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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.
Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt on the female cop derriere incident, I wonder how long the people who have propped up this asinine buffoon can continue to look the other way.
Well, enough is enough, already. This guy has spent 14 years making himself a laughingstock, and it seems he won’t be satisfied until he does the same thing for Fullerton.
Down in Anaheim Cynthia Ward (aka Colony Rabble) has been trying to raise the profile of the California High Speed Rail (CHSR) project that will inevitably cut a swath out of neighborhoods as it makes its way to Curt Pringle’s Platinum Triangle Ghost Town.
In Fullerton (except for us) I’ve heard nary a word.
It’s pretty evident that this massive boondoggle was promoted to bamboozle the State’s electorate into floating another 10 billion dollars of indebtedness and to divert it into the pockets of huge engineering and public works contractors. Conservatives used to call this income redistribution. Now some of them call it jobs, jobs, jobs.
My good friend popular Mayor Curt Pringle has taught me this much...
It is telling that Repuglicans Curt Pringle and Harry Sidhu both back this massive waste, plus the unconscionable OCTA uber-subsidy for their ARTIC choo-choo stop, as does Anaheim’s own Precious Princess Lorri Galloway, a union puppet who can be expected to do anything necessary to promote expanded union membership.
But I digress, yet again. Damn. Sorry.
How come there has been almost no discussion about this monster project and its potential right-of-way through Fullerton? Buena Park has recently learned to its dismay that the HSR will either take out part of their station or dozens of newly built houses built as part of a TOD scheme. Does our City Council know something they’re not telling us?
No. We don't anticipate any big environemental issues.
So what is happening in Fullerton? There is only one available route from BP to Anaheim, of course, and it will have to follow the BNSF/old UP rights-of-way. What will this mean to property owners and businesses in the way? What sort of traffic disruptions will this cause over the major north-south streets over the years? Aren’t we entitled to know?
At the January NUFF forum Shawn Nelson came out against the HSR; but what of the other councilmembers? Isn’t it time for a public hearing on this topic if, indeed anybody in City Hall is serious about transparency?
Shawn? Sharon? Pam? Dick? Don? Is there something you’d like to share with us? Why not agendize this issue. Now. Let’s have at it out in the open.
And maybe this should be a campaign issue for the fall. And maybe we need somebody on the OCTA like Nelson who is not going to just go along with Pringle.
P.S. For some fun watch this CNN video that is really little more than an infomercial for HSR: what a sweet deal for the tiny percentage of California’s 40 million people who just have to get between LA and SF in a hurry (they won’t, of course).
Try not to giggle at Pringle’s performance, if you can.
Every now and then word filters back to us about some zany corn pone antics by our own beloved municipal treasure, Dick Jones, at the County Vector Control District meetings. See, Jones is supposed to be representing us in this agency whose mission to do battle with the evil forces of rats, ants, and mosquitoes.
Our sources inform us that at the last meeting’s closed session that was addressing the future of the arrogant General Manger, Gerard Goedhart, Jones just lost it, stood up, declared that he was quitting, and left the room. Fellow boardmembers were nonplussed, to say the least.
Good grief. Just last year this same nincompoop popped his cork at a meeting.
Now, apparently, he just quit. He’s still got 21 months to go in his “term” on the Board.
Maybe it’s all for the best. And maybe Jones is actually onto something. If he can’t handle the annoyance without petulant outbursts, he should go. And he really ought to think about resigning from the City Council while he’s at it.
Last year we laughed at Dick Jones’ plan to dig trenches all over Fullerton and form his own fiber optic Internet service. As predicted, the appointed Technology Working Group failed to pull in the magical Federal stimulus dollars to launch this terribly unnecessary project. Lobbyists were consulted, fits were thrown, but in the end we were saved from yet another boondoggle thanks to a faltering economy.
With that loss behind them, we had hoped that the TWG would rest on it’s laurels of creating the nearly useless and unused downtown wireless network, which they had finished building just moments before every single coffee shop, restaurant and bar offered their own wireless for free.
What's a gigabit? Sounds neat.
But then Google gave these gullible go-getters a new glimmer of hope. Last month the Mountain View technology behemoth announced a “contest” of sorts – the winning city will get to have Google come out and rewire a portion of the city for free as some sort of yet-to-be-explained telecom experiment.
Within a month, at least a hundred cities across the country (each presumably guided by its’ own version of a clueless technology commission) had announced interest in submitting an RFP for the contest. And so the corporate boot-licking stunts begin; Topeka, Kansas renamed their city “Google” for a month, Baltimore has appointed a “Google Czar” and Peoria has had its’ “Google Day“.
Yeah, we need that!
I suppose it’s fine if a couple of starry-eyed “technology fixes everything” types want to go against the odds, coddle Google and fill out a long RFP. In fact, knock yourselves out if you have nothing better to do.
