Mr. Peabody, Author at Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 20, 2010April 20, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Did Bankhead Shoot Self in Foot? Or have The People Really Spoken?

A Friend just passed along the minutes from a California High Speed Rail meeting back in May 2008. The city of Fullerton “strongly supports the HSR project” per Councilman Don Bankhead. Hey, wait a minute. Did the City Council of Fullerton adopt a formal position on the HSR , and did they appoint Bankhead to be it’s official spokesman on the subject?

And if the Council really and truly already decided that we’re on board the HSR, then why bother with one of those idiotic “work shops” at tonight’s council meeting, and why have another one on April 26th at the Senior Center?

Anyway check this out:

CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY/ MEETING MINUTES / MAY 14, 2008

The meeting of the California High-Speed Rail Authority was called to order on May 14, 2008 at 9:30AM at Anaheim City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd in Anaheim, CA.

Mr. Bankhead stated the City of Fullerton strongly supports the HSR Project. To date the City, CalTrans and OCTA has invested millions of dollars in public transit services at the Fullerton Transportation Center. Mr. Bankhead stated Fullerton has the busiest rail station between Los Angeles and San Diego along the LOSSAN corridor. In addition, the City of Fullerton is working with CalTrans and OCTA to construct a new parking structure to accommodate up to 1000 rail passengers. There would be a platform adjacent to the parking structure that could accommodate high-speed rail. Mr. Bankhead stated the City of Fullerton supports the Authority’s budget request for $103M towards the development of high-speed rail. Mr. Bankhead stated on behalf of the City of Fullerton that the Authority consider a stop in Fullerton which would serve the region and build upon a previous transportation investment.

April 13, 2010April 13, 2010Dead heads

Poll Shows “Galloway as #1 Front-runner.” West Virginia Mom Gives Birth to Two-headed Goat Baby!

by Mr. Peabody22 Comments

Greetings! With less than two months away from the June 8th election, our campaign has gained tremendous momentum! Recent polling has "Galloway as #1 Front-runner" in the race as voters of the 4th District have voiced their number one concern, Jobs! Having a strong lead is crucial to reach out to voters with our message. Everyday becomes essential for us to expand our base of support and reach our goals. We need your help to get across the finish line on June 8th!

A friend sent along this pile of tripe yesterday dished out by the Lorri Galloway campaign.

Does Precious Princess really think we are going to buy her line of baloney that she’s the “#1 front runner in the race” in the 4th District to replace Norby as our County Supervisor?

This is clearly intended for those whose reading preferences include stories about alien abductions, Bigfoot sightings, and humans giving birth to barnyard animals – not likely to be high propensity voters.

The funniest thing is her foolish “jobs” pitch – an issue that Supervisors have zero control over; and of course her solution is the same as Hide and Seek Sidhu’s – taxpayer funded construction projects!

But you can’t really blame a girl for trying.

April 10, 2010April 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Was It Something We Said? HSR Board Blinks

by Mr. Peabody7 Comments

PringlePower — You are becoming very sleepy...

Responding to mounting criticism about taking a bunch of property along the proposed right-of-way for its multibillion dollar boondoggle, the California High Speed Rail Authority took a step back the other day and voted 6-1 to entertain a shared track option previously discarded when they thought nobody was paying attention. Read all about it in the LA Times.

Even lobbyist and fixer Curt Pringle, the termed-out Mayor of Anaheim, joined the majority. Is he perhaps starting to fear a Buena Park, Fullerton, and Anaheim backlash that might spoil all of his crafty electoral machinations for 2010?

Well, it’s a step in the right direction, but it still begs the question of bureaucratic and rolling stock cost vis-a-vis minimal travel time gains to downtown LA.

The lone “no” vote came from Quintin L. Kopp, the former Bay Area politician who also advocated for the controversial BART extension to the San Francisco Airport. Apparently Kopp thinks it’s too late to be smart – always a bad sign.

April 4, 2010April 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Another Day Another Dump on Pringle’s Main Chance Choo Choo

by Mr. Peabody5 Comments

This time it’s a story by the LA Times featuring former OCTA boss Art Leahy and others questioning the dedicated tracks, the impacts, and of course some of the basic operating assumptions of the California HSR.

Meantime we’re not holding our collective breath for the release of Curt Pringle’s “business plan” that seems to be at least 5 years late.

April 1, 2010April 28, 2010Dead heads

Another Gut Punch to Pringle’s HSR Boondoggle

by Mr. Peabody21 Comments

Just checked out this article at the new Voice of OC.

