The Taxman Cometh
Folks here at FFFF have been prognosticating a new tax for several years. Even as councilcreatures Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jan Flory lied to the public by telling them the budget was balanced, we’ve been watching the strategic reserve fund dwindle away to almost nothing, leveling off last year only because so many positions were vacant.
The fact is that ever-escalating “public safety” pay and benefits, and a ruinous CalPERS pension debt have created what budget bean counters call a structural deficit; meaning, that the annual red-ink baths are a permanent condition that you can’t weasel your way out of selling marginal city-owned properties.
And so the harsh and inescapable reality has finally come home, like a wayward vulture, to roost. And harsh realities always trump the happy lies of politicians. It’s just a matter of time.
And that is why so many people have begun to hear stories that Councilcreature Jesus “Don’t Call Me Jeesis” Silva is sending up the trial balloon of a sales tax on the November 2020 general election ballot. The choice of that date is cynical since the General Election is will produce an electorate much more sympathetic to tax and spend policies of liberals like Silva, Ahmad Zahra, Flory and of course Fitzgerald. The seeds will be officially sown during the 2020-21 budget kabuki next spring. I am giving huge odds.
It’s going to happen. Zahra and Silva are not up for re-election so they must figure they’re safe; Flory is the lamest of lame ducks, a flightless bird, in fact, and thoughtful Friends have already suggested that she was put back on the council precisely for an automatic yes vote on a new tax. After all Flory’s first love has always been public emplyees.
And this leaves Fitzgerald, an erstwhile Republican free to oppose the vote putting the tax on the ballot in order to unburden herself of running for re-election with the tax monkey on her back – exactly where it belongs.
The pieces are now pretty much in place. The only question is how much the FPD Culture of Corruption and their buddies lounging in the “firehouse” are willing to invest in their shakedown.
If Zahra were half as smart as he seems to think he is, he would vote no and keep the burden on Fitzgerald. But is he smart enough? He could get rid of her and get a much better councilperson from District 1, and make Fitzgerald;s hand-picked candidate in District 2 run against her tax.
Just a little curious. Why is Silva so fucking stupid?
When FFFF has enough to buy a scanning electron microscope we will start looking for the brain.
A sales tax or a utility tax would be regressive. Just the sort of thing a liberal should hate. But the allure of a tax is so inviting for its own sake – like a badge of honor. Remember Newman’s Gas Tax?
People like to complain about the roads. Who knew they’d actually be willing to pay for the work?
Except that money that should have gone to roads went to pay the last drunken city manager’s $20,000 per month pension. Care to rebut that?
Unless you can figure out a way to get whatever money you’re talking about back I’m not sure what your point is. The roads need repair.
Yes they do. And so does a system that permits useless career bureaucrats and cops to make as much in retirement as they did working, while the rest of us get $2000 a month from Social Security – at 67.
Now kindly go fuck off.
He’s talking a about $240,000 a year, dimwit. For an incompetent, hit-and-run, drunkard of a City Manager.
Can you bend your public employee brain around that?
Yep. Every four years Burt Feltz will be making a million bucks on our backs, for what, another 28 years? That’s seven million dollars – far more than the slug ever “earned” while actually on the payroll.
Why not another tax hike? Fullerton votes these idiots into office, Fullerton deserves what it gets.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H. L. Mencken
Bitter, not all of us voted for them. In the last election, Ahmad got less than 2000 votes. Let those people pay all the taxes.
I always though of this blog as the Menken of Orange County.
“Tax and spend” lol. What a curious phrase. Must be some ideological thing.
I can think of three things you could do with tax money:
a) Spend it
b) Save / invest it
c) Steal it
a) and b) seem like what you’re supposed to do
“The fact is that ever-escalating “public safety” pay and benefits” It is ever escalating isn’t it. You know any jobs whose employees tolerate wage cuts every year?
What drives that? Could it be… inflation and the high cost of living in Southern California?
So you’re really going out on a ledge there with the prognostication. We can depend on inflation, so we can depend on wage increase, and we can see assets on the balance sheet drying up.
So yeah, sure. But what’s the alternative?
We can depend on lackey city council turds elected by the unions to screw us. The alternative is to go into bankruptcy and let the unions go to hell.
You have got to be the loudest idiot in Fullerton.
“You know any jobs whose employees tolerate wage cuts every year?”
The average police officer in Fullerton makes over $200,000 a year. City employees in Fullerton, particularly public safety employees, do not tolerate wage cuts every year.
You must be extremely popular with your neighbors. All that mouth running, all that insistence that others pay for your political opinions, all that self righteousness, all undone by basic math.
Maybe you’re Fitzgerald’s accountant. The two could stare into mirrors all day admiring your own brilliance.
I should run for something and really get under your think skin.
You should run for something. Maybe on Fitzgerald’s Big Gummint Ticket. FFFF would love that.
“You know any jobs whose employees tolerate wage cuts every year?”
Next you’ll be telling us all about the private sector where nobody ever gets downsized or laid off. Are you a troll or really as stupid as you appear?
You can play See No Evil all you want, the ever escalating pay and benefits IS the problem. This little city of 140,000 people currently has 110 employees who receive over $200,000 in benefits, and OVER 300 EMPLOYEES who receive over $100,000. See for yourself: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/fullerton/
And don’t forget the bonanza generation – the people who got MASSIVE retroactive pension spikes. And the worst part is the ones like Dudley and Galvin and Chalupsky and Hunt and Armstrong who truly fucked up everything they did.
“What drives that? Could it be… inflation and the high cost of living in Southern California?”
No, idiot, it’s the leverage the cop union gets electing stooges. Jesus, you’re dumb. I man Hayseus, you’re dumb.