But at best, Fullerton faces 100-to-1 odds and has no idea what Google is actually giving to the winning city. Please, please do not let Dick Jones waste a dime of our tax dollars on consultants or staff time for this high-tech Hail Mary.
Umm...
Ooops, too late. The Redevelopment and Community Development departments are already working it. Perhaps they just need something to do.
The other day one of the Friends got an e-mail from our favorite punching carpetbag – Hide and Seek Sidhu – announcing the “grand kick-off” opening of his Scampaign HQ for the 4th Supervisorial District election – a district in which he has already cooked up two separate addresses.
The e-mail announced that the site would be Ground Zero for the hordes of Sidhu’s faithful volunteers who would be fanning out across the district to spread the Good News about ol’ Hide and Seek. Here’s the typical scampaign bloviation:
The headquarters, located at 1105 S. Euclid St., Suite H, in Fullerton, will serve as the staging ground for hundreds of Sidhu volunteers as the campaign initiates its grassroots effort over the coming weeks.
“The Sidhu volunteer effort will be broad and effective,” said Sidhu spokesman Tim Clark. “Under the watchful eye of veteran consultant Scott Taylor, Harry Sidhu’s campaign is on track to exceed our goal of recruiting and fielding over three hundred grassroots volunteers.”
Of course we couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a little photo reconnaissance just to see what all the hubbub was about. So we sent a couple of Friends over to check it out. Here’s what they saw:
Good grief. No swarm of ecstatic volunteers. Just Billy Turner a few of his friends standing around. We even thought we caught a few glimpses of Hide and Seek himself who perhaps had surfaced for air, at least temporarily.
Another Friend drove by later in the day and said the place looked closed, although the bike was still there.
By the way, somebody better explain to Sidhu that “volunteers” are not people you put on your payroll. Volunteers support you because they believe what you stand for, and believe that you reside in the district where you are running for office. And “recruiting” volunteers doesn’t mean putting college kids and the unemployed on your payroll.
The Fullerton City Council held a special meeting the other night to address the City’s projected budget deficits. It ain’t pretty.
Man, that's a big ugly hole...
But even uglier was watching the discussion unfold on what to whack and what to keep when the discussion turned to the City’s membership in the California League of Cities – a do nothing operation run by bureaucrats for the purpose of promoting their own policies. The annual membership cost is something like $75,000 – not an inconsiderable sum.
To their credit both Shawn Nelson and Sharon Quirk-Silva recognized the elective character of this annual expense and are willing to dispense with it – a gesture both symbolic and practical. And then into the breach to save the day leaped council members Don Bankhead and Pam Keller, relating how important membership in this organization really is. Looks like Dick Jones is the swing vote on this.
Mmm. Shrinp cocktail and Jack Daniels.
Hmm. Bankhead and Keller. League of Cities. Now why does that ring a bell?
Oh yeah, now I remember. And here. These two spendthrifts attended the October 2008 League of Cities conference in Long Beach, a mere 25 miles from their front doors and racked up $400 per night waterfront hotel bills. Keller’s total was an embarrassing $1200+. Not even her die-hard posse could defend that profligacy.
Party hats extra?
The League of Cities is wonderful metaphor for government that can’t be bothered to control its spending and is accountable to no one. The real purpose of this operation is to give bureaucrats and ambitious local politicians a chance to hobnob, network, self-promote, and eat, drink and be merry on our dime. In some circles it is being claimed that Keller is using the League to wangle a seat on the OCTA, where her mission will be to promote Curt Pringle’s HSR agenda.
As long as free spenders like Bankhead and Keller promote this expensive joke we know we are not being properly represented.
And thanks to Nelson and Quirk-Silva for being accountable to the people of Fullerton.
Okay, Friends, this draft fell out the back of the blog sock-drawer and I just rescued it. It’s a couple weeks old, but still germane, of course.
At last Tuesday’s meeting we expected some fun on the agenda item of who gets to be mayor, but boy did we underestimate the Council’s ability to entertain.
Tanned, rested and ready.
Of course Pam Keller was still sore about getting passed over by the “good old boys” in December and still wanted to kick the issue around. Apparently Pam and her Posse of Political Whatevers had been doing some lobbying behind the scenes, because at the end of issue the council collectively settled upon a “policy” approach that will rotate the mayor gig via seniority. And Dick Jones is next in line followed, finally by Keller, presumably in 2012. Unless Jones declines the honor or hits the road.
The proceedings included the usual incoherent ramblings and musings by some of our council favorites and of course a Fullerton City Council meeting wouldn’t be any fun without Don Bankhead re-inventing history and suddenly claiming he was for this “rotation” system all along (even though he was part of the deal to keep himself mayor two short months ago, and despite the fact that there has never, ever been any system of the kind).
Did I do that? I don't remember. Where's Miss Fullerton?
