Author: Jan Florys Dog

In a year full of idiotic boondoggles, the nominating committee had a real challenge coming up with the best, or worst, depending on your point of view. The committee considered size, because it matters, but also pure, unfiltered nonsense, too.

1. The Hall of Shame. County Clerk-Recorder paid a campaign supporter named Brett Barbre $48,000 to “study” an OC Sports Hall of Fame. Forget the fact that this has nothing to do with Daly’s job, or that Barbre was nothing other than a cash conduit. Just remember that the guy didn’t do anything. As Daly succinctly put it: Barbre was paid for ideas not long reports, and of course Daly got neither. Too bad it was our money. Oh, yeah -the media snoozed.

2. The Money Pit. Chalk up another one for Tom Daly. He talked the County Supervisors into sinking $2.1 million into a tear-down derelict building in Santa Ana to house his archives and his defunct Sports Hall of Fame (see above). The Board was lied to and crucial information about the true cost of making the building habitable was withheld. To this day collective amnesia reigns, especially with John Moorlach who ordered an investigation and later went along with the cover-up. Yep, the media snoozed.

3. The Megalopolis. Yet another plan for downtown Fullerton, Der Transporation Center Meisterplan anticipates the final destruction of any remaining authenticity in Fullerton and its replacement with every master planner’s wet-dream. Albert Speer would be proud. Fortunately it will never come to fruition. But millions will be wasted and lots of damage done trying. Be sure to thank Bankhead, Jones and Keller next time you see them.

4. Pringle’s Folly. High Speed Rail – LA to Anaheim. Not needed and not wanted except by Anaheim’s ex-Mayor-for-Hire and recent tongue bath recipient Kurt Pringle;  Pringle was recently busted by the Attorney General for holding incompatible offices, and Jerry B. now knows what  Orange County has known all along: Pringle is in it for Pringle. Big Time. FFFF has shared the record of foreign junkets, cover-ups, faked ridership numbers, etc., etc. I don’t even have the energy to do the links. I get tired just thinking about it.

The damage done by this monster to the fabric of the cities it would pass through and to the public purse is incalculable. But hey, Kurt’s gotta pay his bills, too, right?

Well there you have it, Friends. Four embarrassing boondoggles of varying shapes and sizes. Who will the selection committee go with? Stay tuned…

Another Big Fringie Award. Most Engaging Political Flier. It’s a sad fact that most positive, puff political pieces are mind numbingly boring and or stupid. They are almost uniformly awful. Maybe it’s just human nature (I don’t know I’m just a dead dog), but the hit pieces are always a lot more fun. And the more your attention gets grabbed, the better they are.

So here’s your nominees:

1. The Food Poisoner. ‘Tamnation, this ones right in yer face. Banner header, gross pictures of code violations, international barfer, nice, clean Helvetica text for the “informed voter,” concluding banner footer. Message loud and clear: this pustule is a scum suck!

2. The Mug Shot. Nothing says municipal rip-off artist like a side-by-side with City of Bell crook Robert Rizzo. What makes this more fun is that the hard-stool-passing tough guy look by Fullerton’s Pat McPension was actually harvested from one of his own puff pieces!

3. The Hot Air Balloon. from last spring comes this gem, an image of a giant Sidhu head floating over a nearly dwarfed map of OC, brilliantly symbolizing a massive ego and the throw-weight of a lighter than air balloon. Well done!

3. The Bankrupt. More brilliant graphic design. There’s lotsa information here but it draws you in and tells you all you need to know about a first class sumbitch. A wonderful quote from a victim seals the deal. And the images are classic.

4. The Evil Hippy Elder Abuser. This one is actually pretty lame. The title alone hints that something stupid is on the way. But the nominating committee was captivated by the image of a dude who seems to be wearing beads!

Holy Unadulterated Avatar of Octogenarian Jebus! Just check out these wonderful political signs! 2010 was a fun year for creative signage and if you don’t believe that, here are our nominees:

1. Bad Chi. Was there a better way to convey the sheer barfiness of food-poisoner Roland Chi? Nuh, uh. This sign symbolized the very essence de Chi. And in the international symbol that not even a non-English speaker could mistake.

