The Sad, Shrinking World of Tom Daly
Our Friend Allan Bartlett passed along our post about Tom Daly’s $10,000,000 real estate disaster for the edification of the good government advocates who read the “Red County” blog. Or maybe he did it to annoy the Republican supporters of crazy spendthrift Democrat Tom Daly.
And as I predicted in my original post, a couple of Tom Daly sycophants popped up to defend the indefensible. And here’s what Cynthia Ward, AKA Colony Rabble had to say:
Tom Daly bought a piece of real estate that staff reveiwed (sic) and approved and the Supes voted for? Oh no! Whatever will we do? String up the varmint! The Fullerton boys are real sleuths. I told you in the Barbre post that Tom was expanding the Archives and looking at other space. His real estate may not have been the best deal? Well welcome to the world the rest of us live in!
Apparently the idea of wasting $2,100,000 for a completely worthless piece of property is of no concern to Ms. Ward. Not the best deal? Jesus H., this miscreant flushed 2.1 million tax dollars down the toilet! The world the rest of us live in? Is that supposed to be a joke? Does Cynthia Ward routinely blow millions on worthless real estate? Do her friends? Do her neighbors?
Well now we know what kind of a conservative Ward is. And if we ever needed confirmation that her job at the Mauve County was to do anything other than promote the egregious Daly (and now, it seems, to try to talk away his mammoth incompetency), now we have it.
Dear God, she did write that!
And Cunningham did his usual dodge ball routine by trying to change the subject and criticize Bartlett for not pinning the the f-up on Norby!
Yeah Norby voted for it; he and his feeble staff screwed up. Just like Moorlach did. But the project was Daly’s from the get go. And he was the one that applied the political pressure to get the staff stooges to go along with his wretched deal.
The screw-up occurred because the decisions were politically driven – by Daly.
The republican should watch out for Matt Cunningham because he is a snake and a fake.
Matt you are such a loser!!! Tom Daly your master is wasting taxpayers money and you sit there and say nothing.
Shame on you and I don’t understand why Chip Hanlon keeps you around.
I appreciate that the blog/comments were at least civil this time because I find SIGNIFICANTLY more intellectual honesty in Cynthia Ward than I do MOST others in the blogosphere.
Steve, maybe this lady is your friend, but I find the brush off of a 2.1 million dollar waste absolutely appalling.
And it is a waste, too. A dead loss. The interest/opportunity cost on that money alone in the past two years is probably over a quarter mil.
There is no way to dance around this – no matter how much one “loves Tom Daly to death.”
Joe’s right — it seems if was a number of county staffers that screwed this one up — facilities people, real estate “experts”, appraisers, etc. — and he’s also right the Norby’s staff should have questioned this more thoroughly as Chris isn’t known for his good sense. His Chief of Staff brother, or Phil Tsunoda, the idiot who replaced him, blew it.
#6 Souldnt we first address why the Clerk is getting in to the museum/archive business in the first place?
Cynthia can back Tom all she wants on the real estate play but how do you back the empire building effort in the first place? Before you need a building some one has to have decided that expanding the role of this government office is a good way to spend the taxpayers money.
#6, you are correct. Ward of course wants to assume that a the County needs to own the building that the archives are in – a completely ludicrous notion my view. It is not unlikely that private space could have been rented someplace – an awful lot cheaper.
Lets do the math if the County rented some space:
8000sf at say, two bucks a foot (that’s pretty high for storage, but we’ll need some atmospheric controls). That’s $192,000 a year. Even at that high rate, Daly’s (our) 2.1 million could have leased that space FOR ELEVEN YEARS – not even including the interest that would be accruing on that dough and that might eventually have paid for space indefinitely.
This whole thing is a titanic FAIL. And it’s Daly’s fault.
Wow Cynthia Ward you are a Tom Daly kiss ass.
Everyone needs to go into Red County blog today. Cynthia had breakfast with Tom Daly (he out at breakfast and not working again).
She truly believes that it’s ok for Tom Daly to buy a beat up building 2.1 millions and the taxpayers will have to spend 2.7 millions to 7.5 millions to fix the building.
You are an IDIOT. County employees are losing there jobs and doing furloughs and you defend Tom Daly for buying the building.
How can anyone justify this terrible purchased. The Clerk Recorder job is to preserved the real property and vitals records. The Clerk Recorder is not a place to stored trophies and a damm motorcycle. Tom Daly is trying to build a museum with taxpayers money.
Cynthia go visit the Bower Museum and take Tom Daly with you.
Tom Daly is trying to build an Empire!! Not an Archives building using taxpayers money.
Tom Daly your explanation is full of Shit!!!
We need to vote Tom Daly out of office.
This guys is a JOKE!
We don’t want to hear your excuses.
Tom Daly go back to work. The taxpayers didn’t pay you to go out to breakfast to meet with a Shill!!!!!!!!!!
“The taxpayers didn’t pay you to go out to breakfast to meet with a Shill!!!!!!!!!!”
Um, yeah, actually they did.
is the building that the county owned now worth $0 or as the article states “completely worthless”, or can they sell it for more than that should they so choose? I’ll take it off their hands and give them $5 for it which would be a profit for the county according to your reporting, but you would muckrack the hell out of that too.
Have the repairs been approved and the contracts signed?
Seems to me this is more like a mistake in the $70-80 k range than the $10 Million dollar range (which is still a waste and a shame, but not quite the hyperbolic headline the story indicates).
We also do still need more space for archives? I think my favorite hysterical comment is #6. The County Clerk/Recorders office is “getting into the museum/archive business”???? WTF? What do you think they do over there?
Oh look! An honest to goodness Tom Daly acolyte.
