Joe Felz Sighs
Poor, put upon Fullerton City Manger Joe Felz is getting frustrated. And so he sighs to a reporter.
He’s frustrated that people are holding him accountable for his promises. Last year he stalled the Howard Jarvis Tax folks by clamming that the illegal 10% water tax would be addressed by March; well, March is here and it ain’t. In the meantime the City has collected $200,000 per month and continues to hide the tax from the water rate payers.
Here is an article in the Register all about how gosh darn tough it is for Felz to : 1) tell the truth; 2) do the right thing; 3) obey the law.
The truth is that the illegal tax has nothing to do with with the water rate study; it is a stand alone issue that should have been fixed at least 15 years ago. And the fix is easy. The Water Fund already pays the General Fund for work done other city departments for work done on its behalf. The 10% tax is an outright scam that needs to be killed.
Poor Joe.
Dumb Joe doesn’t get it!
Joe gets it alright. “Fullerton didn’t fight (according to Felz). It hired Municipal and Financial Service Group to do a full analysis and audit of water utility operations — the study that Jarvis expected to see last month. That includes how much it costs for everything from office space, electricity and personnel to operating stations, pumps and wells. That analysis will cost about $100,000.”
The smoke is started to billow, the mirrors are getting ready to deflect the smoke. Fullerton residents are preparing to get bent over by Joe and Don Hoppe. Remember now, them city folks with huge salaries and pensions rely on that illegal 10% tax to keep their lavish livelihoods afloat.
And the pass through just kept gettin’ past through. Through how many fingers into how many laps? They all need to go. We need a to go box for these clowns that is big enough to fit the entire cabal that burns through 1 billion dollars every four years and leaves us with mounting debt, bunk traffic signals, potholes, padlocked parks, dead citizens, and well connected liars that drink to all of the above.
Accountability really blows for some people.
Waaaaa, waaaaaa, waaaaaa I just cant afford the extra $1.50 per month on my bill. This has to be illegal or I would lose one more thing to get my dick all waded up in my ass about! Waaaa waaaaa waaaaa
$1.50??? You need to attend the meetings asswipe!
No thanks, got a job and responsibilties
What kind of job?
Dad?
Genius, 1.50 x oh, conservatively, 500,000=$750.000 (a month)- still ok for you? Ole great and wise Rubix Cube?
750,000 not 750.000
Cop troll allert
Learn how to spell
I worked for a facility dealing with other psych facilities/people and there are more mentally challenged people in this city hall then there were in there, geeze.
You worked at a psych facility and you dont undetrstand what happened to poor old Kelly. It’s called an out of control psychopath. If you worked at a facility like you said you did you would know. Or you just a big liar..it rubbed off Ron Thomas.
I understand what happened to “poor old Kelly.” Although Kelly had not committed any crime, Kelly uncountered an out of control, local ex-Pop Warner football player, named Manny Ramos, issuing Kelly a terrorist threat.
Afterwords, Manny’s cyclops psychopathic brother in blue,named Jay Cicinelli, finished Kelly off by pulverizing Kelly’s semi-lifeless body into the afterlife with the butt of his weapon.
All of this occurring while Manny’s brothers in blue are holding and restraining Kelly so that Cicinelli’s blows to the head would find their intended target.
I hope that every officer that participated in this beat down of a mentally disabled man rots in hell for eternity.
Is that clear enough for you?
Filth
Oh, i understand,very well, what happened to Kelly-he was the innocent victim of murder and I also understand your mindset, defending criminals, their actions and wishing you were one of them-its called pure evil, devil.
Joe Felz’ eyes must glaze over when presented with the most basic legal, business, and financial concepts. As if uttering the words “Ten Percent” sends him running to hide under the nearest rock.
Greg Sebourn, do you know if Joe Felz understands these are two, independent problems? This is the second or third time he’s deflected the issue of the illegal 10% tax to the rate study group. Perhaps the deflection is purposeful, but having dealt with Joe in the past I’m not so sure it is.
I think he might be clueless.
Felz understands that they are two separate issues. He mixes them together on purpose to confuse and mislead the public.
