Grover Cleveland, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 10, 2010May 10, 2010Behind Closed Doors

MORE MONKEY BUSINESS AT THE CLERK-RECORDER’S OFFICE; TOM DALY AND HIS PAY-TO-PLAY CONTRACTS.

Daly Really2 — Hey, everyone is good at something!

It looks like we can add another skill to Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly’s public money squandering resume. As previously reported here, not only does Daly excel at wasting public money and doling out jobs to his contributor’s relatives, it appears that he also hands out no-bid contracts to campaign contributors as well. It turns out that the contracts are more of what we’re used to: highly questionable and unaudited relationships, and of course, ultimate failure.

Get a load of this one.

Between 2002 and 2007, Christopher Townsend, who is the president of Townsend Public Affairs, contributed a total of $2600 to Tom Daly’s campaigns. During this period, Townsend was awarded two $60,000 no-bid contracts for “consulting services.” Townsend was awarded these contracts without bidding because of their supposed know-how in obtaining grants from the California Cultural Historical Endowment. What for, you ask?

In late 2005/2006 the grant application was for $150,000 to go to “planning” the archives expansion in the old Courthouse building in Santa Ana. Apparently the contract and the grant application were approved solely on the authority of Daly himself – that’s right, no Board of Supervisor’s oversight.

The big problem was that the grant application was for a building over which the “Manager of the Year” Daly had no authority. Apparently it is controlled by the Harbors Parks and Beaches Department that lets the Clerk-Recorder use it for some of his functions. And seemingly they had no clue what Daly was up to.

Even though Daly got the grant he wanted, the County had to turn the money back in April, 2006 because of the inability of Daly to communicate what he was doing with the other County bureaucrats. The official excuse was “unanticipated space and stakeholder concerns.” Translated from Bureaucratese into English: Big Daly F-up.

Well, there’s $60,000 down the toilet.

Undaunted by failure, late in 2006 the indefatigable Daly was before the Board of Supervisors asking for another $60,000 no-bid contract with Townsend. The motive was the same, but by now Daly’s covetous eye likely rested on the wretched building at 433 West Civic Center, a $2.1 million liability that he would talk the Board into acquiring in 2007. We shared that mess with you, here. The second grant application ended up with a big goose egg, however the purchase of the money pit on Civic Center Drive proceeded headlong, full speed ahead.

Dark-Clouds-looming-500x375 — A river of red ink runs through it...

Another $60,000 chunked into the water hazard.

Oh, dear me. Another Tom Daly fiasco; another example of incompetence and cronyism his pals in the media won’t touch; yet another mauve feather in the dismal repuglican headdress of Daly’s admirer, John Lewis (& Co.) who keeps insisting that the egregious Daly is some sort of “fiscal conservative.”

And good grief, we’ve only just scratched the surface. Be sure to stay tuned.

May 10, 2010May 10, 2010About Us

Another “Grover Cleveland?”

by Grover Cleveland5 Comments

Apparently some Sidhu-supporting John Lewis tool calling himself “Grover Cleveland” has misappropriated my name and is making anti-Nelson squawkings over at the Mauve County blog that seems to have become a haven for the semi-literate backers and hackers of Hide and Seek Sidhu.

This is an imposter, make no mistake about it. Grover Cleveland was tough, smart, and honest – three adjectives that will never be applied to either Harry Sidhu or his leech-like campaign handlers who are only in it ’til Mother’s Milk runs dry.

Piglets — Better score some while you can...

Lying, carpetbagging, union stoogery? Guess again! Not Grover Cleveland. Plus, he would never support an assclown.

Geez, these dunces are too dumb and lazy to come up with their own blog handles.

May 9, 2010May 19, 2010Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – Propagandist for Suffocating Statism

by Grover Cleveland10 Comments

fartboy — I would humbly like to thank the Academy for this recognition...

The other day Orange County’s Most Hypocritical Repuglican (yes, that is one Hell of an achievement) Matthew J. Cunningham coughed up this Red County hairball in criticism of Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez:

How very congressional. And also ironic to listen to Loretta Sanchez speaking to a crowd of immigrants who came here seeking the American Dream,, even as she has been voting to make American more suffocatingly statist like the countries they left.