2. Huh? This baby homemade sign with stick-on letters might have been engaging if anybody could read it and if they could figure out what in the hell it meant!

3. The Classic. Nothing succeeds like success, and the classic “NO “fill in the blank” Carpetbagger has become a standard – just like a Sinatra ballad. Doo-be-doo-be-doo.

4. The Riff. Union puppet. Effective but ultimately not even necessary.

5. Murder She Wrote! It might have been effective if not for the fact that the creator of these was the biggest job killer in Orange County!

6. The She Bear. Just play dead and maybe it will go away. The sign that launched a thousand thefts.

Well there you have it.

Oh, Ye Cruel Amethyst Plasticine Gods above! In a year full of wacky political campaigns this category just screams out “potential!”

Now, the Nominating Committee wasn’t interested in the typical collection of paid-to-blog courtesans that whore themselves as part of their quotidian life’s work: creeps like Dan Chomolungma and Matthew J. Cunningham. Oh, no no no!

This category embraces the brief shooting stars who, in their trajectories across the local political firmament, burn with an incandescent glow before vanishing into the irrelevance of lifelong mundane hackery. And by burn with an incandescent glow, I mean make utter jackasses out of themselves shamelessly bending over for cretinous political bosses. Here we find political ambition, lack of character, stupidity, and brainless tenacity sticking with people or ideals that weren’t worth sticking up for.

Motivation is not the sole factor in the category; comic spectacle is what we’re after, too.

And your nominees are:

1. Thomas Anthony Gordon. This econo-size chowderhead popped up on a local blog attacking Shawn Nelson for being a defense lawyer and therefore soft on crime. Which was funny because Gordo had had his own brushes with the law!

Since this goon lives in Santa Ana it wasn’t hard to surmise that he was working for somebody who had an interest in the 4th District campaign. At first we thought he was working for John Lewis and the Tom Daly Team. Well, maybe he was. But then he appeared as a petition circulator for Hairball Sidhu and we then knew whose payroll he was on.

Gordon even played victim card wackily claiming to have been intimidated by us for outing his tooling for Sidhu.

After we busted him for making anonymous comments on our blog he mercifully vanished from our radar screen.

2. Little Billy Turner. ‘Lil Billy popped up last February at a Fullerton Tea Party event passing out fliers for Hairbag Sidhu. Unfortunately he ran into Chris Thompson to whom he admitted that Sidhu was going to lose and noted that he had tried to get in touch with Shawn Nelson. Not knowing that his attempted double-cross in search of a winning candidate would end up as blog fodder he passed along his name and address to Thompson.

We had some more fun with Billy over at Sidhu’s empty campaign headquarters, too.

Later, we were told that Little Billy had been ensconced in Sidhu Fake Address #2 so that it would appear lived in. And we were informed that Little Billy had also turned into a sign thief. That sure seems in character.

It didn’t seem to have occurred to Little Billy that getting an honest job in one of Sidhu’s Pollo Locos would be more honorable than working for such a creep’s bogus scampaigns; but then given his own propensity for double-dealing, maybe part-time jobs in politics is the only kind of work he will ever have, or ever want. There will always be ‘pugs looking for cheap labor so Billy may find employment once every couple of years.

Oh, well. If working for Sidhu doesn’t scare you straight, nothing can.

3. 4SD Observer. This sad Grendel-like creature emerged in 2010 to defend the indefensible – the serial miscreance of Pam Keller. 4SD withstood a systematic dismembering from the regs, continually coming back for more. There was no hypocritical, stupid, lying,  featherheaded thing that her Pam could say or do that could cause this devoted acolyte to cease soldiering on.

Hilariously, the series of quotations from The Manchurian Candidate by some of our Friends went zipping right over his/her head, every time. An irrational love for budget-busting public safety union members, hatred for Supervisor Shawn Nelson and a weird fixation on cooking harmless bunny rabbits sealed the deal.

