FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Author: The Fullerton Harpoon
The Fullerton Harpoon is a retired commerical fisherman having served many years on the Japanese whaler Nisshin Maru where he unfortunately lost the right side of his brain and his sense of propriety in a Greenpeace attack.
On Tuesday our City Council took up the matter of the proposed parking structure on Santa Fe. Since we first reported on this issue City Staff has maintained its ludicrous attachment to the brick veneer panels, and its equally ludicrous position that fake brick somehow satisfies some sort of CEQA requirement – even thoughWE HAVE COMPLETELY DEMOLISHED THE MYTH OF BRICK AND REALITY OF BRICK VENEER IN DOWNTOWN FULLERTON.
Such a lame approach insults not only our aesthetic sensibilities, but it also turns the whole environmental review process into a pantomime that just provides staff cover for what it really wants: fake brick.
CONSIDER THIS: THE MONEY SAVED BY ELIMINATING THE USELESS BRICK COULD GO TO ESTABLISHING SOLAR PANELS ON THE BUILDING AND ENHANCING ITS SUSTAINABILITY QUOTIENT.
Barney Wewak shares FFFF news with family and friends
Editor’s Note: we have received the following e-mail from former Troy High School Exchange student, and Papuan Highlands tribe Headman, B’rni (Barney) Wewak. Our newly reorganized Australo/Oceania Linguistics Department provides the translation from the original Papuan Sepik dialect, below:
Greetings Friends who dwell in the beneficent sunshine and balmy temperatures of my once adopted home; where the luscious flesh of the avocado and the generous disposition of your women make me long for reunion. Tidings have reached me that one of your headmen has been disgraced (it could only have been through extreme cowardice in battle, or failure to meet his taro quota), has been exiled, and is being replaced by your odd and barbaric custom of “election.”
Furthermore, I understand that among the new candidates for headman is a member from a tribe located on the idolatrous shores of Fashion Island who is trying to pass as one of your own! Moreover, that this interloper is bribing tribe members with promises of bright feathers and glass beads!
Glass beads and cockatoo feathers for all. Plus a gift card good at Fashion Island!
Friends, how can this possibly be? Strange and sad news! That the people of my beloved Fullerton could entertain such perverse behavior from an outsider is certainly an omen of terrible times of trouble ahead.
And so I must exhort and plead with all the earnestness at my command to reject this alien influence in your midst before you become enslaved in the strange and perverse ways of these outsiders.
And so, Friends, farewell. May your benevolent deities continue to bless you with ample mangoes and confused enemies; and may the tree bark grubs fall easily into your banana leaves.
I lie about him and he tells the truth about me. That's not fair!
Too funny! Our inside sources tell us that Ackerwoman has filed an ethics complaint to the GOP Central Committee about a Norby flier supposedly tying her to her husband’s budget deals in Sacto.
Since Ackerwoman is tied at the hip to her husband Ackerman, it seems like a fairly reasonable association to make. After all, she was handsomely paid to raise funds for his campaigns so presumably she believed in the product she was pitching.
What’s really comical is that Ackerwoman has the nerve to show her mug in public at all after the scurrilous hit piece that she put out on Norby, let alone complain about “ethics”! The bogus piece she mailed out will no doubt earn her a cross-complaint when the Central Committee Ethics Committee next meets, as will the fact that she isn’t even living in the district where she only recently registered to vote.
Hypocrisy, deceit, dishonor, egotism, power fetish – the list just goes on and on. Who dug up these wretched people?
If you don't watch out, I may take your wallet, too!
In case any of you Friends happened to come across this 10/12/09 blog post in The Register, by Teri Sforza, you might have come away with the idea that Fullerton City Manager Chris Meyer was the white knight who came to Fullerton taxpayer’s rescue last year when the unions proposed to increase their retirement formula.
The usually healthy skepticism of Ms. Sforza seems to have been suspended in her conversations with Chris Meyer. He fooled her into thinking that he was the fiscally responsible official who put a stop to the craziness.
Wrong! That person was Councilman Shawn Nelson – who the blew the whistle on Meyer & Co., who had been trying for months to push the deal through quietly, behind closed doors. The poor public suckers who are ultimately on the hook weren’t supposed to know what was going on, so the agenda items were not described. It was only after Nelson went public with the news that a pension spike was on the way, and Steve Greenhut of the Register brought wider scrutiny to the secret plan, that it was ultimately dropped. The fact that the market had really tanked by then helped.