Also, Felz says that the water committee has been discussing the illegal 10% tax. I’m pretty sure that’s another distortion. Where is Mr. Sebourn? He can tell us.
Let me rephrase that. Does Joe think these two, independent problems can be folded together and handled by the rate study group as one issue?
One problem involves illegal revenue streams, the other is rate hikes to pay for aging infrastructure. Apples and oranges.
JD,
Officially, the Water Rate Study Ad Hoc Committee was told in a public meeting by the City’s consultant, Municipal Services- the same firm preparing the current “audit”- that we (the Committee) should not even ask about it because it would open up a can of worms. A truer prediction has yet to be forecast.
At the May 23, 2011 Water Rate Study Ad Hoc meeting which the City Council had appointed me to, I asked City staff why there was a tax on water sales and why not remove it. The City’s official response:
This would place a burden on the General Fund, so the problem would just be moved from one fund to another. The franchise tax fee is 11% of the operating costs. It is an in-lieu franchise fee property tax. It is not for profit, but to take care of City functions that the water company requires from the City.
And at the same meeting, when pressed by another member to explain where the water tax money went, the official response was that “It goes into the General Fund and is applied equally across the board.” This includes pensions and salaries.
The admission by City Staff at the May 23, 2011 public meeting that the City is applying a blanket tax on all water is a slap in the face to rate payers and a violation of Prop 218.
Since the May 23, 2011 meeting, the 10% tax has not been a part of the official agenda. However, the Committee has attempted to make recommendations that the tax not be applied to future pass-through increases or blanket increases. Members of the Ad Hoc have been told by City staff and the Ad Hoc’s chairman that we should not politicize the water tax and just avoid discussing it because it was outside our purview.
While I can appreciate the chairman’s desire to keep on topic while running the meeting, I feel the water tax is a significant part of any water rate discussion. I believe other members feel similarly, though I cannot speak for them.
Members of the Ad Hoc have been told by City staff and the Ad Hoc’s chairman that we should not politicize the water tax and just avoid discussing it because it was outside our purview.
There you have it. Joe Felz lied to the Register by implying the water committee was looking at the tax, when in fact, they have been told NOT to discuss it.
Joe Felz is a slimy, lying slug.
The Ad Hoc is tentatively scheduled to meet and discuss the “audit” sometime between March 19th through 22nd.
So far as I am aware, this will be the first time the tax will be specifically placed on the agenda and discussed beyond what staff has already said, that 10% of gross water sales revenue gets transferred to the General Fund as an in-lieu franchise fee.
So first they said it was out of your purview but now it’s going to be on the agenda? This is really starting to smell.
Always remember: first they add ten percent. Then they transfer it.
Joe Felz has teat in ringer.
One call to Terry Sforza and it’s curtains for ‘Ol Joe.
Oh wait a minute, Joe just received a one year full pay contract upon firing.
Just another reason to recall Jones, Blankhead and McPension.
I think you meant the Freddie Patek of city managers.
Google it!
Wow, Freddie Patek. That takes me back!
And another example of lawyers and staff running the show and using a commission as puppets to diffuse accountability.
Then Felz is lying.
I suggest this be looked into a bit more.
The new council can give him the hook for moral turpitude (dishonesty) and not be obligated to pay him $212,000 upon termination.
Clearly, with a dramatic change in the makeup of the council likely to happen, Joe must know that his job performance now is critical to his tenure as city manager.
With that in mind, the public should be fair but tough on rating his ongoing performance.
The question we all need to ask ourselves is this!
Should Joe’s performance as city manager be based solely on what he does now or what he may accomplish after the council’s makeup has changed?
I am looking for leadership from Joe Felz today!
We find ourselves in dire consequences and do not have the luxury to wait for good things to come from city government in the distant future.
I hope Joe succeeds at his job which means the whole city succeeds as well!
Barry, you should be the city manager. You understand business economics..
You should be in charge of street lights…you understand poles pretty well…
What are you talking about? Joe Felz has already had a lifetime of failures in his first year as city manager.
There is no hope for Joe and he can’t hang on for much longer, so don’t get attached to him now.
Why would you root for a man who is actively reaming you in the ass?
