Fullerton Retreads City Manager Tire
On the City’s website, right above a news release about an upcoming osteoporosis seminar at the Community Center, we discover that the City Council has unanimously chosen a replacement for Joe Felz. Felz, you will recall, drove off of Glenwood Avenue, ran over a tree, blew a tire and tried to drive away in his crippled vehicle.
Allan Roeder, former City Manger of Costa Mesa, is the replacement, on an interim basis. He is part of a small pool of extremely expensive place holders brought in like bullpen pitchers, when the starter gets into trouble in the late innings. These already pensioned-off fellows go on to rake in enormous second incomes while already collecting their massive CalPers checks every month.
The new guy was hired yesterday in a Special, Behind-Closed-Doors meeting of the City Council.
Why the City needs to pay somebody a hundred grand for a five or six month stint is a question you should ask one of your “unanimous” council who seem to be oblivious to the fact that the City is running massive deficits every year, already. Oh well, it’s not their money, right?
Here is our new Mayor, Bruce Whitaker extolling the virtues of Mr. Roeder:
“We are happy to have someone as established and seasoned as Mr. Roeder to serve our city,” said Fullerton Mayor, Bruce Whitaker. “Allan’s experience will be welcomed at City Hall and he will be a valuable asset to the entire city until we appoint a permanent city manager.”
Now did Mr. Whitaker actually say that? Let’s hope it was a canned quotation put in his mouth by some overpaid “public information officer.” Having Felz around for the past six or seven years is proof positive that from a strictly practical perspective we don’t even need a city manager, and would probably have been a lot better off without the last one we had.
Well, now we have one that can absorb the blame for whatever unfortunate happenstances come our way in the first half of 2017, and be off down the road to the nearest bank.
Hey look, a chance to pick someone new!
Great! Let’s go with someone old.
All 5 council members are scared to run the city without someone telling them what to do. They’re clamoring for a “steady hand” so they don’t have to make decisions themselves.
True, but it’s going to cost Whitaker another year of irrelevance.
But he does have a nice mustache
This post is right on the mark. This guy can contribute nothing. He won’t even know the people in the front office before he leaves. I have no idea what Whitaker and Sebourn are thinking other than having somebody around to blame for the next fiasco. Right now i can’t tell the difference between them and Flory. PATHETIC.
I like the baseball analogy but the issue here isn’t late innings, it’s mid innings when the team is 11 runs down and SOMEBODY needs to be on the mound. ANYBODY.
So why pay for Mariano Rivera when you can put Joe Schmo into the game?
“So why pay for Mariano Rivera when you can put Joe Schmo into the game?”
Correction: why put Joe Schmo into the game and pay him as if he were Mariano Rivera?
Thanks!
The city of Costa Mesa is paying this guy $172,000.00 a year, or $3.300 a week, or almost $15, 000.00 a MONTH for his “retirement” in 2011.
How many of you understand that if you were retired on Social Security that the most you will EVER receive is less than $2,700 per MONTH?
…The maximum monthly Social Security benefit payment for a person retiring in 2016 at full retirement age is $2,639. However, the maximum allowable benefit amount is only payable to those who had the maximum taxable earnings for at least 35 working years.
https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/colafacts2017.pdf
How many of you understand that you aren’t allowed to earn very much money before Social Security will take every other dollar you earn?
https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/colafacts2017.pdf
http://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/2015/calpers/allan-l-roeder/
Now ask yourself who is working for who?
Feeling fooled in Fullerton?
You people better wake up before it’s too late for all of you to even drive your cars around on those pot-hole ridden roads of yours.
But Whitaker and Fitzy are “happy.” Why can’t you be, troublemaker!
I thought the city would announce city manager candidates on its website and allow residents at the next council meeting to express views on them before a final decision had been made. Democracy at work???
Interim…temporary City Manager..
Oh baby
Couldn’t have they waited 15 more days and collect the residents ‘ views on candidates? I recall interim, temporary positions which were occupied for over one year.
Right. Temporary. No use at all. Good bye $100,000. Easy come, easy go.
Whitaker
Sebourn
Fitzgerald
Chaffee
Quirk
Five peas in a pod.
Right?
I’m sick of Whitaker and Sebourn being called conservatives when they waste money right along side the others.
At least Chaffee and Fitzgerald have the excuse of being liberal Democrats.
Fitzgerald an liberal dem? Are you sniffing glue?
She voted 100% with Chaffee and Flory. I just assumed she is a Democrat. She’s certainly no conservative whatever her political registration.
Fitzgerald’s similar to Flory and Chaffee in that they’re all three political prostitutes. The kind that would screw you in a heartbeat, but God forbid they ever feel the intimacy of a kiss, or have any remorse for all of the heartache that they have caused residents over the years.
Jim Kent,
My scheme of thought was like yours until very recently. I always tried to vote and understand local politics based on the oppositions democrat/republican and liberal/conservative. I fortunately realized that very little can be explained under those fictitiously contradictory pairs. As you well said Fitzgerald, Flory and Co. voted alike about every single time. Why is that? They all agree on keeping FPD coverup culture unchallenged and on a development which is humanly unsustainable. Why did they push that agenda? Partially because the FPD endorsement stamp and the campaign contribution dollars from the developers through PACs and other means help them to get elected.
Now I search for local candidates who understand Fullerton problems and run on pledges such as fixing FPD culture, stopping or at least not “plunge-rushing“into development, etc.
The permanent city manager will be recruited most likely through Avery & Associates. Avery & Associates is the oligopistic executive city recruiter for many municipalities in California . Standard procedure. The same cookie cutters will always produce the same shape of cookies.
Grammarians out there: It should say oligopolistic
Either way it’s Greek to me.
lol rightly so
I, for one, am glad that our city council can come together and agree on such an important issue. It shows that they are all working together and they share a common mindset about leadership and accountability. We need more friendly agreement in this city and less disturbing arguments.
Yes, Blaine, let’s all row together farther out into the sea of red ink.
And now, word from the Titanic steerage class folk: um, where are those life boats, anyway?
Alan Roeder seems a good choice as he may be a good candidate to bring insights into solving the homeless problemin Fullerton. http://voiceofoc.org/2015/05/wisdom-from-years-of-fighting-homelessness/ As you can see from the sign on his desk, he may help get public restrooms for our downtown area.
The guy has no insights just a bunch of lame cliches. Really?
Were you there?
Yes.
fullerton street
My first impression is that he is more decent, concernful and intelligent than Felz. That said, -and apparently being the homeless issue his forte-, I foresee several weaknesses on his approach . Indeed there are budget constraints, but he excessively pursues economies of scale for the shelters. The mega shelters maintain and promote alienation, lack of a minimum personal attention and private space, and many other hostilities to anyone’s self. I am afraid the mega-shelters could take some homeless people too far from their hometowns too.
Mr Roeder seems to imply that private initiative is inhibited when public policy takes an important role on the homelessness issue, yet experience has shown that when the opposite happens private efforts have been way too short of what was needed.
Well, if they wanted a self-congratulatory, bureaucratic sycophant, looks like they got a good one!