David Curlee Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

Joshua by Spencer — Trying to look passed all of the bullshit the city has thrown at us

Twice now the City of Fullerton has managed to baffle a judge with bullshit and get the judge to issue a prior restraint against myself, David and this blog stopping us from publishing “secret city hall documents”.

Twice now the city has boasted of their win only to be slapped down by the CA Appellate Court.

First they spiked the football during a 05 November 2019 City Council meeting where hack & pretend-an-intellect Ahmad Zahra threw softballs at City Attorney Kimberly Barlow to support their lies & defamation. This was the meeting where they tacitly admitted to violating disclosure laws (The Brown Act) by not properly voting & disclosing said vote to sue us prior.

A week later the Appellate Court sided with us on the publishing gag & slapped it down.

The second time a judge granted a prior restraint the city ran to the North Orange County Chamber of Commerce who pretended to care about the newsworthiness of the case & they issued a Press Release. Said PR was basically just a hit-piece against us with a laughable lie by City Manager Ken Domer who hasn’t once tried to settle this case despite his bullshit postering about wanting to work with us to “bring it to a close”.

That time it took the Appellate Court 10 days to slap the publishing gag down. Not only did they stay the prior restraint – they took over the case entirely by accepting our appeal.

Now we’ll wait to see what happens next as the Appellate Court hears both sides & makes a ruling. Will they side with Fullerton who claims we “plundered” their public, widely available, known about & non-password protected Dropbox Account by virtue of allegedly clicking links that even literally had my name on them? Or will the Appellate Court laugh at Fullerton for trying to bury us with litigation, fees and threats all to cover the incompetence they’ve admitted to in their own arguments?

Time will tell and we’ll keep you updated.

You may have already seen the story and/or press release from the City of Fullerton articulating their lawsuit against myself, Friends for Fullerton’s Future and others.

You can read the Voice of OC’s write up on this lawsuit from the city [HERE]:

“Fullerton city attorneys are heading into Orange County Superior Court Friday to ask a judge for a temporary restraining order against resident Joshua Ferguson and a local blog to keep them from deleting city records they obtained and also asking a judge to appoint someone to comb through electronic devices for the records.”

That lawsuit from the city is retaliation for a Public Records Lawsuit I filed against the city last week which was written up by the Voice of OC [HERE]:

“Fullerton residents may soon find out exactly how former City Manager Joe Felz was given a ride home by Fullerton police officers after hitting a tree and trying to flee the scene following drinking on election night in 2016, after resident Joshua Ferguson filed a lawsuit against the city to produce police body camera footage from that night.”

I will have more details in the near future but our current response is HERE]:

“The basic purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent the government from imposing prior restraints against the press. “Regardless of how beneficent-sounding the purposes of controlling the press might be,” the Court has “remain[ed] intensely skeptical about those measures that would allow government to insinuate itself into the editorial rooms of this Nation’s press.” (Nebraska Press, 427 U.S. at 560-561.)

“Consistent with that principle, over the last 75 years, the United States Supreme Court repeatedly has struck down prior restraints that limited the press’ right to report about court proceedings. The Court has made clear that a prior restraint may be contemplated only in the rarest circumstances, such as where necessary to prevent the dissemination of information about troop movements during wartime, Near, 283 U.S. at 716, or to “suppress[] information that would set in motion a nuclear
holocaust.” (New York Times, 403 U.S. at 726 (Brennan, J., concurring).)

“This case does not come close to presenting such extraordinary circumstances. Thus, the City cannot prevail as a matter of law, regardless of how the records were originally obtained. The City’s requests are flatly unconstitutional in and Defendants, therefore, respectfully request this Court denying the City’s request in its entirely.”

More to come as these two cases play out in court.

Tag: David Curlee

Appeals Court Slaps Fullerton… Again

City of Fullerton Is Suing Me And This Blog