Independent of anybody’s opinion about Joe Felz, the employment contracts handed to him and various department heads need to be changed. I don’t care what other cities offer. Joe has a one-year severance package and the department heads have (I think) six months.
This provides little incentive for competency. Joe could screw up and put Fullerton into financial ruin and still receive a $212,000 reward upon his termination.
True. Our only solace is that Joe Felz will be permanently unemployable as a city manager thanks to this blog’s documentation of his failings.
When you are the helm of a quarter billion PUBLIC TAXPAYER HARD EARNED DOLLAR spending machine, the deer in the headlight look always leads to the raccoon eye syndrome and for good reason. WE are watching and waiting. Where there is smoke there is fire. The detectors all have new batteries.
The only sigh I want to hear from Felz is in the word, resign. C’mon Joe, say it: “I resighhhhn”.
This guy is such a brown noser. He’ll do and say whatever is in his best interest. He talks out of both sides of his mouth and the sad thing is, neither side speaks very well.
SHAME ON YOU JOE FELZ!!! How do you look at yourself in the mirror, Is that where you practice your heavy sighs for the reporters? You are SCUM.
Yet just another example of Fullerton’s open disregard for doing what is right and LEGAL on behalf of the residents of Fullerton. Why hasn’t there been a civil uprising in this city more than a recall of 3? This is utterly ridiculous.
Greg- you mentioned (in your comment at the “Bird Cage Gazette” ) that Bankhead was re-elected as 2nd VP of the OCWD in 2012. Do these elections happen every year?
How the hell do we get Bankhead off of the Water board? He is screwing us in the ass from every direction, this man is a scourge to society. I wonder if he and Felz are bed partners. Was everyone out to lunch when we let this guy run this city into the ground? Geeeeeez, this makes me sick all over again. Why isn’t everyone in the freaking city coming unglued? I don’t get it.
Kudos to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association’s, please stay on it. I appreciate their efforts as a lifetime citizen of Fullerton.
serious change needs to come to the OCWD…..they are next.
To get Don Bankhead off of the OC Water District you must Recall him on June 5. He serves on OCWD as a representative of Fullerton.
Greg, “…you must Recall him…”. You mean we?
No, YOU, the individual voter must recall Bankhead. Each of us is responsible for our individual actions and inaction. Relying on the ubiquitous “we” is what got us in trouble.
“There was an important job to be done (VOTE) and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job.
Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.”
Greg, BINGO!
thank you for your answer.
My comment is about WATER:+
If you think the oil companies and speculators are ripping us at the gas pumps, they dim in comparison to the graft and corruption (G&C) at our water spigots.
The City has an idiot for a representative at the OCMWD that is collecting a partly sum and OTHER benefits that is costing the residents of this City $millions per year. This City and its residents are not alone in this water problem. The water agencies are full of shysters purveying the very necessity to support life.
Many of these agencies are shams and support locally connected politicans, city managers,and centers of influence at a great expense to all users. There are large users(companies) that are accomodated favorable rates and are contributors to the G&C, in covert ways.
The water distribution agencies in Southern California is a RICO…overall.
IMO: Felz is unqualified and incompetent for the City Manager position.
HOWDY DOODY who is your Master?
LOL on the Howdy Doody/puppetmaster reference, however I think that Pinnocchio and the three gypping Giapetto’s is closer to the truth.
cant fix stupid…………
That’s how we feel about you..
Do you have a mouse in your pocket, or are you sufffering from multiple personality disorder?
took the bait did ya…chumming never was easier.
Shell Filth aka pig speaks for all public servants!
I meant that towards the troll..
It’s precisely that uncertain, unsure attitude that rages throughout the community by the incompetent, out of touch leaders of Fullerton that has created the mindset of privilege toward a particular individual or group and needs repair and revitalization – Help with the recall-donate! Proudly sign up for the walkathon.
You go Fullerton!
http://www.fullertonrecall.com/2012/03/sign-up-today-for-the-walkathon-support-the-recall-effort/
Merijoe, I would like to donate, but I can not be there. My other half is very sick. Is there another way to donat?. I am trying to stay envolved.
Sorry, donate….
Oh sure CG, and Im sorry-just go on to the Fullerton recall site (above, the red button) then choose donate and follow the prompts
Thank you…..