” Could it be… inflation and the high cost of living in Southern California?”
Spoken like a true true tool.
To answer your question, the union goons in the gulag and firehouses will bet the farm on this tax. The firewhiners have been moaning and groaning about how shitty their pay and benefits are. No need to implement a new tax – restructure the fire department! Do what placentia is doing and contract paramedic services to a private company. That would save the city millions every year without having to raise taxes.
Yes ,do what the city of Placentia did, they recently implemented a increase in sales tax, so have many other cities around Fullerton, this is nothing new! Get over it people! Just because you sit in your moms basement working part time at some camera shop making 9 bucks an hour is no reason to be upset at others who make more than you!
Do what Placentia did? You mean move Paramedic services from the Fire Department to the Ambulance, saving potentially millions for the City Taxpayers? Because I am totally up for that.
If you don’t have a competitive package, a large part of which is CalPERS, then you won’t be able to hire any police officers or firefighters. People aren’t exactly flooding cities with police officer applications. Yes, there has been long-term fiscal mismanagement, but let’s not blame it all on cop and firefighter retirement packages. Personally, I’d prefer that a cop or firefighter actually show up if I call 911.
Bullshit. You could pay firefighters half of what they currently make and you’d still have a line around the block of people applying. Fullerton Fire had 1500 applicants for 5 spots earlier this year. Peddle your public safety poverty pimping elsewhere, dipshit.
I’ve heard that argument before, and I can certainly see why someone would want to go where the benefits are the best, but the benefits for a police officer are still far better in the City of Fullerton than anything that applicant could get in the public sector. Looking at OC Fire, their benefits package has been far less generous than most local fire departments for decades (they were offering 2% at 55 where almost all of the California cities, Fullerton included, offered 3 at 50) and I don’t recall hearing about any staffing difficulties there.
Better than they could get in the Private sector. Type on my part.
Where else can a guy who couldn’t graduate from high school get to play Baby God for a living?
Actually, I’m starting to think that we’d be better off with no FPD at all.
It makes absolutely no difference what private firefighters make because AFAIK there aren’t any.
The market is what it is. If we’re paying far above market in wages and benefits that’s relevant. Otherwise we have to pay the going rate.
It is a dangerous job.
“It is a dangerous job.”
Ahahahahahahaha. Don’t you watch the news?
Firefighters hardly ever fight fires. They go to accident scenes and stand around – generally two or three companies.
Oh please, firefighting is not a dangerous job. It doesn’t even crack the top 20 dangerous jobs in America yet they’re so quick to wrap themselves in the American flag still humping the leg of 9/11 whilst picking the pockets of taxpayers with ever increasing lavish pay and benefits for a job that has become demonstrably safer. The fire union has excelled at corrupting the political process by intimidating elected officials playing the union goon role to the hilt. 80% of what these “heroes” do are basic life support medical calls. The most maddening part of all is that these whiny little bitches keep crying about how underpaid they are as they bankrupt our community. No new taxes! If you want real lasting change, take a meat cleaver to the fire department and contract the 80% of the workload that should be provided by the private sector anyway. Bounce the union goons out of the city once and for all before they destroy our community.
Yes, there are private firefighters.
AFAIK, you’re a goddamn idiot.
Thumbs up. The country is FULL OF VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENTS. They work.
75% of all firefighters in this country are volunteers. 75%.
You get what you pay for! Again, easy for you to say behind a computer in your moms basement that if you cut the pay in half people will still take the jobs that might be true but what will show up when you call? You will get some moron who has no idea what they are doing and when they mess up, you all will be on the stupid blog still complaining! Get over it! It must be so difficult to wake up every day being so angry at everyone and everything around you! Get over it!
Really? We paid “top dollar” and got Manuel Ramos, Joe Wolfe and a one-eyed cop. We got thieves, perverts, sex addicts, thugs, goons, pickpockets, drug addicts, psychotics and who know what all else.
Frankly we’d better off if nobody from FPD showed up after a call. Which is about what they do anyhow.
If the city is so bad then why stay? I assume you live in Fullerton, no one is stopping you from leaving unless your parents don’t want to move so you feel your stuck here. Please, the next time you need assistance from police, fire or any other City or state entity I encourage to handle it on your own since you feel you can do it better! Good luck!
Why should I leave? You’re the one who sucks.
Thus speaketh GED cop.
Or his hose yanking and knuckle dragging Fire union goon in between naps on the La-Z-Boy.
I should get run out of town by a bunch of thieving psych cases and overpaid incompetent city employees?
No, I think I’ll and make Fullerton better.
Oh making it better by being a keyboard warrior in your moms basement! You know about 10 people read this blog! Good luck with whatever you think you are making better!! You ffffers are the type that need to complain about something to feel that you are important or making a difference! No matter what you will complain, if they fixed what you wanted you people would still find something to complain about! Get over it!!
“if they fixed what you wanted”
Let’s see it happen first. In the meantime, please stop robbing us, raping us, beating us up, killing us, sexually attacking us and picking our pockets.
If it’s not too much GED trouble, of course.
Fullerton Police Officers to Get Raises, Added Salary Levels as City Tries to Keep Officers From Leaving
https://voiceofoc.org/2019/09/fullerton-police-officers-to-get-raises-added-salary-levels-as-city-tries-to-keep-officers-from-leaving/
Let them leave. They’re not special and many are corrupt or apathetic.
You cry about the roads needing to be fixed and then cry when they try to do something about it. Cry cry cry. If the roads actually got fixed you’d have nothing to cry about. Thus the FFFF – a campaign against solutions. The Evidence – a whole lot of whining and bitching without any reasonable solutions or practical ideas. Typical.