Who Says Fitzgerald Doesn’t Know how to Balance a Budget?

Fullerton City Councilmember Jennifer Fitzgerald deserves all the criticism she gets for her primrose path approach to budgetary issues, the extravagant public employee pay raises she approved, and her false claim during her re-election campaign that Fullerton’s budget is balanced!,among other issues.

As balanced as our City Manager was when he reviewed it.

Still, it’s important to note that Fitzgerald does understand the concept of a balanced budget, when it is important to her.

As an example, here is a screen capture from her 2012 campaign statement. As you can see, she contributed $350 of her own money to that initial campaign:

And here is another screen capture of the same campaign statement showing how much of her campaign funds she directed towards her own company (C7 Communications) during that election:

$2,100.02 is a heck of a lot more than $350, meaning her campaign basically turned a profit for her personally of $1,750.02. Whatever else you may think of Fitzgerald, she takes care to make sure her personal finances are balanced. Fullerton’s? Not so much.

44 Replies to “Who Says Fitzgerald Doesn’t Know how to Balance a Budget?”

  1. Naked way to purchase the local government . Great investment by C7 Communications! Sparky, I am still looking for God here….

  2. Balancing a budget and turning a profit off of your own campaign are two completely different things.

    Fitzgerald is following in the proud footsteps of other repuglicans like Dick Ackerman, who laundered his campaign funds back into his own pocket through the use of his wife as a campaign employee. This is theft, pure and simple, and it is indicative of Fitzgerald’s complete lack of ethics.

  3. looks like she’s giving premature approval of the Amerige Court fiasco without any hearings. Is that even legal?

  4. I see that Ms Fitz received $250 from Republic Services. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that $250 isn’t exactly going to buy a candidate. At least I hope not. However, when Republic Services owns MG Disposal, the City of Fullerton’s trash pickup company, it does raise eyebrows a bit. Perhaps Republic Services contributes to everyone running for city council, including Whitaker, Sebourn, Flory, and everyone else – I haven’t checked – but it just looks like a conflict of interest doing so.

    But that never bothered Ms Fitz before.

    1. Do you think Sean Paden, Rands, Imbrano and everyone who ran got the Republic Services contribution?

        1. I bet you did not receive money from Flory either. J Flory for City Council operates when Flory is not running for city council. $1,000 to Fitzgerald & $1,000 to Bennett from Flory for City Council in 2016. Lol

        2. Susan Gapinski, you did take a rather inordinate amount of money from Ed Royce as well as sizeable contributions from labor unions. I wonder why you are not the subject of such scrutiny here. I also noticed 40 dollars given to you from Sean Paden which was rather amusing since he is the author of this belittling piece on our former Mayor. You also shared the Ed Royce endorsement with Ms. Fitzgerald. Ironic isn’t it? Ms. Gapinski, are you or your children some of the anonymous posters on this hate filled site that defames people on a daily basis? I cannot understand how Pat would be just fine with all this. Maybe she just doesn’t know.

          1. No Donna, my children do not post on this site. Sharing the Royce endorsement is not ironic at all, and my labor union contributions were from private trade unions. As for Pat, I don’t think she would have a problem with someone shining a light on the truth. Yes, sometimes these blogs seem a bit mean spirited, but they do expose some hard truths. I think you missed the point of the budget being balance, at least us being told it was balanced, when it was not.

            1. “Yes, sometimes these blogs seem a bit mean spirited…”

              It’s hard to be dopey-happy when you are being serially ripped off by the cops, City Hall and by our “former mayor.”

              1. You are right…it’s kind of hard to shine a light on so much unpleasantness and remain “dopey-happy”.

            2. Thank you for being honest Ms. Gapinski. I certainly hope you are not one these Bushala “lab rats”. I don’t think for a minute he wants anything for our community except HIS people in control so he can do what HE WANTS with his properties. If Tony had his way a few years back, we would not have a police department and we would be in bankruptcy with pot clinics on every corner.

              1. “we would not have a police department and we would be in bankruptcy with pot clinics on every corner.”

                We don’t have a PD, we have a gang of felons plus a few dozen “good cops” who spend their whole careers looking the other way; and their pay and benefits will bankrupt us over the next four years. So it seems we are already getting what you pretend to be afraid of – and Bushala has been out of the picture for four years.

                Please exercise your GED and explain that.

          2. “this hate filled site that defames people on a daily basis”

            Please elaborate on what you think is defamation.

            The truth is often painful to those who habitually abuse it. Jennifer Fitzgerald is a stranger to the truth. And that’s not defamation. That’s God’s honest truth.

          3. “Ms. Gapinski, are you or your children some of the anonymous posters on this hate filled site that defames people on a daily basis?”

            Donna, defames means “to harm the reputation by communicating false statements about someone”. Please give me an example of one false statement that’s been posted on this blog, and I’ll hand you $1,000.00.

            1. Invert it, “Donna, for every false statement by Fitzgerald, you ought to give me $1,000”
              A wealth booster for ya’ right here

              1. Why not expose all the untruths espoused by all the council members? Why are you so focused on Mrs. Fitzgerald?

            2. Calling Ms. Fitzgerald “crooked” is defamatory. What kind of women raised you people? You men cannot control your tongues.

              1. “Crooked” is a term often used to refer to public officials who won’t tell the truth. So in Fitzgerald’s case it is perfectly apt.

              2. We were raised by intelligent women who values honesty and compassion.

                I’m not exactly what kind of woman you are, but getting onto the internet and accusing Ms. Gapinski and her kids speaks VOLUMES about your own mother.

