Former Fullerton Councilmembers Archives - Page 8 of 12

August 21, 2012August 22, 2012Behind Closed Doors

Jan Flory and the “3@50” Sinkhole

Jan Flory is running for Fullerton City Council. Jan Flory used to be on Fullerton City Council. Jan Flory is hoping that nobody remembers her disastrous decisions on Fullerton City Council.

Oops! Too late.

In one of the costliest misjudgments in Fullerton history, Mrs. Flory joined her fellow council members in approving the horrible, retroactive 3@50 pension formula for the City’s “public safety” employees that was a massive gift of public funds and created a huge unfunded pension liability that eats up a bigger percentage of Fullerton’s budget every year.

Bankhead, Flory, Clesceri, Jones and Norby. At least Norby apologized for his blunder. Flory never has. She even made the motion to approve the gargantuan giveaway!

View the agreement

FloryBird — Post meeting party at the police station!

Of course the excuse Don Bankhead and Patdown Pat McPension used was that without the benefit Fullerton couldn’t recruit the best and brightest. You know, cops like Ramos and Wolfe and Cicinelli, and Rincon, and Mater and Mejia and Major, and well, you get the idea.

Of course Mrs. Flory never got around to explaining how giving away a retroactive benefit to current employees would improve future recruitment.

Being on a city council for eight long years can create an embarrassing trail of disastrous decision. Our job will be to remind the public of Mrs. Flory’s string of expensive votes.

August 14, 2012August 14, 2012Boohooism

Jan Flory Grieves For The Three Deaf Dinosaurs

by Jan Florys Dog107 Comments

Friends, here’s a repeat post by our esteemed JFD from last November. It is even more trenchant now that his former mistress has declared war on the only two really good councilmen Fullerton has had as long as I can remember – and that’s a long time.

– The Desert Rat

Whenever my former mistress got into a mood or had a couple too many G&Ts, and picked up that broomstick I always made myself as inconspicuous as possible. Looking down from doggie heaven I can see she hasn’t changed much. It’s good to know she still has that metal rod firmly stuck in there.

Here she is at the Fullerton City Council meeting during public comments handing out some cooked-up award to Pat McKinley.

Notice how she grieves for Fullerton because of the incivility to her “esteemed” councilmen, Sleepy, Dopey, and Doc (I gotta tell ya she never grieved after whacking my orbital bone with that broomstick, but that’s a another story altogether, eye blousing-wise).

Obviously she has set a rather low bar for estimation; if Old Doc HeeHaw can haul himself over it, I guess almost anybody can.

Apparently my former mistress doesn’t give much thought to the $350,000 settlement that a hand-picked McKinley cop cost the taxpayers of Fullerton because he sexually assaulted women in the backseat of his patrol car; or that McKinley thinks that it’s okay for a certain kind of woman to be so victimized; and that, according to Big Mac “it’s just touching. Not a good thing, but it ain’t a dangerous thing;” or that her esteemed councilmen turned over Fullerton to the cops to do with it as they liked – theft, beatings, perjury, false arrest, a killing.

Mrs. Flory somehow got an extra seven minutes to ramble on and on about all sorts of bullshit, whereas others get the microphone shut off after three. Looks like there really is a double standard there.

Anyway, there you have a fine representative of what’s left of Fullerton’s Old Guard liberals: stubborn, frightened, clueless, self-righteous, dwindling fast.

July 25, 2012July 26, 2012Boohooism

A Queasy Blast From The Past!

by admin14 Comments

Get ready for this Friends: Jan Flory has pulled papers to run for city council in November! Yes indeedie, the former councilwoman and unhappy dog owner who supported every crappy Redevelopment staff driven boondoggle, fought every attempt to bring accountability to city government, who gave Patdown Pat McPension an award last year where she bemoaned the mistreatment of “our esteemed council.”

She even orchestrated a mean spirited attack on young kids riding their bikes on their own property.

Florydog2 — You wouldn’t be smiling either if your zygomatic arch had just got smacked with the business end of a broomstick!

Will she return the papers and begin to explain publicly why she supported the incompetent and criminal Culture of Corruption under the Three Dessicated Dinosaurs? I sure hope so.

July 6, 2012July 6, 2012Arts & Architecture

Tonight: Steve Baxter and Fullerton’s PAS Gallery Produce “Art With An Agenda”

by admin155 Comments

I’ll see you there.

