Did Ackerman Break State Lobbying Law?

Heh-heh. If it's not done in a backroom it's not a real deal!
Heh-heh. If it's not done in a backroom it's not a real deal!

Acting as an agent for a group of OC Fairboard members that wants to purchase the OC Fairgrounds, Dick Ackerman lobbied to pass legislation last summer that would enable the sale. At least that’s what is being asserted at the OC Progressive blog, here. Apart from the dubious gain to the citizens of the State and Orange County, there is another problem. State law prohibits former Legislators from lobbying in Sacto for a year after they leave office. And Ackerman had only been out of office for six months. Here’s the awkard bit:

87406.  (a) This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the Milton Marks Postgovernment Employment Restrictions Act of 1990.
(b) No Member of the Legislature, for a period of one year afterleaving office, shall, for compensation, act as agent or attorney for, or otherwise represent, any other person by making any formal or informal appearance, or by making any oral or written communication, before the Legislature, any committee or subcommittee thereof, any present Member of the Legislature, or any officer or employee thereof, if the appearance or communication is made for the purpose of influencing legislative action
.

Hmm. As a law and order Repuglican Dick ought to know better. But maybe this is another one of those pesky rules that the ‘Pugs just like to call “unenforceable” or anti-free speech, or some other nonsense. It’s also worth noting that Ackerman’s clients on the Fair board are now accused of violating open meeting laws in order to orchestrate the insider scam.

Over at the OJ blog the irrepressible Vern Nelson is publicizing a protest meeting in Costa Mesa, and actually gives props to Mike Duvall for opposing the sale. Odd, if true, because you can bet Dick lobbied his political godson hard. Coincidentally, Duvall is now gone, and Ackerman’s wife, Ackerwoman, is running to replace him on a strong ethics platform.

Well, that platform just got another couple of its legs kicked out from under it. And remember, Dick “speaks for his wife.”

Okay, This Is Starting To Get A Little Embarrassing

What's next? "Former Hippies For Ackerman?"
What's next? "Former Hippies For Ackerman?"

The other day one of our Friends, an entrenched member of the Green Party, got a spam e-mail at his GP address from: drum roll…..Linda Ackerman.

Now there isn’t a chance in hell that this guy or any of his kindred spirits are going to vote for a Republican, let alone one that lives in Irvine; especially when they have a perfectly fine Greenie in Jane Rands.

We have already related how Mrs. Ackerman has tried to court non-Reeps by slithering out from under her own Repuglican rock; only to alienate local Republican stalwarts. She’s still trying to scrape the elephant dung off her shoes after that misstep.

We have also been told that Ackerwoman is advertising on cable TV during the day. Well there’s a no-brainer. And we mean that literally.

I gave Probolsky fifteen grand so I guess I'll buy another vowel
I gave Adam Probolsky fifteen grand and he told me I look good on TV

Campaigning for Fun And Profit!

Friends, check out the Linda Ackerwoman campaign expense report at the California Secretary of State’s website.

We noticed this odd line item.

10/19/2009 ACKERMAN, DICK OFFICE EXPENSES   $654.40

Ackerwoman’s campaign forked over $654 bucks to her husband under the crypric description of “office expenses.”

Heh heh. Never miss a trick.
Heh heh. Never miss a trick.

Could Dick actually be charging his wife’s campaign for some sort of services rendered? Well, why not? She made a killing as a “consultant” on his campaigns, and what the Hell, turnabout is fair play, right? Too bad the campaign won’t turn a profit.

We do have to wonder what kind of total Dick will rack up by the time Ackerman, Inc. is done squeezing every drop out of lobbyists.

The Return of Ackerwoman: IRVINE CARPETBAGGER

Remember this one? It seems that some enterprising Russians have been sharing this clip with their pals in Mockba. So we thought, what the heck! If it’s good enough for Ivan, it’s good enough for the voters of the 72nd District – to be reminded THAT ACKERMAN, INC. DOES NOT LIVE IN OUR DISTRICT! OH, NO. NOT EVEN CLOSE. THE WOMAN WHO WANTS TO REPRESENT NORTH ORANGE COUNTY IN THE STATE ASSEMBLY LIVES IN IRVINE, AND HAS DONE SO FOR TEN YEARS!

Precinct Walk for Chris Norby this Saturday

It’s time to bring an end to the carpetbagging campaign of Linda Ackerman. Please join Chris Norby in a precinct walk for his campaign for the 72nd Assembly District.

