The Cost of Suing Us
Fullerton just “separated from employment” 150+ non-union part-time staff. Why? Because despite years of Mayor Jennifer Fitzgerald’s lies about a “Balanced Budget” and our mythical reserve fund – we had no plan for a rainy day.
During meetings, myself, David and others warned the City Council that a downturn was likely in the future and with CalPERS continually raising our pension costs we needed to be smarter financially.
Fitzy & Flory wanted none of that and spent like floozies in Vegas throwing every dollar we had at every uniform in sight with Silva, Chaffee and so on along for the ride.
Now here are we looking at a month of limited tax revenue and 150+ people lost their jobs with the city. 150+ positions aren’t being eliminated – no no no, they’ll tax us more to fill those again later and cry about not being to staff the libraries and parks to justify the new taxes/fees and whatever added costs to us they can cook up along the way. But 150+ people are now wondering how they’ll pay their bills.
But let me drive this home for you some more – the city is suing myself, David and this blog because we allegedly clicked some Dropbox links in an account they sent us and told the world about in PRRs. Remember, according to Kimberly Hall Barlow this isn’t about publishing or the 1st Amendment – this is about alleged theft and “hacking” because we allegedly clicked some Dropbox links.
In the process of investigating that alleged crime, the city found out that their network (which has fuckall to do with Dropbox) was incompetently setup and they hired an outside firm to fix it. This was the reason they claimed they waited to sue us for months on end – that they had to secure their network – which again has fuckall to do with Dropbox.
The firm they hired, Glass Box Technology, has a contract with the city for $60k/month not to exceed $500k.
So far, according to the City Council approved Check Register, they’ve paid Glass Box $541,451.25 to date which is $41,451.25 over their “not to exceed” limit.
That’s over half of a million dollars SO FAR because the City found out that they suck at running their own network as a BYPRODUCT of suing us which has nothing to do with what they allege we did. This was an unnecessary expense that has to come out of next year’s General Fund because it’s yet another major cockup for which nobody will be held accountable.
How many of those 150+ people wouldn’t need to be unemployed right now were it not for sheer incompetence in City Hall? Seems that $500k+ would have covered quite a few part timers.
Then we have the expense of our idiotic City Attorneys, Jones & Mayer. Since this nonsense started back in June with their Cease & Desist letters, the city has paid Jones & Mayer $891,074.49. We have no way to know how to split that up or what to attribute to the lawsuit against us because City Hall has a long history of lying about funding and hiding expenses in the wrong accounts. Just because something is coded to the Library, might not mean it has anything to do with the Library.
But if we assume that just 5% of their work product can be attributed to the lawsuit against us, and considering the reams of paper they keep filing with the courts we know their billable hours are stacking mile high, we can attribute approximately $44,553 to this stupid lawsuit. Seems to me that’s a few more part timers who could still be employed were it not for the malicious lawsuit being pursued by Fitzgerald, Flory, Silva and Zahra.
We don’t know how much the city has paid their other experts or consultants in their pursuit of the evil “hackers” who allegedly clicked Dropbox links – some with my name on them – but so far we know it’s pushing $500k+.
Remember this come election time & demand answers from these idiots on council who would rather spend your money, and it is your money, attacking us over their own stupidity than spend it providing the very services they’re elected to oversee in our city.
Shame on Fullerton. Shame on Mayor Fitzgerald. Shame on the City Council for always squandering your money pursuing their egos instead of your best interests. Sure, they’ll blame the need to “separate from employment” those 150+ people on this “global pandemic” – but that’s only because they constantly spend all of your money elsewhere while lying to you about our “balanced budget”.
Joe Burt Felz couldn’t balance a budget and neither can his half-witted replacement, Dumber. We get these mental microbes and all they can do is burn through tens of millions in reserves.
In June, Silva, Zahra and Flory will vote to put a sales tax on the November ballot. Fitzgerald will vote no but of course that won’t fool anybody. She got Flory back on there for this solitary purpose – to be the third vote.
Suck on that Fullerton businesses.
What’s the cure for months long shelter-in-place? NEW TAXES!
Rumor has it certain well connected community organizers are looking to reserve a portion of this new tax to subsidize “historically disadvantaged businesses”.
If this ain’t time to inform voters in D1 about who this cockup Fitzgerald really is and elect someone else. Anyone else! There will never be a better opportunity to rid Fullerton of such an evil liar, lobbyists, self centered, manipulative person named Jennifer Fitzgerald.
$68,000 per month????
To keep people out of Dropbox, lol.