For Meyer to try to grab the credit a year later is pretty low. Especially when he was one of the prime architects of the plan. He must think we have real short memories. Here’s your real hero:
Shawn Nelson
Ultimately the credit goes to Nelson for the fortunate turn of events. For Meyer to take credit for any of this is just laughable.
Yesterday the MWD General Manager abandoned the proposed pension jump for employees that would have raised their retirement formula. Here’s the story. He conceded that the votes weren’t there. Which means, of course, that a vote was held, only not in public. Somehow that seems like it should be illegal – Brown Act-wise, but of course government bureaucracies are legally incapable of committing any sort of crime.
We’re disappointed because a public vote would have put our MWD Board Appointee-for-life, Jim Blake on the spot.
There to make the tough decisions, right?
All of his public employee lovin’ instincts would have pointed Blake in the direction of approval; under normal circumstances his pension-spiking Council overlords (and ladies) Bankhead, Quirk-Silva, Keller, and Jones would no doubt have backed him up. Who cares if water rates go up, right?
But these are not normal times, what with militant Republicans agitating for tax revolt and special elections putting the spotlight on people like MWD Boardmember Linda Ackerman – who also gets to dodge the responsibility of the vote. Very convenient!
Back in August it looked like a real good idea...
And the union members will never have the opportunity to know how their buddies would have voted.
With the light of public scrutiny shining on the usually opaque doings of the MWD, the whole thing has collapsed like a house of cards.
Yellowing Sub torpedoes self. Again. Still no bottom in sight.
In the latest dreary edition of her yellowing Fullerton Observer, editor and almost entirely irrelevant City Hall shill, Sharon Kennedy, tries to smear FFFF and our law suit against the City’s fraudulent redevelopment expansion.
Once again we are “discredited;” why? Oh that’s right: we are sick of idiots like Dick Jones getting re-elected with the complicity of Sharon Kennedy, and we attempted to do something about it by using the donkey’s own braying.
You are very repulsive. And discredited, too.
Of course Kennedy drags in the hated Chris Norby, who is not even a party to the law suit. She tries to dismiss our attorney Robert Ferguson (“serial anti-redevelopment lawyer”- you know like serial murderer, serial rapist, etc.) and even drags in Howard Ahmanson, whom none of us have ever even talked to, and even Ahmanson’s dead father! She left out Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, Father Coughlin, Howard Jarvis, and the Ku Klux Klan, but just give her time. There was only one factual statement in the whole embarrassing plop: FFFF is suing the City.
At the end of her screed Kennedy extrudes this priceless string of turds:
Unfortunately, though the city is expected to win the suit, the action will set back plans for needed improvements and cost the city money to litigate.
Really Sharon? How about a little reporting instead of your usual brainless editorializing? Who says the city is expected to win? Are you aware of Ferguson’s record? Who says “plans” will be set back? What plans? Where are they? Of what do they consist? Who says it will cost the city money to litigate? They’re “expected to win,” right?
Sharon, is it too much to hope that you will ever extract your cranium from its lodging place?
The hole may be a lot shallower than anyone ever suspected
If there were such a course for ambitious district hopping politicians, one of the basic lessons taught would surely be to learn the boundaries of your would-be district. It’s only polite, after all.
How should I know? I live in Irvine!
Okay. Linda Ackerman is a political socialite carpetbagger from Irvine, and can’t be expected to know the exact boundaries of the 72nd State Assembly District – the one she doesn’t live in. But, still, this has got to take the cake:
An Ackerman sign in Santa Ana’s City Place? News flash, Linda – Santa Ana is not in the 72nd District! Next time you run for office in a district in which you do not live, at least take the time to learn the cities in the district.
And thanks to Art Pedroza over at the Orange Juice blog who posted on this and helpfully provided the image.
I MISSED THIS LITTLE GEM WHEN I READ MICKADEIT’S PIECE EARLIER:
Ackerman says the two had a friendly beer at Elmer’s after Norby won. “I said, ‘Hey, things are going to be good. We’ve got five conservatives.’ But the votes kept coming out 4-1,” with Norby dissenting.