Read Pringle’s quotes and try not to barf. Of course he’s pimping this monster hard, after all, he plans to reap big dividends personally when his Mayorship in Anaheim comes to a slimy conclusion.

Here’s the money quote:

But Pringle said “when the whole system’s up and operating, we’ll have a tremendous operating income” to keep it going. He said specifics will be spelled out in future business plans.

In other words, he has no idea what the operating income is and he doesn’t want anybody to know that. If he can’t give us the facts now he’s just gambling with our money. But the House always wins. And Pringle is the House. Sweet. For him.

March 27, 2010Dead heads

Is Sidhu Telling The Truth (Yet)?

by Mr. Peabody15 Comments

Harry'sFriend — My forte is running for office. That's where I really shine.

So far as we can tell, no. He has already committed perjury twice in his attempt to carpetbag the 4th Supervisorial District where he doesn’t live. We have filed a complaint with the DA.

Okay. So honesty is not Sidhu’s strong suit (whatever that may be still escapes me). So when a Friend from Anaheim sent along a recent Sidhu mailer, I really wasn’t too surprised by one incredible statement. According to Hide ‘N Seek, he claims:

“I have never voted to increase fees or expand the reach of government”

Now Sidhu has been on the Anaheim City Council for almost six years. Is he really going to ask us to believe that in this time he has opposed all of the myriad fees that are chronically and habitually passed by city councils? Things like utility rates, park fees on developers, parks and rec charges, permit fees on builders. even the fees to make copies of documents, etc., etc., etc.? And how about on other boards on which he serves as by virtue of being a city councilman? He states positively that he has never voted for a single one – for almost six years.

Anybody wanna bet?

You know what Harry? I think that’s another lie we can chalk up to you – as fraudulent as your so-called registration at the dismal Calabria Apartments.

Shall we start the investigation?

March 24, 2010April 28, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Let’s Talk About The Great High Speed Train Robbery

by Mr. Peabody43 Comments

thomastankengine-420x0 — They always approach with a warm smile...

Down in Anaheim Cynthia Ward (aka Colony Rabble) has been trying to raise the profile of the California High Speed Rail (CHSR) project that will inevitably cut a swath out of neighborhoods as it makes its way to Curt Pringle’s Platinum Triangle Ghost Town.

In Fullerton (except for us) I’ve heard nary a word.

It’s pretty evident that this massive boondoggle was promoted to bamboozle the State’s electorate into floating another 10 billion dollars of indebtedness and to divert it into the pockets of huge engineering and public works contractors. Conservatives used to call this income redistribution. Now some of them call it jobs, jobs, jobs.

It is telling that Repuglicans Curt Pringle and Harry Sidhu both back this massive waste, plus the unconscionable OCTA uber-subsidy for their ARTIC choo-choo stop, as does Anaheim’s own Precious Princess Lorri Galloway, a union puppet who can be expected to do anything necessary to promote expanded union membership.

But I digress, yet again. Damn. Sorry.

How come there has been almost no discussion about this monster project and its potential right-of-way through Fullerton? Buena Park has recently learned to its dismay that the HSR will either take out part of their station or dozens of newly built houses built as part of a TOD scheme. Does our City Council know something they’re not telling us?

godzilla-500x400 — No. We don't anticipate any big environemental issues.

So what is happening in Fullerton? There is only one available route from BP to Anaheim, of course, and it will have to follow the BNSF/old UP rights-of-way. What will this mean to property owners and businesses in the way? What sort of traffic disruptions will this cause over the major north-south streets over the years? Aren’t we entitled to know?

At the January NUFF forum Shawn Nelson came out against the HSR; but what of the other councilmembers? Isn’t it time for a public hearing on this topic if, indeed anybody in City Hall is serious about transparency?

Shawn? Sharon? Pam? Dick? Don? Is there something you’d like to share with us? Why not agendize this issue. Now. Let’s have at it out in the open.

And maybe this should be a campaign issue for the fall. And maybe we need somebody on the OCTA like Nelson who is not going to just go along with Pringle.

P.S. For some fun watch this CNN video that is really little more than an infomercial for HSR: what a sweet deal for the tiny percentage of California’s 40 million people who just have to get between LA and SF in a hurry (they won’t, of course).

Try not to giggle at Pringle’s performance, if you can.

March 21, 2010March 21, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Did Dick Jones Bug Out of Vector Control?

by Mr. Peabody8 Comments

Dr. Richard Jones — Jones hates rats; loves carpetbaggers...

