Boohooism Archives - Page 26 of 27 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 27, 2010Boohooism

The Truth About Matthew Cunningham

A Friend pointed out something that bears mentioning for those of us that have some sense of ethics but may be naïve when it comes to blogs and how some operate.

Did you know that Matthew Cunningham has another website besides the oh-so Mauve County? It’s Pacific-Strategies where he brags about “employing innovative social media strategies to advance your message and create community” and “influencing opinion leaders through via both new and tradional media”. Nice typo’s Matt. Clearly he is the superior communicator! I’m not too sure what this clown is trying to say with this: “successfully guiding your projecting throuygh the government approval process” and “providing seasoned counsel to ensure your message is taken seriously by opinion leaders ad key decision-makers”. It is hard to take anyone seriously that brags about communication and swaying public opinion when the author can’t even complete a sentence. A wordsmith he is not but maybe a word-butcher. Just imagine a game of scrabble with him.

Ah, but now Matt’s “strategies” at Mauve County are clear! He gets to be a paid consultant (I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually give him a dime) via one company, Pacific-Strategies, while he attempts in vain to sway public opinion on his Mauve site by “employing” those innovative social media strategies. I speculate that those strategies include but are not limited to the hiring of extra bloggers to post pro threads for Cunningham’s paid cause and then the twerp has these same extras jump in and lob personal attacks to discredit any opposition or support for their paid cause. “We’re experienced with effective strategies for favorably influencing elected leaders, government officials, and community and opinion leaders—building coalitions and mobilizing opinion in support of your goals, and neutralizing critics.”(http://www.pacific-strategies.com/collaboration/) So his job is to NEUTRALIZE CRITICS! If you pay him some money or do him a favor, he will NEUTRALIZE critics. Is he talking about offing someone? Bumping someone off? Or just a shotgun approach for attacking anyone with a different opinion, especially one supported by facts?

After reading these carefully crafted words from Matthew Cunningham own website, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind just how Red County operates under his direction and the truth behind Matthew Cunningham slanderous lies. He is completely void of any moral or ethical foundation which a normal person might be grounded in. In his own words, Cunningham says “More and more people get more and more of their information from new media such as blogs, Twitter and FaceBook, and your organization needs to engage them in those arenas. Properly used, new media tools powerfully enhance your organization’s ability to not only communicate with your target audience, but build trust and community.” Building trust through outright lies and deception is usually called FRAUD. That is particularly bad when your own mission statement reads: “Red County strives to provide intelligent, well-informed insights into local political issues affecting the lives of readers in each market we serve. In striving to support the ideals of limited government and individual liberty, Red County will hold the mirror up to Republicans and Democrats alike.” Clearly, there is no mirror in the arsenal at Fraud County.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough! Anyone with their own website, including FFFF, can determine visitor’s internet provider address much the same way we use caller ID. If you are a genuine visitor and you leave genuine comments, no problem…unless of course you are on Cunningham’s web site. Bloggers on Blogspot.com don’t normally have that level of access, so no need to worry about posting on those sites. The real concern should come when a commentator dishes out insider information on a government agency and the head of that agency has the blogger in his back pocket. Then the blogger gets to out the commentator. It is not ethical to throw a genuine whistle-blower under the bus but we are not talking about an ethical person, now are we. It is reminiscent of the reports of Cunningham outing of sex abuse victims. I don’t know if Cunningham was actually paid to out anyone, but the content of his other website begs the question.

There are a lot of talented people reading this who are much smarter than me and I encourage you to do some digging yourself. After I did my own digging into this, I realized just how biased I have become against Red County and several of their resident (generally newer) bloggers. Therefore, it is imperative that you check for yourself. I’m no great sleuth like the other FFFF’ers but if we can shed a little light up this dark hole, all the better.

I would love to know the names of anyone who has ever contributed a penny to Pacific-Strategies and follow that paper trail.