In short, 4SD Observer was the quintessential intellectual face of the Keller years: sanctimonious, humorless, and confused; but mostly just brainwashed.

In the world of politics endorsements are held to be a big deal. A long list is supposed to be impressive, no matter the character (or lack of same) of the people on the list. And in Orange County there are plenty of elected officials whose names you would be a lot better off without. This obvious fact seems to have escaped many politicos whose background research on some of their endorsers is often lacking.

Conversely, whom one chooses to endorse is also a true reflection of one’s moral or intellectual fiber and backing a crook, an idiot, or an ass clown can cause some embarrassment.

Anyhoo, here’s your list, with a little commentary added:

1. Brett Barbre. This embarrassing tool stole $48,000 of your money pretending to “study” an OC Sports Hall of Fame. He was aided and abetted by County Clerk Tom Daly whom he endorsed and to whom he contributed. But that’s not why he’s here.

2. Janet Nguyen. The semi-literate and wholly embarrassing County Supervisor whose communication skills are perfectly representative of her grasp of issues.

3. F. Richard Jones. Fullerton’s own crazy funny Doc Cracker Barrel, whose down home, lunatic ravings are only superseded by total ignorance of anything more complicated than a southern fried chicken wing.

4. Kurt Pringle. The pay-to-play, former Anaheim mayor for whom no string is to long or slack to pull. And man did he try to pull a slack string. Recently got busted by the AGs office for holding incompatible office, which he did for three years to promote his own client’s interests in Anaheim.

5. John Lewis. Former State Senator and chief OC repuglican who started out the 4th Supervisorial District race pimping out a Democrat. As a lobbyist you can bet that whomever he endorses will be expected to pay up, later.

6. CRA. The California Republican Assembly. A more worthless collection of losers and oddballs you will not find. Also, you can sign up as a member one month and vote to endorse your own family member the next! What a deal.

7. Chriss Street. The County’s outgoing Treasurer who was recently busted by a judge for ripping off a company placed in his trust. His behavior was so egregious that the Board of Supervisors stripped him of his investment authority. He also got caught dodging County procurement rules so as to remodel his offices without any oversight. He also tried to get folks to believe he has an MBA from Stanford. He doesn’t.

8. John S. Williams. Public Administrator/Guardian currently being investigated by the Board of Supervisors for malfeasance. He’s supposed to be taking care of people’s estates. Looks like he’s been taking care of his own estate.

9. Jeff Miller. State Assemblyman who was the recipient of Mike Duvall’s “open mike” chat and whose own dealings in an attempt to create a Corona public utility while on that city council had many Inland Emperors scratching their heads.

10. Gary Miller. Yet another repuglican slimer in the US Congress. Redevelopment pimp and whore for Big Ed Roski, the biggest Redevelopment free loader in the State of California.

11. Cynthia Coad. Former 4th District Supervisor and quite possibly the stupidest person in Orange County.

12. Richard Faher. Alleged “Placentia Taxpayer Advocate.” Now this guy’s just downright creepy, referring to himself in the third person. But his pathetic and weird clown-campaign brought one iridescent, shining jewel – the pronunciation of the 2nd District Supervisor’s name: John Moor-latch.

13. Rosie Espinosa. La Habra’s dim-witted councilmember whose grasp of policy ended with the use of her automatic garage door opener. Mean people likened her to a sack of rivets. Mean people were right.

14. Pam Keller. Fullerton’s outgoing council sweetheart, whose batting eye lashes and fake “I’m just a dumb girl” routine,…oh, wait. She is just a dumb girl.

15. Alexandria Coronado. This dim-witted queer-basher who claims to be a doctor finally got her reckoning last June after faking endorsements and was thrown off the OC Board of Education.

Well, there’s fifteen names to choose from, but really, the potential list is virtually endless; there seems to be a dumb Dem and a crooked ‘pug on virtually every street corner peddling his or her dubious wares.

Who is the worst of the worst? Stay tuned…