If you can’t make it to the Walkathon or just want to donate, click this link and hit the donate button. http://www.fullertonrecall.com/
Think you might want to run it fatty joe
I must make one other comment about Joe Felz.
I just remembered the following: It is my understanding that it was Joe Felz who called for the special Council meeting with M. Gennaco for 4:30 PM instead of the normal 6:30 PM time.
This was all politics of the worst kind! It was better for the city to have it when fewer citizens of Fullerton could participate.
Bad move Joe!
One who simply believes MOST lawyers on the because I “said so” are at somepoint going to be poor and left holding the bag at the end of the day.
Here is a simple test for your lawyer(s) or law firm representing you, ya know the ones who send you the “you owe this much” every month, and do so in a VERY timely manner?
YOU whether and individual, or entity who has money to burn, and your lawyers are telling you to keep fighting, that they can win the case, and after spending several hundered thousands of dollars, an seem to be getting no where quick, ask this question.
Suggest if WE are winning or will win, then why don’t YOU (the lawyer) bill us or me, AFTER you win the case.
Watch their behavior and body language.
If the uh, uh, well we won’t or can’t do that, RED FLAG. Check the cows utter to see HOW much milk is left in it for the lawyers.
Then go check YOUR billing statements to actually see if you were billed for a 5 minute phone call or a 30 minute phone call.
Start looking at those statements to see if your paying for toilet paper, coffee, and other attorneys within the firm, who sit around the conferance room table, talking about YOUR case, then charge you for their BS session.
You have to watch lawyers as close as you have to watch the police, these days.
Not to get off topic but I’m experiencing that right now with an attorney supposedly working with my lender to prevent a foreclore sale of my one and only home.
They insisted I set up an ACH auto dedect of $750/mo. which I reluctantly agreed to.
First off, before I decided to go with this particular firm I was in communication with an extremely knowledgeable lawyer, apparently not just a ‘good talker’.
As soon as I commited to the money, they stopped calling me, e-mailing me and communicating with me overall. Guess what happened next? My house sold at the trustee sale.
After getting the brush off ie. no returning of my calls or numerous e-mails, etc. I decided to close my checking account and open a new one so that these weasels couldn’t ACH any more money from me.
Guess what happened next? They called me to say they couldn’t access my account.
I simply told them, “apparently that’s what is takes to get your kind of law firm to return your clients calls.”
I now have the Legal Aid Society of OC helping me out for free.
Sorry for being off of topic.
You might also want to file a complaint with the state bar association and with the California Attorney General’s office.
over a year ago, at the end of my street, I found a large construction site, contained by a plastic covered 12 foot fence and a 24 hour security guard standing watch over this site. a truck outfitted with a large tank and hose blasted water deep into the ground. curious about this weird site at the end of my street in northwest Fullerton, I googled for answers and found public info that states Raytheon, located approximately five miles from my home, has owned up to toxic plume that is spreading into fullerton’s artesian water supply. Sooo, am I to believe that when the illegal water tax went into effect over fifteen years ago , it was done in anticipation of a local business contaminating our water supply with its toxic plume?
Wow! our city leaders not only have great insight , they have amazing foresight. and so this illegal water hike will get rid of the toxic plume that contaminates fullerton’s water? Or was this water hike tax used on spiking pensions for fullerton’s public servants and now our civic leaders need to continue this tax to actually pay for fixing our damaged water supply?
Just my conjecture
You might want to add that not only is Fullerton’s water supply is contaminated by Raytheon/Hughes, you can also add Chevron to the list, and in fact it’s written into every Chevron workers contract that works in this area that they receive free annual MRI’s to check for brain cancer.
I honestly think that there have been a spike of brain cancers originating from these three corporate entities, that are beginning to seriously affecting residents living near these areas.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if baseball Hall of Famer Gary Carter’s brain cancer which took cost his life several weeks ago, couldn’t be traced to his youth spent playing sports near the Sunny Hills area.
I did not realize that Gary Carter died of brain cancer. Gary graduated in 1973. Three members of the Sunny Hills class of 1975, all close friends of each other and friends of mine, developed brain cancer within a very short period of each other in their young 30’s. Two died.