Norbyphoto
This race is an opportunity to send a reformer to Sacramento and to say “NO” to the business as usual politicians and special interest groups.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2009
10am-1pm

Meet at:
CHRIS NORBY’S HOME
216 N. YALE
FULLERTON

Morning refreshments will be provided. For further questions or to confirm your attendance, please call 714-937-1005.

FFFF Undercover Surveillance Unit Digs Deep, Strikes Gold!

Oh, no. Not again!
Oh, no. Not again!

At least they said they did. We will certainly forgive you if you have your doubts. The boys in The Van were given an extra allocation of medicinal mushrooms after their last supposed Ackerman phone call coup, and, well, that’s an ingredient that could produce almost any kind of weird hallucination.

Anyway, here’s what the Undercover Surveillance Unit claims to have captured. Make of it what you will.

(phone ringing)

Dick Jones: Ahhm a comin’ (heavy panting noises) Hello?

Dick Ackerman: (a grunt) Dick Ackerman here.

DJ: Dick! (wheezing sounds) Sorry, ah’m a little winded. Long way from the privvy.

DA: Quit talking and listen. That asshole Nygren did a poll. Roski’s pulling out. Two goddam miserable weeks left and that punk Roski’s pulling out on me. They’re all out to get me. No respect. Goddammit I’m Dick Ackerman. Okay, look, I’m outta dough. We’re outta dough. Linda’s outta dough. Hitting up all my Fullerton friends. Our Fullerton friends. Linda’s Fullerton friends.

DJ: A poll (wheezing and coughing). What kinda poll? (coughing)

DA: (several guttural noises) Don’t worry about that. Forget about it. I need some dough. We need some dough. Linda needs some dough. We gotta keep hitting that bastard Norby. Right up ’til the end. At the end. After the end (distinct snarling sound followed by an apparent bark).

DJ: That Norby, boy, he’s a real troublemaker. A real Brutus. Et tu Brutus? (unattributable sputtering sounds)

DA: What?

DJ: Huh?

DA: (a series of staccato grunts) Shut up and listen. What can I put you down for? The limit, right?

DJ: Ahhumm. Well, ah ain’t gonna hide the fact, Dick. S’been a tough year. Reeeal tough! (two phlegmmycoughs)

DA: (a snarl) Why you ingrate, if it wasn’t for me you’d just be another loud-mouthed Rotarian. You’ve got more money than Croesus. Sell one of your thirteen cars and pony up, goddammit!

DJ: There was a poll? (more asthmatic wheezing)

DA: (a bark) Goddammit you jackass, forget about the poll! I’m putting you down for $1200. A guy’s coming up to Fullerton today to wash my car at Dolan’s place. I’ll send him over to pick up the check.

DJ: Norby. That sumbitch tried to stop our Redevelopment expansion. That’s a brilliant plan. He’s a trouble maker. And he’s buddies with Bushala. Suin’ his own city! Got a name fer boys like that back in Galveston: sumbitch.

DA: Yeah. I tried to shut up that punk too. Didn’t work. Everybody’s useless. Out to get me. Get us. Get Linda. (several low growling sounds) But forget about that.

DJ: (a long wheeze) Heh-heh, did ah ever tell ya about the Eye-talian family that used to run Galveston?

DA: What? Shut up and listen. My boy will be around for the check at ten or eleven. His names’s Mike. Or Matt. Or Milt. Something like that. Won’t do my tires right (a snarl).

DJ: Huh?

DA What?

DJ: There was a poll?

Unidentified Female Voice in Background: Dick, that white van is back behind the statue garden wall!

DA: Hell. Damn peacocks are gonna go off again. Okay. Get off the line you idiot. And write that check. Now.

Is The Deluge of Ackerwoman Slime Over?

Well, the ol' bucket is finally empty
Is the ol' bucket finally empty?

Friends, have you noticed the sudden subsidence of big glossy mailers sent out by Ackerman, Inc. and Alliance for California’s Tomorrow (ACT) attacking Chris Norby? You know, the ones that take uncorroborated testimony from a disgruntled ex-County employee fired for misfeasance and turned into third person language to make it look like somebody was a witness to her bogus claims?