By William Zdan:

The term “Pollice Verso” means (roughly) “thumbs down”. It’s in reference to the (albeit incorrect) traditional depiction of a Roman emperor giving the “thumbs down” signal that dictated the fate of a vulnerable/defeated fighter…usually a slave or other “expendable” that was forced into brutal exhibition.
I’ve toyed with the phrase, changing it to “Police Verso”..in obvious reference to the despicable actions that took place in Fullerton last year. In my painting, Dick Jones plays the part of a distant and ineffectual Caesar. He thumbs the fate of the unseen victim in smug disinterest, not even allowing his glaze to meet the atrocity for which he shares ownership. A panel of piggish spectators oversee the event, in uncontrolled animalistic enthusiasm.

When watching a television report with Dick Jones last year, I was disheartened by the comments he had made about the murder. “I don’t know why he died” was the comment from Jones that affected me the most. Jones made a point to boast about his war-time efforts and how much worse, non-fatal injuries had been experienced there. Jones, we know and YOU know why he died. And it wasn’t just because of the fierce bludgeoning that he received by your endeared law-enforcement brethren. He died, Jones, because of a culture that still treats other human beings as “expendable”. Because people like Kelly are easily marginalized. Homeless people, especially mentally ill homeless people, clearly don’t count to Jones…and he did not create that sentiment, he just reflects it. Just as the slaves and expendables of the Roman Empire could have their humanity stripped of them by a blood-thirsty crowd, eager to do so…so was Kelly Thomas rendered a worthless item by those people we trust to protect the rest of us who do “count”. As I heard Jones speak, I thought (as I often do), “we have not progressed as a society. We are no different than Rome”.

Despite the (much needed) height of the soapbox upon which I like to stand relative to this topic, I cannot dismiss my own contribution to the negative and destructive culture in which I actively participate. So…the pawn/villian in my painting takes the form of my own image. Shamefully turned away from the viewer, I still raise my tool of destruction above my pig-like visage. I still perform for the pigs and am obedient to the tyrants of norms and expectations. I still pass by countless expendables, which whom I ironically share so much commonality.

I spent much of my young adulthood studying and working with the mentally ill. I worked at occupational, psycho-social rehab facilities for schizophrenic people during college. I even interned at a psychiatric prison for 6 months. During that time, I imagined that my idealism and self-congratulatory understanding of those emotionally suffering individuals would allow me to make a difference. Instead, I’ve become homogenized, like the dizzying amount of conscientiousness introverts that allow people like Jones to have any say in the direction of our society. Despite the fact that Kelly walked the same blocks that I walk every week, I had never even seen him…and wouldn’t have remembered if I had. I stretch my own rubber glove over my hand every day…keeping my fellow man at a distance…careful not to touch the blood that I shared in spilling. Because if I (a so-called idealistic artist with fair exposure to the troubles of the mentally ill) can willfully ignore injustice for the sake of convenience, I am just as filthy a pig as Ramos.

So, I am the ultimate executioner and THAT illness is worse than Kelly’s was. I am the baton-waving brute in my painting. I was never so aware of this until I met Kelly’s mom yesterday. I stood next to her as she looked at the painting that I shat out for this important event. I had jumped onto a cause for someone I never met or cared about. Nowhere in the painting is Kelly’s personal injustice really depicted. Rather, in the form that fell Rome, mine is a self-indulgent view. And here was this man’s mother, looking upon my painting about..well, about something to do with being angry and selfish and pointing fingers, I guess. She said to me, “he was really a good kid”. I bet he was.

William Zdan

June 30, 2012Chronic Failure

Sayonara, Larry Bennett Style

by admin85 Comments

Apparently this invitation is making the rounds. Please do attend.

February 27, 2012Bruce Whitaker

Travis Kiger Gets Key Endorsements

by Grover Cleveland73 Comments

Just days after pulling papers to run in the Recall replacement election, Travis Kiger has received the full support of our County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, our State Assemblyman Chris Norby and Fullerton City Councilman Bruce Whitaker.

Said Chris Norby “Fullerton is very fortunate to have Travis as a candidate. As a resident and taxpayer in Fullerton I know we will be in good hands when Kiger is elected.”

Shawn Nelson echoed Norby’s comments. “Fullerton is in need of strong, conservative leadership. I live in Fullerton and I trust Travis to deliver on the promises of transparency and accountability.”

Travis Kiger represents the new type of Republican for Fullerton: one who believes in civil liberties, freedom, limited government, pension reform, a balanced budget, reasonable taxes and fees; one who opposes the sort of crony capitalism and corporate welfare that has been the hallmark of Fullerton “conservatives” for decades.

Most importantly, Travis stands for accountability to the citizens of Fullerton, without cover-up, condescension, excuses, or incomprehensible double-talk.