Is he really that breathtakingly unaware of the irony of the mouthpiece for the OC Children and Families Commission dumping on “statism.” Or could it be that he figures that whoever reads his post won’t know about his real day job; and if they do any comments revealing that fact will be deleted.

Aw c’mon Mr. C from Suite C, ‘fess up. You really, really dig suffocating statism; you profit from it and you shill for it. In fact, it’s just about your only real source of income.

Own it.

P.S. Wordsmiths “at the top of their profession” proofread their copy for embarrassing typos.

May 7, 2010May 10, 2011Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – Monitoring John & Ken for Fun and Profit

by Grover Cleveland25 Comments

In our series documenting the PR/lobbyist hungry OC Children and Families Commission we have shown how they have employed local political operative and Red County blog bloviator Matthew Cunningham to propagandize their myriad big-government good works.

We have seen how the preachy Mr. Conservative Republican was paid $200 an hour to do such things as update facebook pages, ghost write articles for liberal Democrats, and perhaps, funniest of all (in a sick sort of way) – coordinate toothbrush distribution to the Diocese. While he was at it, he amassed some mammoth paydays for his “Pacific Strategies” wordsmithing operation.

Jerb2 — The toughest part of the job is thinking up new ways to spend all that gummint dough.

Of course you can’t really propagandize effectively unless you know what the opposition is saying. So enjoy this.

In January, 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger called for First 5 California to be eliminated in his 2009-10 budget. Regional commissions would have taken a 60% cut in funding.

KFI radio broadcasters John and Ken went on the offensive, and Cunningham was right there listening in at $200 an hour to formulate his defense of the Welfare State. Here’s the invoice entry:

Full invoice – January 2009

As I said yesterday, it’s way past time to put this Commission under the control of the Board of Supervisors so that at least contracts and policy can be authorized by elected officials in a much more public forum. And maybe instead of fixating on PR the kiducrats can concentrate more resources on actually helping poor children instead of well-off, hypocritical Republicans.

May 6, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Time to End the Children and Families Commission’s Autonomy

by Grover Cleveland24 Comments

The public relations and tax revenue fixated OC Children and Families Commission needs oversight. How do I know? Because of the amount of money these people pay to PR types and lobbyists – who just happen to be pals of Commission members. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in fact.

Last year the Riverside County Board of Supervisors addressed the same issue when their “First 5” Commission members were busted for distributing grants to their own organizations. Here’s a 2009 article from The Riverside Press-Telegram that talks about the problem. The solution proposed by the Riverside BOS was to subsume their “First Five” Commission into the County government structure.

Whether or not this sort of thing has been going on in OC is not known without a complete shakeout. But what is known is that the Commission has been paying for things like toothbrush distribution and facebook editing at a rate of $200 per hour – to a Matthew Cunningham, a pal of the current Commission Chairman, and a running board occupant of the John Lewis political machine.

Then there’s the small matter of the hundreds of thousands contracted for lobbying services to Phil Isenberg as well as our own local big-government gold digger – Anaheim Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.

PringlePower — When you awake you will feel completely refreshed...

It’s high time to place this Commission in a chain of command that puts ultimate responsibility in the hands of elected representatives – people who will have to account for grants and contracts awarded to political operatives, and to decide what sort of political lobbying, if any, is appropriate. And that would be the County Board of Supervisors.

May 5, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies: January, 2010 – The Kiducrat Bonanza

by Grover Cleveland6 Comments

The largest monthly tax-payer funded haul for local Kiducrat spokesman Matthew Cunningham seems to be January 2010, when he racked up an impressive $10,840 to wordsmith and social network as a PR shill for the big-government OC Children and Families Commission. Click on the document below to see what a “conservative” Republican wordsmith does for a living – apart from writing op-ed pieces for liberal Democrats.

My favorite line item is the last one – a blanket $800 charged for “account management” for the month, whatever that may entail. Say what? You mean the folks in charge bought into that baloney? Oh that’s right – nobody seems to be in charge at all.

But hey! It’s all about the kids, right?

With every passing second it become more and more obvious that the Children and Families Commission is in dire need of some outside oversight to stop this exorbitant waste of money on overpriced PR efforts doled out to political operatives.

May 4, 2010May 6, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies – The Facebook Gold Mine

by Grover Cleveland11 Comments

More fun stuff from one of OCs repuglican welfare state spongers, Matthew J. Cunningham. $4,200 in 8 days, to be precise. And ten references to Facebook updates.

