FFFF supports causes that promote intelligent, responsible and accountable government in Fullerton and Orange County
Category: Dick Jones
Mayor Dick Jones is a councilmember in the City of Fullerton. He is known for using his position on the council to serve out mindless babble and execute revenge on those who have spited him in decades past.
Last night Councilmembers McKinley, Bankhead, Jones and Quirk-Silva finally admitted what the rest of us had been saying all along: the City of Fullerton’s in-lieu franchise fee is illegal, and has been for the past 15 years. After blowing off the issue for nearly a year (and really, a decade and a half) the city council was forced to suspend the fund transfer that went to pay for General Fund expenses.
Here is Doc Jones’ befuddled admission:
Note that the angrified and bewildered Jones believes that part of the 10% tax maybe had something to do with water delivery. Wrong. It all went to the General Fund to help pay for pensions and four-star hotel room junkets by Jones himself. The water infrastructure and repairs were never paid for out of the General Fund, either. That’s just more confused claptrap from Jones.
And by no means was the tax repealed last night. In fact, the fee will show up on your water bill next month, just as it always has.
Councilman Bruce Whitaker said it very clearly: the franchise fee was collected from ratepayers illegally, was never properly authorized by taxpayers under Prop 218, and needs to be completely thrown out altogether. Deficiencies in the water fund do not change this simple truth, and those shortcomings should be addressed separately with the full notification and approval of the public.
When the tax is finally repealed by a fresh city council, don’t forget that there are millions of illegally-taken dollars that still need to be refunded to water users.
The opponents of the Fullerton Recall, just like their predecessors in 1994, keep yammering about the “proper” use of the recall process. According to these worthy folks, the power of recall is only to be exercised in cases where an office holder has perpetrated malfeasance in office. Their argument is self-serving. And wrong. Here is what the State Constitution actually says, clearly and succinctly:
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 2 VOTING, INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM, AND RECALL SEC. 13.
Recall is the power of the electors to remove an elective officer.
And that’s it. The rest is all about the technical procedure of doing it. There is no discussion of when recall is appropriate or when it may be used. None. From this terse definition we may reasonably infer that any use of recall is appropriate when the electorate deems it to be so. But what about malfeasance in office? That’s why we have a criminal code!
Of course it hardly needs to be pointed out that the Fullerton Recall has several great reasons to get rid of the Three Dithering Dinosaurs, including failure to lead, creating and tolerating a Culture of Corruption in the FPD, backing an illegal tax on your water for 15 years, and of course, let us not forget, all those insider deals to cronies and campaign contributors in which they gave away streets, sidewalks and government subsidies worth millions.
Anyway, next time you hear somebody like Molly McClanahan or Jan Flory cluck-clucking about this, be sure to to ask them if they’ve ever even bothered to read the State’s Constitution.
The following communication landed in the FFFF hopper yesterday complaining about the recall, etc. It is just so deliciously disjointed, illogical, misinformed, and well, crackpotty that it deserves to be shared with the friends.
I resent having literature sent to my home on the recall. I think this is nothing but a witch hunt. The Support the Fullerton Recall/Water Tax paper sent to my home doesn’t mention the other board members. This tax was voted in 15 years ago and how many council members and city managers knew about this? Why are you only mentioning the three? What about the others? I think if you have enough money to be sending slanted info the citizens of Fullerton, you could certainly use it to a better advantage. I feel terrible about the Kelly case, but I don’t think only 3 board members need to be blamed. From the beginning you have pointed fingers to the three. What did they not vote on that you find they need to be recalled for? Don’t we all have our own opinions and have the right to express them. We might not all agree, but that doesn’t constitute a recall. I think you should call off the hounds and get on with the business at hand. What has the council voted against that has Tony Bushala upset about? Does it have something to do with redevelopment money? Let’s hear about that.
It’s very interesting that this unfortunate soul has been told by somebody that the illegal water tax was actually “voted in” 15 years ago.
UPDATE: I just re-read this wonderful post from my good friend Joe Sipowicz that he published last November. Damn. Read it. Savor it.
When you are done ask yourself whether or not, in good conscience, anyone can fail to endorse, help and vote to recall the Three Dim Bulbs.