January 15, 2012January 16, 2012"Dick" Ackerman

The Shameful Water Triple (Er, Quadruple) Dip

by The Desert Rat78 Comments

UPDATE: Of course the comment from “Do the math” is right on the money. The 10% in-lieu fee is defined as a percentage of gross revenue – including the in-lieu fee itself! This tricky little dodge adds 10% of the 10% – an add-on of yet another 1% to the cost of your water bill! Uh, oh! Quadruple dip!

– The Desert Rat

Way back in 1970 the Fullerton City Council passed Resolution No. 5184 dictating that 10% of the gross revenue collected by the Water Department was a reasonable amount to cover ancillary costs from supporting City departments. Here’s the key language from the Resolution:

That an amount equal to ten percent of the gross annual water sales of the Municipal Utilities Department during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970 is hereby transferred to the General Fund in payment for the services of the Finance Department of the City and of the City Administrator, the City Attorney and the City Clerk to the Municipal Utilities Department of the City as a part of the operating costs of the waterworks system of the City during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970.

That at the end of the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1971 and at the end of every fiscal year thereafter, a sum equal to ten percent of the gross annual water sales of the Municipal Utilities Department of the City shall be transferred to the general Fund of the City in payment for the services, during such fiscal year, of the Finance Department of the City and of the City Administrator, the City Attorney and the City Clerk to the Municipal Utilities Department of the City.

What sort of justification proved that 10% of the water revenue in 1970 should have gone to the General Fund is anybody’s guess.

In 1982 the City Council passed an ordinance permitting itself the authority to collect an “in-lieu” fee from the water utility as a fixed percentage of revenue. Despite the name change, the City continued to add the historic 10% to Fullerton’s water bills, and rake it off directly into the General Fund – without so much as a second thought.

A bit confusing? Not really. The original justification for the fuzzy 10% figure was to reimburse the City for vague incurred costs; calling it an in-lieu fee never changed the inescapable fact that the 10% amount was supposed to pay for actual costs associated with running the waterworks. Either way, as of 1997 and the implementation of Prop. 218, that became illegal.

Flash forward to today, and peruse this year’s budget documents. The Water Fund is Fund 44. Check out the total column on the right.

Summary of Appropriations by Fund.

Notice the amount directly allocated in the 2011-12 budget to the City Manager and Administration: $1.7 million ($29,917 + $1,678,962).

Now let’s see some actual charges. Observe Fiscal year 2009-10, over there, in the left column.

Summary of Expenditures and Appropriations by Fund

Good grief! As you might have guessed (based on this year’s budget), in 2009-10 the City directly charged the Water Fund over $1.5 million for the City Council, City Manager, and Administrative Services; plus fifty grand for Human Resources, and $100,000 for Community Development!

And this means that those services that were originally being used to justify the 10% levy on our water bills are already being charged directly to the General Fund. Double Dip!

Of course it gets worse. We now know the 10% is a double dip; but hold on to your water bill. Because the directly charged costs for “administration” are considered part of the base waterworks cost; the automatic 10% in-lieu fee (which was supposed to pay for “administration” but that pays for nothing), is applied to that! That increase this year is at least $170,000, if you add 10% to that $1.7 million figure we saw in the first table. Triple Dip!

And that, Friends, is a triple gainer off the high board and right into the deep end of the pool.

December 23, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

Heeeeere’s Molly!

by admin165 Comments

Almost on cue, who pops up to start cluck-clucking anti-recall nonsense? That’s right, the old dithering bird-brain herself, Molly McClanahan, who was recalled in 1994 for instituting an unnecessary utility tax.

Enjoy the vague abstractions and self-righteous pontification. You are left to your own devices to figure out what in the hell “emotional mischief” is. It’s anybody’s guess.

Let Molly do what Molly does best: babble idiocy about “the body politic” and the “soul of the City.” Let Molly roll out the same garbage she did eighteen years ago: that recall is only supposed to punish “malfeasance.” Wrong, dingbat. That’s what the Penal Code is for. Recall was instituted in California to get rid of politicians who had obviously failed in their duty to their constituents by placing special interests first. And that is precisely what has happened in Fullerton. And that’s why the recall of ’12, like that of ’94, is going to succeed.

November 14, 2011November 15, 2011"Dick" Ackerman

“Dick” Ackerman, Moral Weathervane of the Anti-recall Team. Part 1

by Joe Sipowicz199 Comments

tricky dick — Heh, heh. They'll never find out...

Some of our loyal readers have asked us who Dick Ackerman is, and why is he the leader of the opposition to the recall of the Three Shop Worn Stooges on the Fullerton City Council: Jones, Bankhead, and McKinley.