Link to full invoice

Funny how stuff kids do for free can be mined by a well-connected political operative for big bucks. Well it’s big bucks when you charge 200 clams per hour and have no competition.

What’s really startling is that the Children and Families Commission kiducrats are willing to pay somebody that exorbitant rate for a “social network” medium “work” that will have a completely negligible effect. Not negligible, you say? Prove it says I.

Oh, yeah. Be sure to reflect upon Mr. Conservative Republican’s daily billing totals and note the inevitable “account management,” whatever the hell that is. Who knew being a kiducrat payed so well?

May 3, 2010May 3, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies and the Big Toothbrush Caper

by Grover Cleveland15 Comments

Apparently part of Matthew Cunningham’s deal as wordsmith to the OC Children and Families Commission is to fill other functions from time to time – such as Ambassador to the Diocese of Orange with Dental Portfolio.

Here, in October and November 2007 we find Mr. Conservative Republican billing the taxpayers $200 an hour as coordinator of toothbrush distribution:

It seems as if the Commission was eager to insinuate itself into Catholic schools, too.

But did it not occur to anybody auditing these invoices at the Commission that it was a wee bit inappropriate to pay somebody that exorbitant rate to talk to somebody at the Diocese about handing out toothbrushes? Was anybody at the Commission even reviewing these invoices at all?

By the way, anybody out there know how many toothbrushes you can get wholesale for $200? Oy vey! Just more lax or non-existing oversight by our friends on the Commission.

Ironically, in the fall of 2007 Mr. Cunningham was hard at work in the trenches as a loyal foot soldier for the Diocese. But that’s a whole other matter.

April 30, 2010April 30, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies – Won’t Someone Please Think of The Children?

by Grover Cleveland16 Comments

Using kids as a front to support your bureaucratic empire is almost something of a cliche. The educrats and teachers unions have been doing it for years. And so naturally the OC Children and Families Commission sings from the same sheet music.

Check out these billing entries from Matthew Cunningham to the Commission.

Okay, on January 15th, 2010 Mr. Republican is ghost writing an op-ed piece for a Democratic politician – the former State Superintendent of Schools, Delaine Eastin. A dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do do it, right? Besides the money is great.

Then we notice that about five weeks later the beaver-like Cunningham is hard at work disseminating the “Eastin op-ed” to literally dozens of readers via “social media tools”

A little digging and we uncovered this Sacramento Bee op-ed “by” Delaine Eastin dated 2/24/2010. Delaine is fighting hard for the dough that fuels the kiducrat machine, and that, parenthetically pays Cunningham $200 an hour. Is this the very same piece he wrote for the otherwise mute Eastin? Check it out and see if the style isn’t 100% Cunningham schmaltz – including the obligatory quotation from Abraham Lincoln. Be sure to read the comments as a reminder of Eastin’s troubled regime as Superintendent of Schools.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. The OC Children and Families Commission is paying hundreds of thousands a year in PR and lobbying expenses that are handed out to the politically well connected like Cunningham, who is good buddies with Commissioner Chair Bill Campbell and Hugh Hewitt. What is the procurement process for these contracts, and what quantifiable metrics are applied to judge the success and ultimately the renewal of these contracts?

It’s time to open the window on this Commission and let some fresh air into the room.

April 29, 2010April 29, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies Critical Task #1 – “Daily Media Review”

by Grover Cleveland28 Comments

One of the critical tasks assigned to Matthew Cunningham by the PR fixated and obviously rudderless OC Children and Families Commission is to “review” media, i.e. read newspapers and blogs, which is convenient for Cunningham because that’s what he does anyway – for free. Now he’s a pro at 200 bucks an hour.

Yes, Friends, you read rightly. He’s paid to read blogs.

meathead — This is exactly what I had in mind...only they were supposed to be Democrats!

January 25, 2010 was another banner day for Pacific Strategies. $700 for a few hours noodling around on the computer. Plus time for 18 holes in the afternoon after the siesta!

Oh, and look. A phone call to newly minted Assemblyman Chris Norby made from Suite C. Probably to assure Chris that Cunningham really wanted him to win all along and how much he really, really hates carpetbaggers and perjurers.