– Grover Cleveland
There is a good essay in today’s Wall Street Journal by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. about the sort of trouble individuals can get into when they act, or fail to act, to shield and protect the institution they represent. And, conversely, the institutions that invest too much credence in the all too fallible figurehead run the risk of failing to employ objective and rationale controls on the latter. As decades of affiliation pass, the problems becomes more acute. Age becomes the enemy.
Of course the writer is talking about Joe Paterno and the disastrous and disgusting pedophilic events at Penn State University. But he may as well have been talking about Fullerton, and about how, after the Kelly Thomas murder, when the public demanded clear, honest, and forthright leadership, their long-term elected officials gave them silence, obfuscation, falsehood, and comfortable retreat behind legal advice they were all too eager to embrace.
Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, and Pat McKinley signally failed their constituents by placing the protection of City Hall and the FPD ahead of their responsibility to do what they were elected to do: lead. Did they ever even attempt to fathom any particle of the truth? Would they recognize it if they saw it? It hardly matters now.
At first it probably seemed easier to simply ignore the Kelly Thomas killing; a whacked out homeless guy versus Fullerton’s Finest? Strictly no contest. After all there was a fight; bones were broken; the bum was a thief; probably a drug addict; an internal investigation would reveal all. Sure, Chief, take your two-week cruise.
Indifference to the victim and the victim’s family, although demonstrating a fundamental callousness, was the least of their dereliction.
Later as the pressure mounted and the glare of the media spotlight became intense, McKinley and Jones began to utter incompetent and ignorant remarks for consumption by the nation and the world: facial injuries are not life threatening; far worse injuries were survivable; the Coroner cannot determine the cause of death.
As public meetings became rancorous they relied upon the monotonous drone of their attorney to explain to an outraged public why they were weak as kittens and powerless to control any part of their own police department.
And they refused to display any concern about why the FPD brass had permitted the cops to review and re-review the evidence that the public is not permitted to see; why their superiors made them re-write their reports of the killing; and why the culprits were permitted to return to duty as if nothing had happened. They ignored the fact that the police department spokesman had lied about cops’ injuries and had deliberately mischaracterized the killing to the public and to the City Council. They never addressed the fact that the “internal investigation” hadn’t even started.
The police chief, freshly returned from his cruise soon wilted like an old lettuce leaf. His replacement was a 30 year veteran of the same department about which a string of criminal behavior had recently been exposed. Bankhead, Jones and McKinley refused to accept what had become obvious to almost every one else: something was fundamentally wrong in the FPD.
As the weeks passed, Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley seemed to hope that temporizing and protracted investigations by the DA and Coroner would cause the situation to just wither away. It didn’t. The protests for justice got louder. Their answer? Characterize the protesters as a lynch mob.
The most telling gestures of all were the damage control employment of an outside investigator, and the appointment of a hand-picked committee to address homeless problems, hilariously suggesting that the real problem was that the poor cops just weren’t properly educated about how to deal with the homeless. The concept that Kelly Thomas was deliberately killed seems not to have been seriously entertained by Bankhead, Jones, and McKinley. No. The Fullerton Police Department doesn’t do that. Fullerton doesn’t do that. We don’t do that.
When the DA finally brought charges of Murder and Manslaughter against two of the cops Jones expressed elation and McKinley befuddlement as to how two of his boys could stray so far from their training. But it was clear that the damage control script was written to write off the two and then retreat back into their insulated bunker.
And yet, by now the public now knew all about what the Three still refused to acknowledge: the embarrassing string of stories of drug addiction, theft, fraud, brutality, false arrest, perjury, and sexual assault by members of the police force. This serial criminality has been met with a stony silence from Bankhead, Jones and McKinley. Why?
Asleep. Fried chicken. Hey, where'd my halo go?
It’s because if they ever could, they can no longer distinguish right from wrong when it comes to protecting the institution that they have come to completely identify themselves with. Those Fullerton lapel pins that they so proudly wear have become a symbol of inertia, dereliction, and blind dedication to an abstraction of their own creation: their own delusional view of themselves and their City. It is a perfect representation of the bunker mentality.