January 20, 2010January 26, 2010Boohooism

As The Colony Turns: Galloway Moving Again

by The Fullerton Shadow10 Comments

lorrisfortune — You will soon be living in a new home.

Ah! The tribulations of homelessness! OC 4th Supervisorial wannabe Lorri Galloway is on the move again, kicked out of her so-called new “home” at 1155 East Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim.

It seems that the big house she was supposedly living in had no permit for a residential use – it’s an office; fortunately her landlord, Anaheim trash contractor Bill Taormina is obliging. He’s going to move the Galloway family into the studio loft in the adjacent “carriage house” that does have a permit for residential occupancy. The Register’s Jennifer Muir documents the latest twist in the Galloway saga, here.

Although Ms. Muir links to the Red and Blue County blogs’ attacks and apologetics, she doesn’t mention that we were the first to discover the whole carpetbagging scam.

Anyhoo, we are now supposed to believe that Galloway is moving into a one room apartment while her landlord tries to get the big house permitted for residential use? That ought to be fun! Taormina will have to apply for a permit, have a public hearing in front of a zoning administrator, then have that decision inevitably appealed to the Planning Commission, etc., and all the while with poor Lorri having to deal with the embarrassment of the whole shady thing.

Electric_Hot_Plate — The kitchen is to die for.

Well, you go girl, and good luck cooking tasty meals on that hot plate!

January 18, 2010January 18, 201072nd Election

Longshots Have Surprise Up Sleeve?

by Joe Sipowicz1 Comment

In today’s Register our old amigo Martin Wisckol cobbled together a piece about, well, hard to say exactly what it was about, but among other things it contained some gems from OC Democratic Party boss Frank Barbaro.

frank-barbaro-loves-mike-carona — Of course it's all bullshit!

It seems Frank is having buyer’s remorse after the singularly humiliating asswhipping Fred MacMurray had laid down on him by Chris Norby in the 72nd Special Election. Now, it seems Barbaro is wishing Sharon Quirk had stayed in the race.

“If we’d have had Sharon Quirk, I think we would have had a different result,” said Barbaro, a model of perseverance and optimism already looking ahead to the reelection Norby will seek later in the year. “We might have some surprises for him in November.”

Might have some surprises? Hell, the Sun might collapse in on itself, too.

To surprise Norby in November means the Dems have to have a credible candidate on board almost any day now. But who? Galloway now claims to live in the district, but is tied up elsewhere; Quirk-Silva? Maybe, but the last bug out seemed a bit, well, unusual. Hey, how ’bout Pam Keller? Nope; running for re-election. Rosie Espinosa? See Galloway comment, above.

So the Dems got nothin’. Just whistlin’ in the dark. All Norby has to do is make sure the mike is off.

January 17, 2010January 17, 2010Boohooism

Say What’s An Executive Director Do, Anyway?

by Mr. Peabody27 Comments

Update: Ten days ago I posted this piece about the Fullerton Collaborative’s empty on-line calendar. I opined that maybe it was the executive director’s job to keep it updated, and archly suggested that maybe there wouldn’t be that much on it anyway. We received the usual irrelevant and hardly coherent comment-blather from Collaborative member Minard Duncan informing us all about the wonderful work Keller does.

Well, the calendar is still empty for all of 2010! Apparently Minard didn’t bother to let Keller know that the on-line public has no immediate information about what the Collaborative is up to; or, if he did, Keller decided that she was too busy to catch us up on what she’s planning for 2010. C’mon, Pam. You can’t be that busy!

The Fullerton Collaborative’s website calendar page declares ever so earnestly:

There are so many ways to get involved in our community. During the next few months there will be many fundraisers and community events to benefit local non-profit organizations and educational institutions.

And yet a perusal of the monthly calendars shows nothing. Blank. A completely clean slate, clean for all of 2010, in fact. Check it out if don’t believe me.