I talked about it to Don Murphy, father of my deceased friend Peter Murphy years later. Don was a very intelligent Hughes computer scientist. He told me one interesting point that the three would go off of the Sunny Hills campus to eat their lunch in a creek that flowed out of the Hughes property. Then again, they went many places together, including sneaking into the defunct Nike missle base in the Brea Hills. Don told me that they had been trying to use the strange corrolation of events to prove a cause and effect relationship, but had been unable to.
More years later cousin Sharon Kennedy of the Fullerton Observer told me that she was looking into the so called “Sunny Hills cancer cluster”. I volunteered to do research for her. By this time Don Murphy had died, but I talked to Peter’s widow. I also talked to an eppidemiologist who told me that for reasons of statistical probabilities, they needed five cases to even begin to research the possibility of a cause and effect.
Peter’s wife had collected information, but then had turned over the originals to an eppidemioligist without making copies. I could only go by the memory of Peter’s wife. She gave me names to research, but the cases became more diverse and the locations at surrounding areas which greatly increased the population base.
I finally concluded that if there was data available, Don Murphy would have found it, and that I had no research abilities to surmount
the loss of the original data.
However, the Gary Carter case is at the same location in the same time frame. That makies four…
I believe that this is Fullerton’s dirty little secret that everyone is loathe to discuss because of the implications that they should have done something way before this rather than accept hush money in the form of political donations.
more junk observations from the kennedy family. Steve, what did editor/artist/scientist sharon kennedy conclude in her scientific research? With her high school education(correct me if I’m wrong, steve), I’m sure she teased out all other variables that may contribute to brain cancer like the use of steroids, and using her expertise in inferential statistics isolated a single correlation between the creek on Hughes property and cancer in Sunny Hills. If you and your cousin sharon “researched” Sunny Hills cancer clusters, it probably meant you did nothing and sharon badly plagerized dialogue from the film “Erin Brokovich” and that makes another edition of the fullerton observer . . .
Cynicism has its limits, Van. It is good for producing a healthy skepticism and keying good questions. But be careful or you will be viewed as “only” a cynic.
Your dislike of my family does nothing to change science. Should my older brother drop his medical practice because he is Sharon’s cousin? Should my younger brother stop teaching biological molecular chemistry to medical students? And I guess we are going to have to get my niece out of that master’s program in mathematics. All because to be related to Sharon Kennedy disqualifies anybody from anything.
Fullerton lover brought up the point and I answered with what I knew. Mr. Watts taught me enough probability and statistics at Fullerton college so that I can interview more educated people and understand scientific criteria. I was also able to understand why the more educated Don Murphy had to give up his quest for answers about the death of his son.
For eppidemiology, five cases in a concise sample set are needed to even start a research project. When five cases are discovered, then the factors you mentioned above, and more are concidered. I now know of four cases, when someone identifies a fifth, I know where to go.
Tell me, Van, how is your cynicism overriding care about the death of Peter Murphy any better than the cynicism of the trolls overriding care about the death of Kelly Thomas?
I have also noticed an unhealthy fixation regarding Rusty and Sharon Kennedy in most of Van’s post? Despite the fact that I appreciate and enjoy most of Van’s posts here on the blog, I have also begun to disregard posts that are addressed toward the Kennedy as unresolved anger with their perceived ineptitude that is tainted Van’s biases in ways that are effecting logic and reasoning abilities.
This is why forgiveness is honestly the best gift one can ever give one’s self.
sorry, fullerton lover, I did not intend to taint my non-kennedy comments with my anti-kennedy posts. My opinion is Steve, like his relatives, Sharon, rusty and deceased Ralph Kennedy are/were phonies. for decades the Kennedy’s “o” fullerton have been posturing and posing as artists, editors, activists and now scientists. I noticed steve adroitly side-stepped my question about sharon kennedy’s education by commenting on his brothers’ accomplishments. Also Steve does what some people do best when called on their pomposity, they attack the person who points the finger at them, ad hominem
Who are “you Fullertonians?” you speak of, Steve?
