The Torpedo
There is an old saying: “it’s the least I can do.”
And once in a while you get to see the least someone can really do without doing anything at all.
At the last “budget workshop” (cue: a sales tax is coming music), David Curlee brought up the idiocy of the worthless and mismanaged “Behind the Badge” contract – a 50 Grand per year repository of feel-good stories about our police department’s tender employees who, apparently, would rather be well-thought of for anything besides honest police work.
At this prompting, our mayor, Bruce Whitaker raised the issue – where, right on cue, it was peremptorily shot down by our $100 per hour Interim City Manager, Alan Roeder, as chump change that fell into the sofa cushions and isn’t worth digging around for. He warns Whitaker about “obsessing” over such loose change.
And there the matter seems to have died.
Of course if Whitaker had done his job in the first place and agendized the issue as a stand alone item at a regular meeting, this dismissive bullshit could not have occurred. The Behind the Badge embarrassment could not have been written off as an irrelevant, small-picture nothing instead of what it is – a blatant rip-off of the taxpayers that has run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past four years.
And consider this question: how many other loose change contracts, approved by no one other that Wild Ride Joe Felz, are still out there accomplishing nothing? And did any of our council stalwarts bother to make Roeder explain exactly what the monetary level of significance is before he will deign to consider it? We know it’s not $50,000 a year. Is it $100,000? $500,000? A million? Of course not.
Total leadership failure. The litmus test is done. Now we know why Roeder was hired in the first place:
He’s the Tax Man.
I remember back to 1993 when the arrogant Jim Armstrong pulled this same BS – how he challenged all his employees to “think outside the box.” After a few dog-and-pony “budget workshops” he proposed a completely unnecessary utility tax, the imposition of which got Bankhead, Catlin and McClanahan recalled the next year.
Whitaker was a recall Proponent back then, and I’m sure he remembers all this very well. In fact I’m also sure he is working on creating the next recall by forcing some of his colleagues to vote for the Roeder Tax.
“In fact I’m also sure he is working on creating the next recall by forcing some of his colleagues to vote for the Roeder Tax.”
Well, if that’s true it’s the most energy shown by Whitaker in 20 years.
LOL. With Whitaker it’s so easy to mistake lethargy for strategy.
Behind The Badge is state sponsored propaganda. Fullerton’s tax payers have no choice but to pay for this insult to their intelligence. As for the current Fullerton city manager who sees no harm done by giving $50,000 tax dollars to receive nothing in this exchange, Las Vegas became rich and continues to become richer off the nickels and dimes tossed into their slot machines.
“Las Vegas became rich and continues to become richer off the nickels and dimes tossed into their slot machines.”
Dismissing this waste tells us ALL we need to know about this Roeder creep. Whose recommendation brought him here? Marble-mouth City Attorney Dick Jones.
That response by the interim city manager is disgusting! So condescending! The city council should demote him for that comment alone. But they won’t.
Accountability dodged again. All city managers are cut from the same cloth.
Proposing a tax hike is the quickest way to get run out of Fullerton. Can’t wait. Bring it on.
Roeder is a piece of shit to match the Nazi Chief Rent-a Pig Hinig. Fullerton, like all governments, deserves worthless employees in all departments.
Well, that’s a bit harsh.
I’ve personally never understood the value to the residents of Fullerton that the city airport brings to the table?
A) The city airport barely break even every year, and has rarely ever produced any revenue for the residents of Fullerton.
B) They produce constant noise pollution 365 days of the year.
c) They have air combat operations flying over residents homes.
d) As the residents of Riverside found out last week, the airplanes occasionally crash into residents homes.
In addition to the city of Fullerton finding ways to gradually reducing the costs of public safety, why don’t they entertain the idea of closing Fullerton Airport and then selling the land to the highest bidder
You must be thinking of old numbers. They were talking about this the other night, in fact. The airport more than pays for itself these days. I think they said it’s been turning a $400K profit in recent years.
The airport is an enterprise fund, and any profits have to remain with the airport. There’s no economic reason to shut it down.
Besides, planes are cool.
The frustrating part about Mr. Roeder’s comment is he presupposes that only nickels, dimes, pennies (or whatever) will be found underneath the couch cushions. Until somebody actually looks underneath those couch cushions, there is no telling what will be found.
I’m willing to bet that, citywide, there are enough nickels under cushions to sustain salaries and benefits of numerous City employees. Will finding those nickels solve the CalPERS problem? No way. But it’s a start. One alternative to cut costs is to simply eliminate City positions to reduce CalPERS liability. I would hope this possibility motivates department heads and rank-and-file employees alike to search for those nickels instead. I don’t even care if they do it for self-preservation purposes — as long as those unnecessary costs are found and eliminated, everybody is better off for it.
The Behind the Badge nonsense has cost us several hundred grand. The fact that Roeder blows this off is highly offensive. And of course our esteemed council sucked that up without a peep.
The trouble with looking for waste is that you might actually find it. And that is not the way of the bureaucrat, first on general principles, and second it means that somebody may be called out for their f-up.
Roeder was only saying what they told him to….
And…. I already hate the new guy. Good luck with your taxes, jackass. I hope you like being run out of Fullerton just like your predecessor.