As with a sick patient, denial and inaction will only cause the illness to get worse. The patient is the City of Fullerton, and in the now-ironic words of Dick Jones, it is having a grand mal seizure; we don’t want to let go of the patient, but we need to get it under control. Damn straight. The patient needs medicine, all right.
The more things change the more they stay the same...
When FPD Acting Chief Dan Hughes was handed the keys to the front door, wishful thinkers proclaimed the dawn of a new day for a department reeling from humiliating self-inflicted wounds.
His supporters claimed that Dan, for some mysterious reason, was going to bring decency and reform to a department whose members had, within the short space of seven months been exposed as thugs, perjurers, thieves, con men, sex perverts, destroyers of evidence, thieves (again and again), etc., etc. Despite a 30-year FPD career and various job titles that closely tied him to this band of miscreants, Dan is Different, his defenders said. Somehow. A veritable Galahad, in fact.
Even when Dan denied a Culture of Corruption in the FPD and said such an idea was disseminated by liars or ignoramuses, his supporters clung to the idea that Dan is Different.
But Dan’s latest decision may provide cause for pause. According to the folks at FullertonStories Hughes has replaced the otiose Andrew Goodrich with yet another union member, Sergeant Jeff Stuart, to be an official department spokeshole and Face of Fullerton. Really? Has Hughes learned nothing from the misinformation peddler, Goodrich. Maybe not. Or maybe he likes the idea of the FPOA getting the first, and often the last shot at misleading the public.
Smiling. So far.
Haven’t we had enough of public information officers whose loyalty to their own tribe is far greater than that to their employers? To me this just looks like more of the same ‘ol same ‘ol: another opportunity to do the right thing has been passed over by Acting Chief Hughes, who is acting more and more like Chief Sellers all the time.
Lou Ponsi of The OC Register authored this article on how the Fullerton Ad Hoc Water Rate Committee has unanimously decided to tell our esteemed City Council that the illegal 10% tax on our water bills should be stopped. Brave? Well, yes – for Fullerton.
To his credit, Ponsi omits the usual obligatory counter-argument floated by the Fullerton Establishment to defend the indefensible – whatever it may be. This could be because he even can’t find anyone to defend the unsupportable tax on a utility that goes to pay for the very pensions and perks of the City Councilmembers and staff themselves.
But of course Lou does not delve into the blatant stalling tactics of City Manager Joe Felz who has temporized, stalled, and delayed doing the right thing in order to wring yet another year’s $2,500,000 ill-gotten gain out of the Water Fund and the water rate payers.
Here’s a fun image of the house of an anti-recaller who seems to want people to believe that Fullerton is not for sale. Whose abode is it?
Why none other than Mr. Jim Blake, Fullerton’s Metropolitan Water District (MWD) Representative for Life, who was recently busted by a local news watchdog for his high living on the water rate payer’s dime. Blake also got some unwanted publicity from Teri Sforza at the Register for racking up huge travel bills a water junketeer. Blake has every reason to support the Three Hollow Logs, just as I’m sure they appreciate his ethical backing.
So there you have it folks: the Culture of Corruption in high dudgeon as it misrepresents itself to what it fervently hopes is an unsuspecting public.
Prevarication became second nature. He just couldn't help himself.
For some months now trolls have been bragging about the impending promotion of FPD Sergeant Andrew Goodrich to lieutenant, presumably because such a promotion meant that all the half-truths and outright lies peddled to the public by the cops’ otiose Public Information Officer proved the inefficacy and futility of the protests by those who thought Kelly Thomas, despite being schizophrenic, homeless, and dead, deserved the basic civil right of not having a public employee lie about him.
I take a different view. To me, the promotion of a worthless, dissimulating, union hack like Goodrich just goes to reinforce what we have known all along: there is a deeply ingrained Culture of Corruption within our police department; a department that not only tolerates criminal behavior such as assault, sexual battery, false arrest, perjury, theft, fraud, and murder, it seems to encourage these affronts to the very public its members have sworn to serve.
Consider the case of Goodrich: although the comical Gennaco report says there is no evidence to suggest Goodrich deliberately lied to the public about the facts surrounding the murder of Kelly Thomas, there is absolutely no doubt that he disseminated false information, and then never retracted it. If this is not tantamount to an outright lie, then I don’t know what is.