Didn’t you read the architect’s report? You should have, we paid a hundred grand for it. The building can’t be occupied by the public: it’s not ADA compliant (ramps, elevators, doors and hardware, etc.; the electrical and mechanical systems are obsolete, the exterior skin, flooring, ceilings and roofing are full of asbestos, there’s lead paint, the basement leaks, etc., etc. It’s a tear down.
Why don’t you hustle yourself down to Daly’s office ASAP. I’ll bet you could get that building for $5 so long as you promise to tear it down (after you abate the asbestos!). You can salvage those pretty copper panels.
I would love to see how little they get for that turkey if the law would even allow them to sell a building without first abating the asbestos and lead themselves.
BTW, the County Clerk IS NOT in the museum business despite his attempts and his waste of 50 grand on that fiasco paid out to a campaign contributor. And the archive space could have been rented for decades with the money Daly flushed down the toilet.
You’ll see. Daly will try to get people in that building doing something before the election, even if its just some hapless Clerk/Recorder employees. Get some cars in the parking lot too.
Dear Absence of clue aka WTF? The Clerk Recorder is to record and store data not display museum exhibits. Has it ever occurred to you that most of the documents could be imaged, displayed on the website for all to see at the touch of a mouse and the originals could be kept in a wharehouse with rent in the low to very low range? You know, 40′ ceilings, large shelf systems that pallets of documents can fit on. There is NO, repeat, NO reason that the archives need a storefront retail type space.
Further, who in the hell ever made display of sports memorabilia part of the Clerk Recorder job? Where do you find this?
Join the 21st century. There is no excuse for anyone to be investing in 19th century ideas for documents storage today.
Daly is so off the mark on a number of levels and you are just being dishonest if you dont see that.
Admin,
I am friends with Cynthia. When I ran for council at 19, she was probably my most vocal critic. I was lambasted online by her for loads of things which I have no need to mention now. And not just online… believe me. After the election and my subsequent loss. I got to know her and, no surprise I found a very tough, smart lady, who very deeply cares about her community.
Partisan antics is surpassed by the genuine interest in the public good and the betterment of the community in my book. And as such, I love interacting with Cynthia.
Anyhow, getting to the specific points of this post…
I’m under the impression that because the Clerk-Recorder is not allowed to rent property to store archives, he had no choice but to buy. Also that where the archives are stored must be equipped with climate control and anti-humidity measures.
I’ve heard that many of the records in question are nearly ruined because they are were not stored properly… And for them to be stored properly… and for the building to be retrofitted accordingly, his actions make perfect logical sense.
Seems like this hub-bub is pointless because it’s the legal responsibility of the clerk-recorder to take measure to make sure all these criteria are met, which he has done.
And then there’s the whole matter of all this being approved and voted on by the Supes throughout the ENTIRE process.
If you got REAL criticisms bring them forward, but all of this seems to go lite on the substance heavy on the rhetoric.
Also, before the accusation is made… I am NOT a Daly shill. He’s a little too conservative for me to be down.
“If you got REAL criticisms bring them forward, but all of this seems to go lite on the substance heavy on the rhetoric.”
Rhetoric.
I can only hope you are joking. And I can only hope that if this is what you truly believe you are never elected to anything above junior class president.
1) Who says they can’t rent space for their paper?
2) How did Daly “make sure all these criteria are met?” You’re joking, right?
3) The building is unsuitable for public occupation. It needs to be structurally retrofitted, the HVAC and electrical systems need to be replaced, the exterior and interior finishes are full of asbestos and the building is non-ADA compliant. That’s not a REAL criticism? What planet are you from?
4) You don’t think blowing 2.1 million on a tear down building is a REAL criticism?
5) This is only about Cynthia Ward because of her undying defense of the indefensible, her love of the incompetent career politician Daly. If you want to be part of that club that’s your business. But do yourself a favor and don’t advertise.
Grover, the fact that you aren’t realistically taking into account here is the retrofit that’s required for the storage of these materials. How could you rent when the entire shindig has to be climate controlled (that entails quite a bit)?
Should the Supes have acquired a new building only to later gut it as well?
Last real point. If this were truly an issue, I would be going after the only people who could have approved this expenditure. The 3 Supes who approved it. Going after Daly for this naturally becomes suspect.
Steve, I hope somebody teaches you about interest and opportunity cost on money sometime soon.
That two million dollars + that you and Ward are so blithely tossing away could have financed an awful lot of government services including housing the archives indefinitely.
Right now the only thing that building is housing is a homeless guy under the back steps.
“That two million dollars + that you and Ward are so blithely tossing away…”
That’s not money that I or Cynthia spent, it was expended by the Board of Supervisors. Which really, should be the target of your ire, if it is in-fact genuine.
p.s.
Dan calls you Sippy, too? WTF?
I like how the Oaf only has the testicular fortitude to talk shit on HIS posts, on LOC. Him, actually engage here? That would be crazy.
FFFF has recognized the failure of the Supervisors here. I believe the first responsibility must to go to Daly.
It is true that Norby, Moorlach and Nguyen voted for this too. As a matter of fact I’m thinking about a post unloading on Moorlach and Norby – the darlings of the conservatives who have very little to show for their posturings.
The Clerk Recorder, as an elected,is given leaway in the use of his budget. As such, the Board of Supervisors will allow his requests to go through as long as they meet the perfunctory review of different agencies. They do not question every little detail.
They believe Daly when he makes requests. This does not release them from responsibility for ultimate oversight.
The archives are in the basement of the old courthouse and are doing quite well, long before Daly hired Pasko and additional staff above and beyond the original two archivists. The archives are not busy enough for more than two fulltime employees.
But what the hell do I know.
#15 you just made a first class fool out of yourself.
Rudy, you’ve obviously never met me. This is not an uncommon occurrence, or so my boyfriend tells me.