Good question. After all, Ackerman is a resident of Irvine, and although he used to live in Fullerton a long, long time ago, it’s not immediately apparent why he should care about defending the Three Burned Out Bulbs on the council.

Well, these three did support Ackerman’s utterly unqualified wife when the Dickster tried to get her into the Legislature by cooking up a fake address in Fullerton.

But there’s more, and as you may have guessed, it’s the cash nexus. You see, ever since Ackerman termed out of the Legislature he’s been looking to grease his skids peddling the influence he accrued on the taxpayer’s dime. He is employed for lobbying purposes by a law firm called Nossaman; but rather than bring in business he’s actually become embroiled in embarrassing ethical and illegal incidents (more on that in Part 2). The word on Easy Street is that he’s got to bring in some do-re-mi to Nossaman and PDQ, or he’s out.

Which circuitously brings us to the latest round of “affordable” housing projects in Fullerton, the kind of housing that costs two or three times as much to build as the regular kind, and the sort that Dick Ackerman vociferously opposed on principal when he was on the Fullerton City Council. Well that was then, before Ackerman discovered he could profit handsomely from them. Now he is a lobbyist for one of the so-called developers, St. Anton’s Partners, who, not surprisingly, received the promise of millions of dollars in City Redevelopment subsidies from Jones, Bankhead and McKinley on a project just a few weeks ago. Jones, Bankhead and McKinley were so eager to pay off Ackerman that they actually tried to rush through their vote before the public hearing was even held!

And that’s why Ackerman needs to keep Fullerton’s Three Blind Bobbleheads in office, no matter what. There is no noble purpose, no moral justification, no principle at stake. There’s just a big potential payday for Ackerman and his employer, Nossaman. And if you don’t understand that, you don’t know Dick.

Stay tuned for Part 2, in which we share a little Dick Ackerman retrospective.

October 31, 2011October 31, 2011Chris Norby

State Assemblyman Norby Settles Santa Fe Lease Issue

by Joe Sipowicz71 Comments

Here’s a copy of a letter to The Fullerton Observer by our State Assemblyman, Chris Norby, who puts the lie to the notion that Tony Bushala got some oct of subsidy in his lease deal with the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency. It’s funny how those who have routinely handed out millions in corporate welfare to their pals and cronies have chosen to attack Tony for actually paying to renovate the City-owned building!

Well, such are politics. The anti-recall crew are incapable of defending the Three Dessicated Dinosaurs so they have to attack the messenger of the Recall. Anyway, here’s Norby’s letter:

Santa Fe Depot Redevelopment Deal the Best We Could Get

I hesitate to get in the middle of your lively give-and-take with Tony Bushala (Mid-Sept Observer page 9 “Redevelopment Foe Also a Recipient,” and the Early October page 2 Rebuttal ).

However, since I was one of five Fullerton City Councilmembers (including Don Bankhead, Molly McClanahan, Buck Catlin, and Richard Ackerman) voting to approve the old Santa Fe Depot lease, allow me to defend our action.

That lease was the only way to save the historic structure from demolition and make an outdated building commercially viable.

In 1987, the Santa Fe Railroad sold the depot to a private developer who then sought a demolition permit. To avert its razing, the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency acquired the depot and sought bids for those who could preserve, restore and operate it. Agency staff recommended that the Bushala Brothers, Inc. (BBI) be awarded the project.

BBI was the only firm not requesting public subsidies. It offered a $41,000 up front payment to the agency plus $340,000 to restore the building to its original condition. As BBI had just completed an award-winning restoration of the old Ice House (just across the tracks from the depot) it was well qualified. When the depot restoration actually cost $540,000, the overruns were covered by BBI.

BBI also applied for and received the depot’s recognition on the National Registration of Historic Buildings and Places.

The monthly lease payment to the agency is $1,326, which is adjusted annually for inflation. While the Observer contends this is below market rate, it was the best offer we had at the time to restore this historic building. In addition, BBI pays $12,000 annually in building maintenance and for all property taxes and insurance.

The agency retained all rental income from Amtrak for the waiting room and ticketing areas. The rest of the depot was largely baggage storage rooms and an abandoned loading dock – areas difficult to lease out.

I have been critical of redevelopment agencies’ abuse of eminent domain, handouts to developers and diversion of property taxes from public schools. However, I have voted for agency-funded public projects (roads, parks, libraries) and for the preservation of historic buildings, such as the Santa Fe Depot.

One could argue that an old depot was not worth the public investment. However, given the council’s commitment to save the structure, I believe this was the best deal we had.

Chris Norby Fullerton Current California Assemblymember and former Fullerton City Council & Redevelopment Agency Member, 1984-2002