In the end the promises don’t mean all that much. It still takes 3 votes to elect somebody mayor and by next fall there may be three brand-new council persons – some of whom may very well be disinclined to follow the “policy” set by their predecessors. On the other hand the mission of keeping Keller from running for re-election with the title “Mayor” has been accomplished by Ed Royce & Company. So maybe after 2010 nobody will care for another three years who the mayor is.
As Christian noted here, tonight the Fullerton City Council will address the issue of how somebody gets to be mayor. It’s Item #7. Ho-hum. Seems some Fullertonians just can’t seem to bend their collective mind around the fact that Pam Keller got passed over for mayor. Boohoo.
The topic of mayoral “rotation” has been kicked around since last September when the Yellowing Observer sensed trouble was a comin’ for their gal. They were right.
Here at FFFF we’ve been saying the same thing all along. The person who deserves to be mayor is the one that can earn the confidence and support of two other colleagues – one way or the other. Keller couldn’t do that. Too bad for her. Politics? Shame, shame, shame!
So why is the issue on the agenda now? Must be because Keller wants it there. Hard to imagine anybody else wanting to whip this dead mule anymore.
One of the interesting things about this item, and one that may fall under the heading of unintended consequences, is that the City Clerk staff called around and found out that of the twenty-eight cities in OC that do not have an elected mayor only one has a mechanism for ensuring everybody gets to be mayor. One. That comes out to less than 4%, and that gives the lie to Sharon Kennedy’s weepy assertion that Fullerton was somehow different from other cities that share the mayor job. Fullerton is in fact exactly like all of the other cities in OC (except one, apparently). But of course we already knew that.
The final wrinkle in the issue comes with the City Clerk raising the possibility of an elected mayor in Fullerton, and how much it might cost. Who asked for that? How will that ensure mayoral rotation – or is it simply an alternative? Election only happen every other year so it seems like an odd idea to say the least.
Anyway, if you want to watch Pam’s Political Whatevers get up and make chimps of themselves again be sure to tune in tonight. Or better yet, go in person.
As reported earlier by Christian, the Fullerton City Council at its meeting tomorrow will discuss moving “Public Comments” to the end of meetings rather than at the beginning – where they are scheduled now. It’s item #6 on the agenda.
Apparently agendizing this concept was the brainchild of the brainless Dick Jones, author of a million malaprops and febrile, southern-fried bozoisms.
Up until about fifteen years ago the Public Comments were indeed held at the end of the meetings – right where the old guard wanted them – at 11:00 pm, or so, by which time all the malcontents and troublemakers had gone home. You see, they really liked the idea of all that wasted time up front handing out their parchments, gold stars and blue ribbons to happy citizens, but didn’t care to have any negativity go on the record.
Not coincidentally, these were the same folks that fought for years to keep the meetings from being televised.
The system finally was reversed ’round about the mid-nineties in an effort to appear more transparent and actually do something that would be convenient for the citizens and taxpayers. It was a good decision.
So now a decade and a half later there is evidently a move to go back to the old method of silencing public input. Why? Is Jones just tired of staying up so late? If so, maybe he ought to just start keeping his big bazoo shut. That alone will get him home 45 minutes earlier.
Let’s remind Jones and the rest of the Council that sometimes democracy is a bit messy, and that they and their staff work for us – not the other way around.
He droned. And droned. And droned some more. When he was done his crapola lay before the City Council and public like the steaming load of road apples it was.
Well like they say, the road apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Back in November City Attorney (Junior Grade) Tom Duarte had told the Planning Commission that their range of review on the ghastly Richman housing project did not include economic considerations. At Tuesday night’s city council meeting his boss, City Attorney Dick Jones, defended his boy by cooking up a line of nonsense about city “policy” precluding the Planning Commission from considering economic viability factors in its review of projects, even apparently a highly subsidized one like the Richman disaster-in-the-making. As you can see he keeps blathering on about “historic” roles and “prior direction” blah, blah, blah.
By the time of Tuesday’s meeting, even the city planning staff had admitted that there was nothing to preclude economic consideration by the commission. To the contrary, a detailed staff memo by city planner Al Zelinka documented the many instances where such review was not only appropriate, but required. As expected, staff started waffling again at the meeting, but we already have it from them, in writing! We shared it with you here. Since the legal jig was up, Jones fell back on his lame-ass “policy” response.
And we challenge attorney Jones to point out exactly which council resolution(s) puts that alleged “policy” into effect. hell, go ahead and point out a single vote that established this policy. Go ahead, Mr. Jones. Do it. Enlighten us. Prove to us that you are not merely protecting the ill-advised action of your employee.
As an odd footnote, Jones noted that Planning Commissions do review and advise on development disposition agreements. Which begs the question: on this highly subsidized housing project, why didn’t they?