Maybe you should follow Sharon’s ignorant lead and stay the away from here if you can’t understand there is not just two opinions posted here. It would be nice if you just responded to the person speaking to you, but don’t you dare throw everyone in one bucket as having one homogenous idea. You exemplify the “old Fullerton mentality” and how the blinders stay on those that don’t really want to see anything other than their own agenda.
This town needs a through enema and sadly Kelly Thomas’s death(and this blog) brought that to light for ME! And after being here I see that this blog existed long before KT’s murder and I am sorry i missed it before but I have combed through it now. I don’t personally know anyone on this blog and stand by my own opinions, I don’t even know if I would like Tony personally, or his stance on 100% of his ideas, but I can differentiate and make adult opinions and decisions based on multiple things. I assume Tony is (and the other bloggers here) are capable of the same thing. Apparently you are not.
Sounds to me like your advanced degree professional “customer” has a pretty weak spine. Weakness come in all shapes and sizes and educational accomplishments. You can take your “y’all” and shove it because if the above post is really what you feel, then you have no idea what you are talking about. Good day.
you may read this too, Steve sorry, fullerton lover, I did not intend to taint my non-kennedy comments with my anti-kennedy posts. My opinion is Steve, like his relatives, Sharon, rusty and deceased Ralph Kennedy are/were phonies. for decades the Kennedy’s “o” fullerton have been posturing and posing as artists, editors, activists and now scientists. I noticed steve adroitly side-stepped my question about sharon kennedy’s education by commenting on his brothers’ accomplishments. Also Steve does what some people do best when called on their pomposity, they attack the person who points the finger at them, ad hominem”
Normally I like playing with Van’s cynicism, and her (his?) last comment I simply view as an opportunity. It is a good time to broach a subject.
A couple of weeks ago ACU asked me how the politics of Fullerton could overshadow the quest for justice for Kelly Thomas. I simply answered that it does and such is probably similar in any locality.
Last week I talked to a customer with an advanced degree and a professional career. She said that she was friends with Tony Bushalla but was afraid to talk to him because she was better friends with Sharon Kennedy. Van can’t see any value in anything the Kennedys do going back to personal experience in their home 40 years ago. Sharon Kennedy absolutely refuses to track this website for what information is brought up.
You Fullertonians are all immersed in Fullerton and see it as normal. Not so for us who live a step outside.
Your problems are not so much with the police department, redevelopment subsidies, the water tax, and unfunded pention liabilities. Your problems stem from the fact that you are more interested in continuing your personal annimosities and pre-determined political philosophies than you are in solving the problems of the city.
To y’all, your personal annimosities are more important than the life and death of Kelly Thomas or Peter Murphy.
I meant to broad brush and I meant all Fullertonians. Keep in mind that from out here you look like one city and people judge you from seeing Mark Gennaco for 15 seconds on the evening news. In the South, y’all is more than a contraction for “you all”. It is a particular expression of how a grup of people interrelate together and as a whole.
I have only talked to Rusty once since the death of Kelly Thomas. This was when Van first brought out the point that Rusty and McKinley were “cronies”. It was and is a valid point. I don’t care how many time Van repeats it, I got it the first time.
I also have tried to express to Sharon that she is responsible for knowing all of the questions raised on this site. I am currently drafting an email to Mark Gennaco telling him the same thing. I will copy the administrators. Obviously I follow this site.
But I also hear from others the limitations of the reach of FFFF.
Getting back to the topic of Felz and the water rates:
Killing the water tax totally will create real hardships in the City of Fullerton. First, that money is depended on to pay an average salary and benefit rate higher than the communities around it. Fullerton PD costs per member about 30 – 40% higher than OC Sheriff’s Department. It may be safe to say that the same holds for most other admin costs and Fullerton Fire costs more than the average for the rest of OC. This combination results in a higher cost of providing services than other OC cities.
(By the way, that study was done at Chapman University).
So Fullertonians, you are being ripped off by the current and previous 15 years worth of city councils who blindly accepted the water tax money. In time of recession, these types of egregious tax rip offs should be stopped The loss of revenue can be made up by renegotiating all city contracts including personnel costs. It takes guts for the city manager to manage, this one has already shown he has no guts! He just bows to the 3 jurassic jugheads! So, Joe, where in California are you looking for your next job?