Now maybe I’m sort of funny this way, but I figure if you’ve got an executive director whom you are paying over $50K (for a part-time job) that individual ought to be able to at least take a few moments out of her busy day to fill in some of the blanks on the calendar. I mean, that’s Pam Keller’s job isn’t it?

pamkeller — I just got tired of doing it. Nobody ever reads that calendar, anyway...

Of course if Keller actually does get around to filling out the calendar, then fellow collaborators and even the public may find out how little fifty-thou buys you nowadays, executive director-wise.

As this blog noticed last year, Keller is not a Collaborative employee, but a Fullerton School District employee contracted to work for the Collaborative – where her job entails raising money from members and donors to pay the FSD for her dubious services. Sweet gig. No boss, no oversight, not even much paperwork.

Maybe in 2010 she can get around to filling in the Collaborative calendar.

January 13, 2010January 13, 2010Boohooism

Minard Duncan and the Doctrine of Unaccountability

by Mr. Peabody9 Comments

A few days ago on this post about Pam Keller’s blank Collaborative calendar, we received a visit from FSD trustee Minard Duncan. As is usual, Minard’s visit was vacuous and inane. Just about what you’d expect from an educrat. Minard admitted his comments were just made to “rile” us up.

But what was really interesting was when Minard dropped this spud on the Friends, unwittingly revealing a mindset that reveals all the things wrong with Fullerton’s elected representatives:

School board members do not have any power as individuals. It takes three board members out of a five member board agreeing on an issue to have authority. We are the boss of the district superintendent and no one else but not as individuals only as a collective board.

See, Minard indicates that authority (power) is only to be exercised by a majority, and, moreover, through the conduit of a Superintendent – thus effectively removing the “elected” from actually having to do much of anything except hire a single underling and ratify his decisions. And of course the consequence of Minard-think is that the responsibility and accountability attendant upon elected office is conveniently dissipated through delegation to a host of protected bureaucrats who are never held accountable either.

But whoever thought that the absence of a majority meant that a boardmember was somehow robbed of any of the authority vested in him by the electorate? While it takes a board majority to act affirmatively on a specific issue, the authority of an elected is indivisible. Minard is not just a third of a potential majority, nor does he represent only a theoretical one fifth of the property tax payers and parents – although he doesn’t seem to grasp this idea.

It is each boardmember’s responsibility to concern himself with everything that goes on in his district and to take responsibility for it.

Minard-think leads to the complete dereliction of responsibility that seems to obtain not only at the FSD, but also at Fullerton City Hall, too, where electeds delegate responsibility right along with the authority they invest in their City Manager. And of course as any honest council watcher knows, the Council, through laziness and/or inclination, is completely in thrall to the Chief Bureaucrat who is supposed to be working for them. It’s rather like the Stockholm Syndrome.

And you know what? A lot of electeds and their bureaucratic masters sure seem to like it that way.

January 5, 2010January 5, 2010Boohooism

The OCCCO Scam

by The Desert Rat7 Comments

Earlier today a Friend tipped us off to this self-serving video produced by OCCCO (Orange County Congregation Community Organization) touting its alleged accomplishments. The whole thing is really embarrassing. Trying to take credit for Anaheim’s “$100,000,000” housing policy is just laughable.

But when this group of group of lefty do-gooders bragged about their successful petition to the Fullerton City Council for west Fullerton to be included in the fraudulent Redevelopment expansion, some of us in the editorial room got pissed off. Cut to the 7:30 mark of the youtube clip to avoid a lot of uber-mind-numbing drivel.

Pam Keller4 — Oh yeah, I got a posse and man are they dumb...

First, we have already demonstrated the not too coincidental elevation of some woman called Lee Chalker to the Board of Directors of the Fullerton Collaborative with her sudden interest in Redevelopment issues, here; could any reasonable human being believe that Chalker and her OCCCO pals weren’t persuaded by Collaborative Executive Director and City Council woman Keller to go to public meetings and pimp something they knew absolutely nothing about? They got $26,000 bucks a couple of years ago for “community organizing” from Keller so maybe they figured they owed her, quid pro quo.