PROOF THAT ACKERMAN IS A LIAR – OR HAS A REAL, REAL BAD MEMORY. MOLLY McCLANAHAN WAS ON THE CITY COUNCIL THEN. THERE WERE NEVER 5 CONSERVATIVES. C’MON DICK. YOU REMEMBER MOLLY DON’T YOU? YOU KEPT HER FROM BEING MAYOR FOR 6 YEARS. YOU OUGHT TO. MAYBE LINDA LEQUIRE CAN HELP. HER MEMORY IS AT LEAST AS GOOD AS YOURS.
In a piece today the Register’s Frank Mickadeit recounts the history of the Norby-Ackerman feud – talking to both. Ackerman, it seems, has suddenly recovered memories of errant Norby behavior from the 1980s that went by the boards back in the 1995 Assembly campaign when Ackerman dove to the bottom of the campaign swamp and wallowed around there. But really.To mention completely undocumented events relating to sexual harassment, and to cite as an authority a dead man, is low even for Ackerman – and that’s saying a lot.
What makes the whole thing ring completely untrue is Ackerman’s assertion that Norby changed his voting positions on the dais from previously stated positions (actually it sounds like Ackerman is admitting to violating the Brown Act, but we’ll let that pass). He also purports that Norby called him up and threatened him. Pure unadulterated bullshit. But that’s Ackerman for you. Throw up garbage nobody can disprove and see what happens. Right out of the Richard M. Nixon playbook.
The real reason Norby got under Ackerman’s skin (and stayed there for 25 years – how’s that for weird) is that he had the audacity to vote no. Ackerman admits his annoyance with 4-1 votes. No teamwork there – and Ackerman was team captain. See the problem? Also Norby had the good sense to oppose egregious Redevelopment nonsense and Ackerman went for it. See the problem?
The crowning moment of the Mickadeit article is when he uncovered Linda Lequire, Fullerton’s former Queen of Spleen, from under her desert rock. Of course she backed up Ackerman’s story – in eerily identical detail. Since Lequire moved out of Fullerton some years ago we assume Mickadeit got her number from the Ackermans themselves – but only after Lequire had time to be coached on the nuances of the Ackerman strategy.
For those interested in a pyschological take on the Ackerman Obsession we refer readers to a previous post.
The other day this blog ran a post on the meaning of Repuglicanism, and shared some honest-to-goodness examples. But we left out one of the biggest: Anaheim’s own Mayor, Curt Pringle. Pringle has been using his political contacts and trading on his position for years as a Sacramento lobbyist and string puller.
What comes after A?
In case there was any doubt of Pringle’s status as a ‘Pug, the Ackerman campaign today crowed about getting Pringle’s endorsement for her carpetbagging run for the open 72nd Assembly seat. Well that figures. As a ‘Pug, Pringle is basically in it for what he can get out of it, and the constituents be damned. So what if the candidate lives in Irvine? Pringle can afford to be fast and loose with his endorsement, for what it’s worth. The 72nd includes only a small part of Anaheim. And he’s termed out of office next year.
A while back Congressman and purveyor of lousy RINO city council candidates, Ed Royce, was overheard bragging about the 800 pound gorilla he was going to be unleashing on Fullerton political scene. Who was this electoral juggernaut? None other than now former Police Chief Pat McKinley.
He's big. He's bad. He's baaaaack!
With McKinley’s endorsement of Mrs. Ackerman to replace her disgraced pal Mike Duvall, the pieces all seem to fit. It looks like McKinley has indeed decided to run for City Council next year and has worked out an endorsement swap with the Repuglican elite.
The choice of McKinley on the part of the Repugs would in no way be surprising. As an ex-cop he could be counted on to secure the law ‘n order vote as well as charm the bluehairs. He’s getting up there age-wise, and in poses zero political threat to the Repug machine. Who cares if he is an ex-city government employee and likely to go along with every staff proposal and boondoggle? He would be following in the proud footsteps of Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, Leland Wilson, Mike Clesceri, Julie Sa, Peter Godfrey, Buck Catlin, and even Dick Ackerman himself. Who knows? Maybe even the Yellowing Observers might go along for the ride. After all they went with Dick Jones, right?
Best of all, he’s not a female Democrat, the hideous monster that inhabits Ed Royce’s closet at night.
CONSIDER THIS: THE MONEY SAVED BY ELIMINATING THE USELESS BRICK COULD GO TO ESTABLISHING SOLAR PANELS ON THE BUILDING AND ENHANCING ITS SUSTAINABILITY QUOTIENT.