Every now and then word filters back to us about some zany corn pone antics by our own beloved municipal treasure, Dick Jones, at the County Vector Control District meetings. See, Jones is supposed to be representing us in this agency whose mission to do battle with the evil forces of rats, ants, and mosquitoes.

Our sources inform us that at the last meeting’s closed session that was addressing the future of the arrogant General Manger, Gerard Goedhart, Jones just lost it, stood up, declared that he was quitting, and left the room. Fellow boardmembers were nonplussed, to say the least.

Good grief. Just last year this same nincompoop popped his cork at a meeting.

Now, apparently, he just quit. He’s still got 21 months to go in his “term” on the Board.

Maybe it’s all for the best. And maybe Jones is actually onto something. If he can’t handle the annoyance without petulant outbursts, he should go. And he really ought to think about resigning from the City Council while he’s at it.

March 17, 2010March 17, 2010Dead heads

Why It Sucks To Be Matthew J. Cunningham

by Mr. Peabody22 Comments

fartboy — John Lewis is my moral compass.

I can only wonder what’s it’s like to have virtually no moral bearing – to be at the whim of whichever authority figure is pushing you at a given moment. Like a leaf blown in the wind.

Today a supporter of Hugh Nguyen’s campaign to unseat the deplorably incompetent Democrat County Clerk Tom Daly passed along the news that Matthew J. Cunningham of Mauve County fame had a devoted an entire post to the untrustworthiness of Nguyen. His running buddies? The lefties at the LiberalOC blog!

First it seems that he, like his candidate Tom Daly, takes exception to Nguyen’s ballot designation.

He also makes a big harrumph about Nguyen changing the story he told some of Cunningham’s Blue County boyfriends a couple of months ago about the unsolicited ad Art Pedroza is running for him on the OJ blog. You’re joking, right?

But here’s the kicker. Hugh Nguyen is mostly shifty and not to be trusted because when he was soliciting endorsements last summer for the Clerk-recorder job he didn’t inform those folks of the presence of his wife Laura Cunningham in the race, thereby precluding them from endorsing her!

Of course the idea that Nguyen was under any moral or legal obligation to advertise the hapless and long-defunct Mrs. Jerbal campaign is so preposterously comical that no more need be said about it.

Daly Really2 — Cunningham likes his style...

Meanwhile from the vantage of his lofty moral authority Cunningham seems unable to discern the manifest failures of his boy Tom Daly. You know, like the $48,000 Daly passed along to a campaign consultant for “studying” a sports hall of fame; like the $100,000+ he has wasted (and is still wasting) on monthly retainers for a do-nothing Sacramento “consultant;” oh yeah, and let’s not forget the $2,100,000 chunked into the toilet on the acquisition of the uninhabitable building at 433 Civic Center West. What was the issue again? Oh, yeah – trustworthiness!

On top of all that, Daly is a Democrat and Cunningham is supposed to be a conservative Republican! No bueno!

Come to think of it, Cunningham has never said a word about the two fraudulent voting registrations of one Harry C. Sidhu, the 4th District carpetbagger who lied about living at the Calabria Apartments on two separate public documents. Which sounds a lot like voter fraud and perjury if you ask me.

And speaking of shifty, how about Sidhu’s campaign signs that advertise the carpetbagger simply as “Mayor Pro Tem” despite the fact that they are posted in cities where Sidhu is not on the city council? Hows that for shifty?

HarrysHome — The beautiful Calabria Apartments. No furniture was ever moved in. Did Sidhu sleep on the floor?

But oh yeah, his boss John Lewis is working for Sidhu now, too; so that means that the regular rules don’t apply, see?

Jesus H., it must suck to be Cunningham.

March 17, 2010March 17, 2010Dead heads

Well, You Go With What You Know

by Mr. Peabody2 Comments

I was describing the Sidhu for Supervisor campaign to my neighbor yesterday and she asked me why anybody with any self-respect would be associated with a carpetbagging campaign that started out with a completely phony address behind a bowling alley.

I explained that there really is no lower class of organism than the professional political campaign parasite – a rather shocking combination of character traits that most of us can’t even begin to fathom. And I felt constrained to point out that sadly, many politicians are in the same class of humanoid.

In the case of Sidhu I pointed out that although his own campaign people laugh at his carpetbagging and evident buffooneries they are there because Sidhu has a lot of cash he is willing to waste in order to satisfy his desperate hunger for political recognition, and they will be there until it is all gone – no matter how many offices he runs for.