But to take credit for their stoogery in a fraudulent political act as an accomplishment not only suggests a complete lack of real accomplishment, but it also suggests a moral bankruptcy, too. Either that or a really low level of intelligence.

Well, really, what did you expect?

January 4, 2010January 4, 2010Behind Closed Doors

“Fiscal Conservative” Pam Keller Blows More Than $1200 Bucks At Local League Of Cities Meeting

by The Desert Rat40 Comments

If it's in my interest, it's in the public's interest, too! — If it's in my interest, it's in the public interest, too!

Hoo Boy! So this is how a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative squanders our money.

In the fall of 2008 Pam Keller attended the California League of Cities Annual Meeting, a useless agglomeration of bureaucrats and bureaucrat lovin’ electeds who like to micromanage everybody’s life while we pay for it.

The event was held at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, a luxury hotel, exactly 26.1 miles from Fullerton. The distance is so vast that Pam decided to stay at the hotel for three nights and amassed a bill of $1236.10. Check out the payment vouchers, the hotel invoice, and even a handwritten request for nine buck’s reimbursement for parking, here.

Seems Pam also took along a guest, and, among other treats, they may have availed themselves of a trip to the LB Aquarium that was included in the deal.

Even if we disregard the questionable usefulness of attending one of these taxpayer funded boondoggles, what on earth was the need for Keller to stay at a hotel whose drive-time distance Mapquest lists at a mere 28 minutes?

And I have to wonder how all of Keller’s lefty knee-jerk supporters could possibly countenance this sort of profligacy of public money. $1,200 could be used collaboratively to feed a lot of homeless people, right?

Now to be perfectly fair (I am a very fair person), Fullerton’s two RINOs, Don Bankhead and Dick Jones also attended this conference and also racked up big bills. At least Jones went alone.

Friends, this is likely not the only Keller taxpayer-funded junket and rest assured, we will be providing examples of others in the very near future if we find them.

January 4, 2010January 4, 2010Boohooism

Babs Giasone Hits New High in Low

by The Fullerton Shadow7 Comments

And by low we mean a really, really, rock-bottom sort of low.

A helpful Friend shared this link to a Barbara Giasone News Tribune, er, “article” from 12/21/09 about some former florist delivery boy and long-mustache contest award winner who showed up at the Fullerton Library impersonating Gene Simmons of the 1970 rock band KISS. This seems to be his current means of employment. Good thing Barbara was on the scene to relay the crucial breaking news to her readers. What if we had missed this? Ha! Just think of all that time other reporters have wasted going to journalism school!

But seriously (!) now, Friends, we’re a city of 140,000 people and this is the sort of thing the Register/News Tribune newshawks think Fullertonians want to see:

Another scoop for Babs... — Another big scoop for Babs...

But what do we know? This is the same “journalist” who was recently recognized by some sort of “Women in Leadership” event for her achievements. And Pam Keller has publicly praised her as “our wonderful Barbara Giasone.” Perhaps this is exactly the kind of thing Fullertonians want to see! If so, it is the kind of thing we deserve.

Well, maybe not all of us.

December 28, 2009December 28, 2009Boohooism

Just One, Big Happy Family

by The Desert Rat14 Comments

I just came across this youtube clip from last summer. It is about our congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and her performance at some sort of “prayer vigil” organized last August, ostensibly to supplicate the Good Lord for the provision of universal health care.

As you can see, Loretta’s not real interested in praying, or even in keeping her big bazoo shut, but rather in the worst kind of political self-promotion. But Ms. Motormouth and her relationship with the Almighty is not the main topic here.