We were getting pieces almost everyday (sometimes two) ladled out of the Ackerwoman slop-bucket, but that has stopped. Even Ackerwoman’s obsequious press agent Martin Wisckol has noticed it – and actually tried to figure out why. The ACT has run out of money. The last dough they spent went to a poll – and no more money has come in since.

Possible poll results that look bad for Ackerwoman, plus the fact that the majority of permanent absentee voters who are voting have already mailed in their ballots may well mean that the investment value in Ackerwoman’s candidacy has been reassessed.

So, have Ed Roski, the Indian casinos, and the other anti-Norby interests finally given up on the Ackerwoman campaign? Wisckol asked Jim Nygren, the parasite who runs ACT. Nygren said he was told to keep quiet. Apparently Roski doesn’t care for idle chatter.

Draw whatever conclusions you choose.

“Education Leaders” Line Up For Deceit and Falsehood

Minus Duncan

It was a fun party with an open bar. And then Dave Lopez showed up…

We missed an Ackerwoman press release about a week and a half ago (sorry but we really hate going to that site). It touted Fullerton “educational leaders” who have endorsed Linda Ackerman: Hilda Sugarman, Ellen Ballard, Minard Duncan, and Lynn Thornley – a who’s who of Fullerton RINOs and liberal educrat types. It’s really hard to find any term other than “followers” to describe this little band, but such are the extravagances of campaign rhetoric.

Our old pal Minard was even assigned his own hilarious quotation: “I first got to know Linda when she was a member of the PTA at Rolling Hills School in Fullerton. She has been a vital member of our community for over 30 years…” A member of the PTA? Well whoop-de-doo! Is that Duncan’s threshold for being qualified to serve in the Sate Assembly? Guess so. And of course trust Minard to use the wrong (present) tense. She hasn’t lived in our community for over 30 years. She spent the last ten living in another community!

Well, we know Ackerwoman’s residency is a lie, even if Minard won’t talk about it: she lives in Irvine and rents an address in Fullerton. She also advertises herself in this press release as “an independent businesswoman” and we now know that that’s a falsehood on two counts. We have also discovered her fake charity that diverts lobbyists contributions towards Hawaiian vacations for her and her pals in the legislature, although such flagrant fraudulence seems not to have made much of an impression on Duncan and his pals on the FSD board.

It’s sort of depressing to see these folks turning a blind eye to prevarication and misrepresentation. Makes you wonder a bit about what kind of values are being passed along via the FSD.

“No New Tax” Ackerwoman Raised Water Rates by 20% in April. Where There’s a Will There’s a Way!

I was dizzy from balancing all those budgets...
Maybe I was just dizzy from balancing all those budgets...

UPDATE: HERE’S AN INFORMATIVE POST WE RAN A  COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO ABOUT HOW GOVT REVENUE RAISERS DO IT AND EVADE THE “TAXER” LABEL. THE OTHER GIMMICK IS ‘FEE” INCREASES. IT TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ACKERWOMAN’S HOLLOW NO TAX PLEDGE.

Yesterday we published an e-mail from Joe Sipowicz about the lame-brain “no tax pledge” signed by Mrs. Linda Ackerman, presumably to shore up uncertainty about her conservative credentials. She needs to.

As Joe trenchantly pointed out, there are all sorts of ways to raise revenue without calling them taxes. Let’s cast our minds back a few months.

Back on April 14 of this year, never dreaming of ever becoming a candidate for political office, Linda Ackerman went along with the pro-government revenue crowd – voting to raise MWD water rates by an astounding 19.7%. That’s right folks. A 20% commodity increase for the water MWD provides to local water purveyors – like the City of Fullerton; and to the OC Water District for basin replenishment.

Here’s the excerpt from the April 14, 2009 MWD meeting minutes.

47859 Regarding the water rates and charges, Business and Finance Committee Chairman Grunfeld remarked on the unprecedented amount of time both Directors and staff spent on the rates and charges, keeping in mind their fiduciary duties and general responsibilities to the 19 million people that Metropolitan serves via their respective member agencies.  Committee Chairman Grunfeld then moved, seconded by Director Santiago, that the Board adopt the CEQA determination and approve Option #2 set forth in the revised board letter signed by the General Manager on April 7, 2009, with an amendment to add Item (d) and:

a. Approve an 8.8 percent increase in water rates, plus a $69/AF Delta Supply Surcharge for a total average increase of 19.7 percent, effective September 1, 2009; b. Adopt Resolution 9087 to Impose the Readiness-to-Serve Charge;
Minutes -9- April 14, 2009
c. Adopt Resolution 9088 to Impose the Capacity Charge, said resolutions entitled:

Resolution 9087: RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIXING AND ADOPTING A READINESS-TO-SERVE CHARGE FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2010
Resolution 9088 RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIXING AND ADOPTING A CAPACITY CHARGE EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2010
and

d. Direct staff to work with the member agencies and the Board to evaluate the historical cost-of-service methodology utilized by Metropolitan, including a review of additional fixed charges, including property taxes, with the intent to ensure that all rates and charges recover the full cost of service when the Board establishes rates for the 2010/11 fiscal year .
Comments were made by Directors for and against the motion with emphasis on the treatment surcharge and decreasing reserves.    The Chair called for a vote on the motion.
The following is a record of the vote on the motion:

Ayes:  Anaheim (Dir. M. Edwards, 3,466 votes), Beverly Hills (Dir. Wunderlich, 2,033 votes), Central Basin Municipal Water District (Dirs. Apodaca and Hawkins, 11,185 votes), Eastern Municipal Water District (Dir. Record, 6,731 votes), Inland Empire Utilities Agency (Dir. Santiago, 8,440 votes), Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (Dir. Peterson, 1982 votes), Long Beach (Dir. Lowenthal, 3,984 votes), Los Angeles (Ayes:  Dirs. Grunfeld and J. Murray.  Absent:  Dirs. Quiñonez and Sutley.  40,455 votes), Municipal Water District of Orange County (Ayes:  Dirs. Ackerman, Dick, and Foley.  Absent:  Dir. Bakall.  34,917 votes), San Diego County Water Authority (Dirs. Barrett, Lewinger, Pocklington, and Steiner, 38,213 votes), San Fernando
Minutes -10- April 14, 2009
(Dir. Ballin, 150 votes), Santa Ana (Dir. Griset, 2,169 votes), Santa Monica (Dir. Abdo, 2,332 votes), West Basin Municipal Water District (Dirs. Gray and Little, 13,663 votes), Western Municipal Water District of Riverside County (Dir. Lopez, 8,456 votes).  Total 178,176 votes.

Noes:  Burbank (Dir. Brown, 1,803 votes), Calleguas Municipal Water District (Dir. Grandsen, 8,160 votes), Foothill Municipal Water District (Dir. J. Edwards, 1,272 votes), Fullerton (Dir. Blake, 1,457 votes), Glendale (Dir. Kavounas, 2,226 votes), San Marino (Dir Morris, 399 votes), Three Valleys Municipal Water District (Dir. De Jesus, 5,031 votes), Torrance (Dir. Wright, 2,186 votes), Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District (Dir. Robinson, 7,257 votes).  Total 29,791 votes.    Not Participating:  Pasadena (Dir. Brick, 2,037 votes).  Total 2,037 votes.    Absent:  Compton (Dir. Arceneaux, 362 votes).  Total 362 votes.
The Chair declared the recommended water rates and charges and resolutions to impose charges for fiscal year 2009/10 passed by 178,176 ayes, 29,791 noes, 2,037 not participating, and 362 absent
.

Thanks, for that one Linda! Anything else you’d like to share with us?

Fullerton Redevelopment Bimbo Joins 72nd Campaign!

Hey, big boy, wanna create a Redevelopment Project Area?
Hey, big boy, wanna create a Redevelopment Project Area?

Today the fraudulent “Alliance for California’s Tomorrow,” the pay to play slush fund that’s been attacking Chris Norby, recorded an interesting contributor: Marshall Linn. Mr. Linn is the President of Urban Futures, the Redevelopment “consultant” that cooked up the totally bogus Redevelopment expansion scheme for Fullerton. He kicked in $2,000.

Well, now we take that personally!   Urban Futures is nothing more than an opinion for hire – hacks and paid Redevelopment agency hookers. They make Mr. Linn’s nice living for him by creating phony justifications for Redevelopment: recognizing blight where none exists. FFFF is suing the City of Fullerton for its fraudulent Redevelopment expansion, and now the president of this parasitic enterprise is trying to defeat Chris Norby – enemy of eminent domain and Redevelopment abuse.

Well, Marshall, thanks for popping up like the weed you are. This will make our dealings with the city that much more entertaining!