                Mull that over a bit. Last I checked, no one here is talking about your children or Jennifer’s children. You stand all alone on that particularly classless street.

                But hey, maybe you’ll read this and apologize.

                I doubt it. I’m sure you’re mom is quite proud, too.

              3. I did not use the word “crooked” in the post. As to my criticisms of Fitzgerald, she approved over $19.5 million in pay and benefit increases to our city employees (https://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2017/fitzcal-irresponsibility-drove-us-cliff/) which has directly responsible for our current budget deficit. Whitaker and Sebourn voted no on all of those pay increases and Silva was not yet on the council. I suppose you have a point that I should be equally hard on Chaffee, who also voted for the increases, but as a Republican I frankly expect at least some nod towards fiscal responsibility from Fitzgerald, which we are not seeing from her.

                And I supported Gapinski because she was one of the three best candidates running last year. I’m not sure what would be ironic about my support.

  5. Her business C7 Communications looks like a shady company. She might have diverted funds from clients. Or itcould be a money laundering scheme because there is not accountability whatsoever as to the money having actually gone to anything for her campaign. Liar & shady. I would bet anything bribes are at the center of her modus operandi.

  6. Are there any more contributions from Pacs? I see one here for $500, but remember that PACs can go as high as they want and don’t need to disclose the contributors’ identities

  7. Orange County Jobs Coalition, who is this PAC connected to. It looks like she got a hefty contribution from then in the final days of the 2016 campaign

  8. Jennifer Fitzgerald has done the right thing for all of us. Those that put our lives on the line everyday deserve to be paid a fair wage. You don’t care about the arrests recently in the middle of the nights with the drugs and guns right in your neighborhood? Some of you need to spend more time taking care of your yards and and leave city business to the city officials.

    1. What’s your definition of fair wage? 100 FPD employees made close to $200,000 in 2015. Is that what you call fair wages?

    2. I’m more afraid of the criminals inside the FPD than I am the ones outside it. I mean, really, who wants Sonny Saliceo hanging around their backdoor in the “middle of the nights”?

      1. As a percentage of population, there are many more criminals inside the Fullerton Police Department than in the general public.

    3. I’m not sure just who those “Bushala lab rats” are, but I’m not one of them. I’ve certainly never talked with or met the man,

      Let’s talk about “Jennifer Fitzgerald has done the right thing for all of us”. I can only assume “all of us” means the police and fire departments. You state that they put their lives on the line every day and deserve a fair wage. OK, we’ll run with that. The police have extraordinary pay and an even more extraordinary retirement. But along with the extraordinary pay must go extraordinary responsibility. They have the sworn responsibility to enforce the law evenly, without regard to who it is or how much it might be unpopular with their peers. After swearing to uphold the law, you don’t refuse to ticket your fellow officers out of “professional courtesy”, lie to cover for your friends on the force, cover up for your boss when he’s trying to leave the scene of an accident while apparently DUI, or assault innocent bystanders taking a video of you making an arrest. If the stress of the job is too much for you to do the legal and moral thing – the right thing – find some other way to make a living.

      You certainly don’t cover up or ignore this type of behavior of people under you on the force.

      So, you think that we need to spend more time taking care of our yards and “leave city business to the city officials”. I strongly suspect that most of the posters (and commentators) on this blog would love to do just that. Unfortunately, “leave city business to the city officials” has proved to be a disaster. We would love to have competent, and honest, people running the city so we won’t need to. Instead, we have the likes of Fitzgerald, Felz, Hughes, and Curiel.

      So, “Fitzgerald has done the right thing for all of us”. Excluding the police and fire, just exactly what has she done? She certainly didn’t balance the budget, rather lied that she had. What I would like from you, Donna, is an objective listing of all the great things Fitzgerald has done for the city. Specific, objective, things, not “she showed dynamic leadership”. I would like to see these objective items here on FFFF so that they can be discussed. Hopefully discussed in a reasonably civil manner (which you have showed so far).

      One last thing. Your bringing up Bushala’s name is what is known as a “red herring”. It had absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Basically, if you can’t discuss or debate something on its own merit, deflect the argument with something irrelevant.

      We are all looking forward to your objective list.

      (signed) Mr Rat

      1. Well said. Fullerton has been led forever by people who get elected by their image, not their ability and the results have been disastrous. We hear about their “accomplishments” at election time when generalities are trotted out (we
        revitalized downtown) but no specifics.

        Fitzgerald set a new gold standard for campaign through several outright lies. Other than approve pay raises for the cops and approving massive development projects I can’t think of anything this creature has done. Of course many of her accomplishments were no doubt achieved behind closed doors for the benefit of herself and Curt Pringle.

  9. Joe Felz put his life on the line for Fullertonians everyday. The city’s trees were trying to straight up murder him.

  10. $12,308 Fitzgerald for City Council non-monetary contributions to Larry Bennett for City Council ,2016. Mailers and door hanger distribution.

  11. I read on the Informmer that Paden was Kapinskis campaign manager and that she was running with Fitzgerald. There were even pictures of them together.
    That being said, what gives with Paden being so incensed with Sparky when his gal was riding her coattails?

    1. I saw pictures of Joe Imbriano sitting next to Larry Bennett, who ran with Fitzgerald. Joe clearly supported Bennett and by extension, Jennifer Fitzgerald 100%. There are pictures!!

    2. The “Informer” also believes the world is flat. So they have that going for them, too…

    3. You read the informer? Well then you must be really informed. That blog is dead. It is nothing more than a modern day slam book for Joe and Barry.

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