Instead I direct your attention to the promoters of this alleged “prayer vigil,” the Orange County Congregational Community Organization, known as OCCCO. Sound vaguely familiar? Last summer some of its members popped up out of the blue at a city council meeting to speak in favor of the proposed Redevelopment expansion. FFFF subsequently discovered that Pam Keller’s “Fullerton Collaborative” had bestowed $26,000 on the OCCCO for “community organizing.” Fullerton Harpoon wrote about this stuff here. The blog has already noted that Collaborative director (and Fullerton City Councilwoman) Pam Keller is a paid employee of the Fullerton School District.

You can see by the video that despite the presence of a somebody who looks likes he’s got a mitre on his head (A bishop?) these folks are really all about politics, too.

Apparently some folks in Fullerton such as Sharon Kennedy see nothing wrong with this happy intertwine of religion and the politics of cash, the laundering of government funds that ultimately find their way into overt political causes, and finally with the obvious attempt by Pam Keller to use the tangled network to help promote fraudulent and misguided “economic development” policy by the City. Actually these people seem to like the web.

I don’t like it, and neither should you. There is an insidious process going on here and it ain’t good.

Comments?

December 24, 2009December 28, 2009Boohooism

In Fullerton It’s Only Over When Staff Says Its Over

by Jan Florys Dog6 Comments

I don't mind being led around just so long as I don't know where I'm going. — I don't mind being led around just as long as I don't know where they're taking me!

A few items in 2009 have caused me to reflect on the way things go in Fullerton, the way things have always gone, in fact. My poodle friends have a saying: la plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme chose. Man, that’s Fullerton all over!

In Fullerton, no screw-up, no cluster f, no civic disaster ever goes away if the city staff doesn’t want it to. They’ll dig in their heels and start the ol’ push-back as soon as it looks like something they really want is about to get torpedoed.

Consider the absolutely horrible decision to relocate the McDonald’s outlet at a jaw-dropping cost of six million bucks. Not even the most compliant council could swallow that one, and ours pulled the plug on it (so we thought, foolish us!) last summer. But within a a few weeks, the Redevelopment staff cooked up a “new” plan for the brainless “Fox Block” scheme. And guess what? It too, involved relocating McDonald’s – just not all the way to the corner. Geez, wasn’t anybody paying attention? That episode was so bad that it really crossed the line of insubordination. But did anybody on the council say a word? ‘Course not. This is Fullerton!

Of course the real problem is is the sort of people that we keep electing to the City Council. The mentally lame, the incompetent, the inert; people who by political and personal inclination identify with the bureaucracy instead of the citizens and taxpayers of Fullerton; people who dodge responsibility. Of the current crop, only Shawn Nelson really seems to take offense at being lied to and led around by the nose like a prize bull. And speaking of bull, Sharon Quirk seems to have finally realized that her advisors have their own agendas that more likely than not are incongruous with the interests of the rest of us. Well, that’s some progress, anyway.

What will 2010 bring? More of the same, no doubt. This is Fullerton. If there’s any hope for us the brain-dead gerontocracy must go. And by gerontocracy I mean the ossified geriatric thinking displayed by councilmembers of all ages, and the interests they represent. Of course Bankhead must go. Jones, too. And Keller. But if they’re replaced with stooges like Marty Burbank or Pat McKinley what the hell’s the difference?

Well let’s throw out a few issues to track to see how bad, or good, things will be in 2010 as far as accountability goes:

Will the council finally once and for all end the Fox Block scam?

Will Keller, Quirk, and Nelson stick to their promise to put the issue of term limits on the June ballot?

Will the council quit wasting time and energy on the idiotic Transportation Center master plan?

Will the council give up on the bogus Redevelopment expansion?

Will the council ditch the moronic “at-large” members of commissions altogether?

Will the council demand accountability on the UP park scandal before they sink another dime into more Redevelopment of it? Will they tell the city manager to quit making unilateral policy decisions?

Will the council have the courage (very little required really) to forget the useless UP ROW “trail”?

Will the council quit subsidizing and encouraging illegal behavior by downtown bars and dance halls?

Well, really, the list is endless and the Friends could no doubt supply their own favorites. Bon chance!