Don’t forget the millions to the other non-profits, the “homeless” investors.
SMH.
You forgot to include the additional salary costs for the Information Technology Manager ($130k/year) that is currently on paid administrative leave for this ordeal. Instead of blaming the Human Resources and Police Department staff for publishing the records on the City’s Dropbox and the City Clerk’s Office for allowing access to it, the City decided to scapegoat this and blame the IT Department. Seriously, this entire lawsuit could have been avoided if they had made two separate Dropbox accounts (1 for Public Records Requests and 1 for Confidential Files).
Instead, the money that could be used to save jobs and for CIP funding is now used for this excessive litigation. I bet the City Council feels pretty dumb about giving their last few cents away to raise the salaries for the FPOA (Police Officer’s Association) when they could have used the money elsewhere.
Fullerton will be the first city in California to go bankrupt. The inability of its school districts to create new bonds is a shocker. It will happen sooner than you think.
Did we forget about the County of Orange, Cities of San Bernardino and Stockton?
and those cities didn’t dodge their obligations either. PERS still in tact, payments still due and going, and the City operating the same as before. Bankruptcy doesn’t rid a city of PERS.
LOL so you claim your predictions were correct, because you knew the Virus was coming? LOL you guys are clowns. Typical Democrats. Say you knew all, because a once in a lifetime thing happens. Fullerton was fine, just like every other City, and the State, until this. Now the whole country will have to cut half their budgets at least after this Virus.
So how’s a bout we contract out paramedic services to the private sector like Placentia did and save a shit ton of money every year. I’d rather keep part time recreation leaders and maintenance workers on the payroll and working and send the overpaid, overpensioned and underworked “heroes” home.
Library, Parks, and Public Works Dept. workers have been getting paid while staying at home for the past six weeks.
And now six weeks after the “stay at home” orders were given by the Guv they’re finally getting “separated from employment”.
Curious, why were they NOT “laid off” the day the rest of us private workers were all “laid off”?
On reason is that not all private workers were laid off, and the ones that were weren’t all laid off at the same time. I know some people (in the private sector, including Disney) who weren’t laid off until just a few days ago.
Also, job security is a benefit to working in the public sector. Most private sector jobs pay more and offer better benefits than their public sector counterparts, but they do not offer the same protections when the economy is down.
That is 100% false. Public employees are paid way more for the same sort of job and have way better benefits – including a taxpayer subsidized pension at 55 for the older employees. please peddle your bullshit elsewhere.
How many pot holes could have been filled in on Fullerton streets with the money they are wasting on suing 4F?
How deep is the ocean?
What is to point of building more underpasses if the streets are disintegrating? How much do the underpasses cost?
What do you hope to accomplish by dragging the city in a lawsuit over documents they or any other city would want returned? to expose corruption?…. it has already been exposed…
Um, the City dragged itself in. And nothing’s been exposed yet. Let’s see the Wild Ride Felz video.
FELZ WILD RIDE FOR $1000
Another Fullerton police shooting tonight. Man armed with knife is told to exit car. Man runs from police .say witness. Police say man approaches police, then later change story to man charges at police ,then later says beanbag was deployed first… ten shots fired. Hmm not good for man with knife. Body cam will tell truth once again. (Other man armed with broomstick ok)
Video? That’ll be locked up until everybody forgets or doesn’t care.
Two conflicting statements https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt4Kq3eRzFc public needs to see officer cam that’s why they started the program for the benifit of the public first if there is any doubt about what happened.
The witness said the man who was shot was running away from the police, but then changed his story when the cops pressured him.
Yes. Release the video!
No.
How do you know he was pressured by police to change his story? The guy looks visibly shaken in the video and at the end says he believed the police did everything right. What proof can you provide that he was pressured by police to change his story? If you are going to make claims like that, please back it up with some facts.
Who can name all of Fitzgeralds lies?
– Our budget is balanced.
– I won’t take a salary.
– ?
– ?
The budget is balanced
the great shadows overtaking our fine city
https://i.ibb.co/hF1yV45/0510202136a.jpg
Cities need reform, not bailouts: Jim Righeimer and Bruce Whitaker
https://www.ocregister.com/2020/05/12/cities-need-reform-not-bailouts-jim-righeimer-and-bruce-whitaker/
Fullerton can start its reform efforts by restructuring the fire department…contract out paramedic services like Placentia did and cut costs considerably. Time to send some of those overpaid, over-pensioned “heroes” packing. Say NO to fire union goons!
The payed parking program should be scrapped. Dr Faci says we should stay home indefinatly