning Commission for actually granting Jack Franklyn a bogus “special events” permit covering numerous events  for several months so that he could continue to offend his neighbors with outdoor amplified music at Roscoe’s Famous Nuisance. We also note that one of his neighbors subsequently went out of business and another Franklyn enterprise is moving into the empty space.

5. The entire City Council for mindlessly jacking up the commodity rates on water and in doing so increasing the in-lieu franchise payment to the General Fund. Not a single council person even bothered to ask why. Shame, shame, shame.

6. Don Bankhead, Pam Keller, and Dick Jones. Again. And Again. For their vote to approve the utterly ill-conceived, staff-created Richaman Avenue subsidized condo project. Shawn Nelson recused himself.

The Fringies Continue: Least Distinguished “Journalist”

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As you Friends may well imagine, this category is chock-full of worthy nominees. In fact, choosing them was a real challenge. 2009 was an excellent year for journalistic incompetence, and our nominees each qualified for slightly different reasons. The nominees for Least Distinguished “Journalist” are:

1. Sharon Kennedy. She is nominated for her reprehensible tactic of forwarding Chris Norby’s anti-Redevelopment essays on to City Hall, where a staffer wrote responses and Don Bankhead, between pudding breaks, signed them. Hardly the actions of a responsible journalist. Which is why we put the word in quotation marks in our title.

2. Barbara Giasone. Barbara distinguished herself last year by snagging the coveted Wurlitzer Prize. This year she earns a Fringie nomination by an entire year’s worth of vapid vacuity. Just think of it. The Earth has accomplished a full orbit of the Sun and Babs has not made a single journalist contribution to the folks of Fullerton. An accomplishment crying out for recognition.

3. Frank Mickadeit. This homunculus receives his nomination for outstanding and relentless ass-kissing of the Repuglican elite – formerly people like Mike Carona, but this year Ackerman, Inc., as he slavishly passed along all of Dick Ackerman’s bullshit to the dwindling number of OC Register readers.

4. Lastly, lets not forget Mickadeit’s Register colleague Martin Wisckol, who seems to suffer from the same sick infatuation with the Repuglican clique’s collective posterior that infects Mickadeit. This year Wisckol distinguished himself by acting as Ackerman, Inc. press agent, doing so from the very beginning of the Ackerwoman scampaign. Our intrepid reporter even contacted the Ackerwoman in France as soon as the Duvall deal went down. Later he passed along her lame “businesswoman” resume as a matter of fact, not invention. Suspicious minds smelled collusion. Suspicious minds were right.

The Fringies: Nominations Begin

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Yes, Friends, it’s time to recognize the outstanding among us Fullertonians. And by outstanding I mean the brain-dead, the lethargic, the incredibly stupid, the greedy, the shifty, and, every so often, the actual achievers. So let’s start. 

In the category of Stupidest Statements Made in Public in 2009 we have four nominees. It’s interesting because three of them center around the person of City Council woman Pam Keller.

1. First is Pam Keller herself with the now legendary “fiscal conservatives as the five of us are” comment. It’s not long but it’s pretty breathtaking. Here’s the link to the post.

2. Second is the loud-mouthed member of Pam’s Posse with no “political whatevers” who made a spectacle out of herself with a long-winded, lame, and ultimately satiro-brilliant string of drivel about why Pam Keller should be mayor. Although not nominated because she didn’t actually say anything,  Saint Joan at the Stake in the background deserves special recognition for wonderfully pious gestures and glances skyward. Enjoy again

3. Third, this wonderful piece of utter nonsense uttered by every one’s favorite hysterical corn pone pontificator, Dick Jones, on why you don’t change horses in mid-stream, and why Don Bankhead should be mayor two years in a row – because (not in spite of the fact!) that the City’s proverbial barrel bobs along in a “raging financial torrent” toward Doc Heehaw’s “symbolic Niagara Falls.” Great fun.

4. Finally, there’s  this pearl  mumbled out by Council aspirant Marty Burbank last summer: “as a lawyer” he doesn’t know if the Redevelopment expansion is legal, but of course he supports it anyway. Well he certainly demonstrates all the requisite qualifications to be on the Fullerton City Council with this gem.