Category: Statewide Stuff

Fullerton is in the state of California, which has many problems of its own.

Posted onAhmad Zahra

Elevators to Nowhere – The Death March Isn’t Over

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It may have been expensive, but it sure was unnecessary…

Two years ago FFFF ran a series of posts based on the observations of “Fullerton Engineer” about the ludicrous elevators addition to the existing bridge at the Depot. Nobody wanted this project except for city staff and only because the dime was somebody else’s. And so a strange bureaucratic odyssey began with fits and starts of activity to waste $4,000,000 of transit money doled out by distant agencies. Then in 2017 the monster was shocked back to life with an infusion of $600,000 of Fullerton’s own cash. Ouch. Let’s let our Friend, Fullerton Engineer take it from here:

It appears as if the depot elevator project is grinding to a conclusion: the elevator foundations and steel are finally done and the traction elevators are almost complete. Are congratulations in order? Not quite, although I suspect there will be a victory celebration and ribbon cutting and back-pats all around when the City Council takes its first expensive elevator ride.

A construction sequence that should have taken perhaps seven months has dragged on for two years. That’s right – two years. No one in charge seems to have offered any explanation, probably because no one in authority has ever asked for any. As I noted in the spring of 2017, the request for more money was shrouded in double talk and obscurantism. Somebody was hiding something.

Over the past two years as I have driven by the site it was more likely that I saw no one working as when I did. So what were all those people who were being paid, and well paid, to oversee this fiasco doing? Who knows? Have delay claim change orders ever been processed? Have they been rejected? Is a lawsuit coming or is it just going to end in a feeding frenzy on a complicit public agency? PRA requests may shed light on this disaster, if in fact they are not ignored by the city’s lawyer.

Don Hoppe, our former City Engineer has disappeared into a well-pensioned retirement. His replacement, a professionally unqualified bureaucrat will take no heat for this embarrassment. It’s no-fault government  where the taxpayer foots the bill.

— The Fullerton Engineer

 

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Posted onFullerton City Council

Quirk-Silva Duo Under Investigation for Retaliation Against Sexual Assault Victim

by 31 Comments on Quirk-Silva Duo Under Investigation for Retaliation Against Sexual Assault Victim

Here’s a convoluted story from the Los Cerritos News about Fullerton councilmember Jesus Silva and his wife, California State Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva.

EXCLUSIVE: Fullerton Asm. Quirk-Silva Under Investigation for Influence Peddling and Retaliation Against Accuser of Asm. Cristina Garcia

The California State Assembly investigation involving groping allegations against Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia leveled by Cerritos resident Daniel Fierro has morphed into a wide-ranging political influence and retaliation investigation revolving around Garcia, 65th District Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton), and her husband, Fullerton Council Member Jesus Silva.

Jesus and Sharon are accused of threatening a businessman with political retribution if he didn’t fire a public relations firm run by Daniel Fierro, a former Assembly staffer who accused Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D) of groping him earlier this year.

During the meeting, Quirk-Silva echoed her husband’s statements and made it clear to the businessman that he should fire Fierro because of his sexual harassment and groping allegations against Garcia.

The reportedly shocked businessman was then told that “not doing so might result in her [Garcia’s] political disfavor.”

Quirk-Silva denied all of the allegations via her office’s spokesperson. But if they are true, they could have serious implications for Fullerton’s political power duo. Would the Quirk-Silva’s really engage in threats of retribution against the victim of sexual assault? That doesn’t seem like a good choice in the current era.

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Posted onBruce Whitaker

Whitaker’s Website

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One of our Friends has notified FFFF that Fullerton councilman and State Senate Recall candidate Bruce Whitaker has a website dedicated to his Senate run which is supposed to happen in 2018 – if the Democrats in the legislature quit stalling and stop making up new rules as they see fit.