We also know of the tortured way in which Goodrich dismissed the obvious perjury of Hampton and Nguyen in the fraudulent Veth Mam prosecution, and the cavalier callousness of his statement in the wake of the false five-month incarceration of Emanuel Martinez.
Well, friends, the character of Goodrich is evidently the barometer of success in the FPD. And to the apologists for their new Acting Chief, Dan Hughes, a proud veteran of the force for thirty years – and vociferous denier of any Culture of Corruption – all I can say is I pity you. I really do.
Yesterday FFFF shared some Fullerton crime statistics that were really pretty damn shocking. Contrary to what council candidate and now beleaguered councilman Pat McKinley claimed and claims, crime not only did not decrease every year in Fullerton, but in the years 2005-2009, it skyrocketed spectacularly.
He's smiling, but why?
Here’s the ugly truth, derived from FBI crime statistics, probably a more reliable source than Mr. McKinley’s fantasy world of self-serving make-believe.
The statistics don't lie, but Pat McKinley does.
Uh, oh. Now, that’s not very good is it? Ol’ Doc Jones’ Galveston was better run by the Italian Mob and it had open gambling and a red light district!
Actually, it was very well-run...
Of course everyone knows the reason for the spike in crime is the crazy shooting gallery Jones and his colleagues created with all the bars masquerading as restaurants they approved in downtown Fullerton; and don’t forget all the illegal bootleg night clubs they ignored, then actually subsidized.
Chillingly, the trajectory of crime in Fullerton coincides perfectly with the spike in the FPD Culture of Corruption that led to beatings, wrongful arrests, and perjury by our own cops. And nobody in City Hall seems capable of grasping the perverted correlation. The cops were given a free hand to fix the mess the politicians made downtown. Soon the entire department was infected.
Speaking of Doc HeeHaw, here he is taking credit for creating his monster. Pay particular attention as Jones documents the crimes committed and the need to to get hard, and tough, and mean.
Jones got one thing right. He just doesn’t recognize human behavior.
P.S. Will some public-minded citizen please take this crime chart to the Council meeting next week and read it out loud for the benefit of Jones, Bankhead and McKinley?
Friends, long time community activist Steve Baxter wrote a must-read letter that was published in one of Fullerton’s up-and-coming blogs, The Fullertonian. Enjoy!
For a period of time I knew the man six Fullerton officers killed last July. His name was Kelly Thomas and I liked him. As I was walking to my car in the Fullerton Ralphs shopping center, a man, when seeing my “Justice for Kelly” button, said to me that if I cared this much about Kelly when he was alive, he would still be alive. I was pretty baffled at that statement, but then I saw the “NO RECALL! FULLERTON IS NOT FOR SALE” sticker on the back of this big boy’s Jazzy Jeff scooter and it all made imperfect sense. “Hey brother,” I yelled, “just because you …..” That’s as far as I got before I knew it was not worth it. Besides, you don’t look very dignified yelling at someone who is relegated to a scooter.
I know that Kelly was loved by his family, and I know that Kelly was welcome to stay at any number of relatives’ homes, and for periods of time, he did. I know what six of our police officers did to him, and I know how Dick Jones, Don Bankhead and Pat McKinley, the three councilmen now facing a recall, reacted publicly to his death. Their lack of urgency, their lack of outrage, and the insensitive treatment to Kelly’s family, after what in my mind may be the most shameful 10 minutes in this city’s history, rises well beyond what even I expected from these three men. I’ve witnessed their disdain for the victim and his supporters firsthand at many council meetings. I witnessed it again watching TV interviews, where their ignorance was broadcast across the county. These old mens’ desperate need for order trumped any need for truth. They lied and tried to spin the story at every opportunity, at times to ridiculous proportions. Dick Jones even tried to diminish Kelly’s injuries by saying he had seen worse in Vietnam. When the DMZ becomes the go-to reference point for downtown Fullerton, we have a serious problem. In light of this, the “NO RECALL! FULLERTON IS NOT FOR SALE” signs mean nothing to me.