You can access the new venture through the old address www.brucewhitaker.com or you can go directly, here:  www.visualyft.com/bruce.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

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Posted onDowntown Fullerton

The Quick Brown Fox

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Governor Jerry Brown paid a visit to downtown Fullerton on Wednesday, where it looks like he took a tour of the still-unfinished Fullerton Fox Theater with a rabble of current and former local officials in tow. Surely he was impressed.

OK, maybe not.

But why would Jerry Brown fly down to Fullerton to look inside some flopped redevelopment project?

One could guess that battleground Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva invited Brown to pitch some sort of state subsidy to rescue the project; a thinly veiled attempt to buy voters in one district with the rest of the state’s resources. You can tell an opportunity is at hand by the way the local bush league politicos are salivating all over Brown’s loafers. Hopefully someone had a towel handy.

But all of that is just fine. Why shouldn’t residents of Escondido, Bakersfield and Elk Grove pay for decades of Fullerton’s redevelopment screw ups? Mr. Brown, if there’s money to burn on a movie theater, maybe you can fix our decrepit roads and crumbling bridges, too?

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Posted onChronic Failure

Crime? How About Some Punishment?

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Looking Heavenward for help…

File this one under “Jeezus We’re getting Desperate.” Trotting out a stock photo of an old lady and comparing ripping off “Grandma” with the recall of Josh “Gas Tax” Newman? Man that’s lame.

Opponents of the recall, i.e. the building trades who work on public boondoggle projects like high speed rail, seem to think this sort of nonsense sells. Well, the consultants will burn though a lot of that union cash, but there’s really no way to defend the indefensible: Newman voted for a highly regressive gas tax that will hammer the poor and people on a fixed income while his pals in the trades make bank building stuff like Jerry Brown’s $60 billion bullet train – whether it’s needed or not.

 

The Democrats in the Legislature have climbed all the way up onto their high horses claiming that recall petition signers were lied to and that recalling Newman won’t get rid of the gas tax, an objection that is really just based on a desperate semantic ploy.  The fact is that getting rid of Newman is simply the first step in yanking the chain of the politicians in Sacramento who would rather tax us then curtail their own addiction to wasting the gas tax money we have already been sending them every time we fill up. The end game is a repeal of the tax, and of course, prevention of any more gas or car taxes.

The Democrats have pulled out all of the ethical stops in attempting to derail the recall. They tried to pass midnight legislation changing the recall rules after the recall signatures had been submitted. Then they put pressure on the California Fair Political Practices Commission to re-interpret their standing rules so that Dem politicians can help bail out Newman financially, proving that when it comes to maintaining their super-majority, no trick or hustle is too low to put into action.

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Posted onChronic Failure

(D)s Prioritize Higher Taxes Over Veterans

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SQS-Brown Cemtery

Let us talk about priorities. Why has Sharon Quirk-Silva not re-introduced a bill for the Veteran’s Cemetery in Irvine?

Sharon Quirk-Silva introduced a bill into the Assembly for the Veteran’s Cemetery in Irvine (AB409) which never even got a vote in committee.

The (D) Super-Majority outright ignored it. Her bill was later rolled into SB96. SB96 was a budget “trailer bill” which is basically an empty bill that is passed by the Senate with one line to be “Gutted” and a new bill full of legislation to be “Amended” into it by the Assembly before coming back for a vote before both houses. It’s a procedural trick which violates the spirit of the law and the very premise of good and open government.

To complicate matters because the Cemetery was rolled into SB96 with 95 other provisions, one of which is also an appropriations item, it is unconstitutional not once but twice and once specifically owing to the provision for the Veteran’s Cemetery itself. (more…)

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Posted onStatewide Stuff

Dissecting Newman’s Recall Response

by 21 Comments on Dissecting Newman’s Recall Response

— As I figured the Friends would enjoy this I have cross-posted this piece from my personal site. —

Newman Recall Petition

Enough signatures have officially been gathered to recall CA State Senator Josh Newman. Much to the chagrin of the CA (D)s about 1/10th of the 930K residents of Senate District 29 have added their signatures to the effort to remove him from office.

Senator Newman had the following to say about it: (more…)

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